Terrelle Pryor still lacks consistency?

As we were doing our weekly exchange of questions with Wisconsin bloggers here at tBBC, I noticed something peculiar. The Badgers are curious (dare I say hopeful?) about Terrelle Pryor and his consistency as a passer.

There always seems to be a concern about Terrelle Pryor as a passer. Are those concerns warranted or has Buckeye Nation finally accepted him as a quarterback?

Does Terrelle Pryor still frustrate Buckeye fans with his bouts of inconsistency? Or has he cleaned up that area of his game at all?

What is this? ESPN talking head fun time 2008?

I appreciate the concern and all, but the last time I checked (a few minutes after answering those questions, actually) Terrelle Pryor is putting up better numbers this year than Scott Tolzien (Wisconsin’s quarterback).

On top of that, their passing stats weren’t that far off last year:

Tolzien, to his credit, has thrown just as many touchdown passes (2) in one game against Ohio State as Pryor has thrown in two games against Wisconsin… to Ohio State players.

Since we are talking about consistency at quarterback, in the four games that Tolzien has played against ranked opponents (Iowa 2009, Ohio State 2009, Miami bowl game, Michigan State 2010), he has only thrown one touchdown pass and six interceptions… in four games.

That touchdown did come against Michigan State two weeks ago, where Tolzien completed 11 of 25 passes for 127 yards, and that’s improvement I suppose.

So which fan base should be concerned about their quarterback again?

The inconsistency criticism thrown at Pryor derives from his first two seasons at the helm.  Over that time he would make questionable decisions in the pocket on an intermittent basis (what freshman or sophomore doesn’t? especially at quarterback). That’s the definition of inconsistent, so clearly the argument had weight.

This year? not so much. Let’s look at his stats on a game to game basis.

“Look at that! His completion percentage is all over the map! He’s inconsistent!”

Think about that chart for a minute. His two worst days were against Miami (FL) (44.4%) who, despite what Florida State will tell you, has a good secondary. The other poor performance came against Illinois (56.3%), who has an okay secondary, but the weather conditions were the main thing effecting the passing game that day.

Despite the low completion percentages, Pryor threw exactly 1 interception in those two games (even though the ESPN talking heads might claim he threw 20 near interceptions against Miami).

In fact, he only threw a few questionable passes against Miami, and more likely than not, they were caused by a good defense doing what it needed to do to confuse the quarterback. For further proof of Miami’s prowess on defense, compare the completions and yardage against Miami (FL) with the next game – Ohio.

Against Miami, with nearly the same number of passes, Pryor had 10 fewer completions but the same yardage as he had against Ohio. That tells me that Miami was taking away the shorter, easier passes and leaving open the deeper routes. In general, longer passes will have a lower completion percentage, whereas Ohio was easier to pick apart in the shorter high percentage passing game.

I will also note that against Miami Pryor ran 20 times compared to only 8 times against Ohio. Considering the coaching staff’s practice of limiting the number of designed run calls for Pryor, this speaks to the large number of plays that Pryor was forced to scramble due to tight coverage on his receivers – another strong sign of a good secondary.

“But but, he threw two picks against Ohio! I mean, come on, you just told me Ohio was easy to throw on!”

Yes, yes I did. In fact, they were so easy to throw on that Tressel put his quarterback in difficult situations to prevent him from thinking it was too easy. Both interceptions came on plays or drives where the coaching staff placed a scenario in Pryor’s head to apply some pressure and force him into some teachable moments.

The most obvious example of this was the hurry-up two minute drill that Tressel ran at the end of the first half.

The idea was to use the last two minutes of the first half for Pryor to practice the hurry up offense like it was the end of a close game and Ohio State needed to score. The first interception came at the end of this two minute drill when Pryor forced a pass to Taurian Washington in the endzone.

Better he learn a lesson at the end of the first half against Ohio than at the end of a close game later in the season.

The other interception came a few drives later in the third quarter, moments after Ohio State had picked off a pass on the Ohio 41. Tressel very likely set up the same scenario to ratchet up the pressure of an otherwise ho-hum grind the clock drive.

With another fictional “clock running down, game winning drive” in the works, Pryor needed to make a big play. Unfortunately, he forced another throw towards the endzone that resulted in an interception at the Ohio 4. (It ended up being a classic Tressel “arm punt” as the Buckeyes got a safety shorty after, but that is beside the point.)

Both interceptions were questionable decisions, but were forced by artificial pressure to score from the coaching staff. Tressel is famous for realizing that college football is about teaching and preparing for the future and less about personal stats, and the Ohio game is a nice example of it. That teaching mentality has clearly paid off for Pryor in the past, and hopefully he was able to learn lessons from the two interceptions so he can avoid those mistakes in the future.

What is the bottom line? Pryor’s two worst games this season came in a wind tunnel at Illinois and in a high pressure game against a very good Miami defense. Additionally, two out of his three picks on the season were completely unnecessary deep throws that were likely caused by the coaching staff creating scenarios to use as learning situations.

Terrelle Pryor is a significantly more advanced and consistent passer at this point in his career than a year ago, and anyone still harping on that old line hasn’t been paying attention.

Here are some highlights from the last time Pryor went on the road to Madison. They are good for getting fired up for the game, but also clearly show the stark improvement Pryor has made as a passer, which is encouraging to say the least. Enjoy!