Behind the Numbers: First Year of Transfer Quarterbacks

I will be honest, this article was going to be about transfer quarterbacks that played for the Florida Gators. Then, I started to research and came across this pretty amazing fact…

If Luke Del Rio or Austin Appleby start a game for this year at quarterback, they would be the first (and potentially second) transfer quarterback to ever start a game for the Florida Gators.

Yes, in the 110 years of Florida football – no transfer player has ever started at quarterback, which is both impressive and quite interesting.

We all know that Florida has been on the wrong end of quarterbacks transferring over the last half-decade. Starting quarterbacks Tyler Murphy, Jacoby Brissett, Jeff Driskel, Skyler Mornhinweg, and Will Grier have all transferred from Gainesville since 2013.

Quarterbacks, just like all positions, have been transferring for years, but the rise the situational transfer is a relatively recent phenomenon, where it seems like quarterbacks are transferring at a much higher frequency, and a significant percentage of quarterbacks are no longer staying at schools their traditional three-to-five years. Just alone in the SEC this year, five schools will likely start transfer quarterbacks: Auburn (John Franklin), Florida (Del Rio or Appleby), Georgia (Grayson Lambert), Ole Miss (Chad Kelly) and Texas A&M (Trevor Knight).

With the original premise of the article now down the drain and with the near certainty that a transfer quarterback will start for the Gators, I wanted to expand my search a bit more to determine one thing – how successful are transfer (FBS, FCBS, Junior College) quarterbacks during their first season behind center at their new school?

It would take hours upon hours of time that I don’t have to look at EVERY college football transfer and assess performance; further, a spread quarterbacks performance in the Pac-10, may not show anything for SEC quarterback performance. Therefore, lets create a profile of things they must have, so that we can compare apples to apples.

That leaves us with the following list of quarterbacks: Jake Coker (Alabama), Bo Wallace (Ole Miss), Chad Kelly (Ole Miss), Jevon Snead (Ole Miss), Jeremiah Masoli (Ole Miss), Ryan Mallett (Arkansas), Rick Clausen (Tennessee), Steve Alatorre (Tennessee), Zach Mettenberger (LSU), Grayson Lambert (Georgia), Jordan Rodgers (Vanderbilt), Austyn Carta-Samuels (Vanderbilt), Mike Hold (South Carolina), Bobby Fuller (South Carolina), and Dave Marler (Mississippi State).


I wasn’t quite sure what the data would say. Part of me thought that they should perform at a higher level than their counterparts once they hit the field because of prior experience and at least a year of sitting and learning the system. On the other hand, maybe they wouldn’t perform quite as well because they transferred for whatever reason, and maybe that was an indictment on their skill – which I know, isn’t fair.

So, I approached this data with a completely open mind – clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose, right?


The data below, you will see is…mixed. But I think there a few things you can ascertain from it.

Below, you will see a collection of the aforementioned players compared to the SEC average in the year they first started.

passingyards

So, the results? Exactly mixed.

So six players, Bo Wallace, Chad Kelly, Jevon Snead, Ryan Mallett, Bobby Fuller, and Dave Marler all out-passed (in yards) their competition. While the six others, Jeremiah Masoli, Rick Clausen, Steve Alatorre, Grayson Lambert, Jordan Rodgers, and Mike Hold fell below the average. (Rick Clausen did not start the entire season, so that is why there is a drastic change.)

The biggest net-positive differences were with Chad Kelly and Ryan Mallett, both who transferred from other Power-5 schools – Clemson and Michigan – and were both highly rated and talented quarterbacks out of high school. Mallett now plays in the NFL, sort of, and Chad Kelly is well on his way to an NFL career. So that looks like a pure talent issue.

On the other end of net-positive, we see Jevon Snead and Bo Wallace also beat the average their first season and both, were unable to create much after college – so perhaps the coaching staff helped develop these players into solid schematic players.

So talent and scheme make successful players – no kidding, right?


Ok, well, since that didn’t prove much. Perhaps looking at touchdown-to-interception ratio might prove something? Maybe teams didn’t pass for yards as frequently, so looking scoring versus turnovers might yield some results.

TD_INT

Again, inconclusive. Grayson Lambert, who was well below the average SEC quarterback in passing yards, threw 12 touchdowns to only two interceptions for a rate that is much higher than his peers. Whereas, Dave Marler, who threw for nearly 1,000 more yards than his peers, threw only 11 touchdowns to 17 interceptions.


Perhaps you think team success is the best measure? To which I say, in college it was far too difficult to ascertain team success based solely on college play – in the NFL, where there is far more similarity between team talent, it is much easier. In college, you are dealing with scheme, schedule, injuries, coaching turnover, and a host of other externalities that are amplified much more in college than in the NFL.

But for record, none of these teams won the National Championship or SEC Championship with a transfer quarterback in their first year.


In the 2015 season, more than 40 starting quarterbacks playing FBS football were transfers and between 2006-2013 of the 155 four/five-star quarterbacks, a total of 63 of them transferred. Needless to say, we are in an era of transfer quarterbacks and for the first time, the Florida Gators football team will experiment with the trend.

It is impossible to say, based on history, how Del Rio or Appleby may do for two reasons: primarily, the research is muddled and secondly, because every player and system is quite different.

The expected starter is Luke Del Rio, the son of an NFL Head Coach that is now more than three years removed from high school and is playing for the coordinator that recruited him to Alabama in a scheme that he has spent the last year mastering again in practice. Common sense and reason would have you believe that Del Rio will likely perform quite well compared to his peers. But there are things out of his control – offensive line, wide receivers, and injuries – that could completely skew his perceived impact next season. (Although it will be hard to not see a drastic improvement in quarterback play.)

So what could we prove after 1,108 words? Nothing and that frustrates me, too. But what we can look at now is, that statistics don’t necessarily prove successes/failures and that being a highly recruited player doesn’t prove that you will succeed either.

I think what we can look back on is that there are unknowns at Florida because of lack of comparables. We don’t know how a transfer may perform under McElwain and Nussmeier, whom have never coached a transfer starter. And that football season will be fun – and that’s what we all want right?

Daniel Thompson
Dan Thompson is a 2010 graduate of the University Florida, graduating with a degree in Economics and a degree in Political Science. During this time at UF, Dan worked three years for the Florida Gator Football team as a recruiting ambassador. Dan dealt daily with prospects, NCAA guidelines, and coaching staff. Dan was also involved in Florida Blue Key, Student Government and Greek Life. Currently, Dan oversees the IT consulting practice of a Tampa-based company. Dan enjoys golfing, country music, bourbon, travel, oysters, and a medium-rare steak. Dan can be found on Twitter at @DK_Thompson.

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