Just finished clipping all of this and figured y'all might find it interesting. Not quite as entertaining as my original ISU D. Smitty breakdown ()
because there wasn't a ton of high-skill plays but still some very encouraging things to take away from this game. A few other notes that didn't fit at any point in the thread but I find interesting:
- One thing that I saw in PFF's passing breakdown was that Smith's ADOT (Average depth of target) under pressure was only ~ three yards. Last year a common trend was for him to throw it deep whenever he felt pressure, which was likely due to his first read being downfield. The ADOT number backs that up as his was over 17.7 on 44 attempts last year. In this game, he found short/intermediate valves on all three of the pressures, with two of them not being his apparent first read. It's hard to get a good read on his approach to pressure when it only happened three times but at a minimum the signs we saw were positive. Also, his average time to throw was only 2.34 seconds, which is significantly lower than any game from last year. This indicates that he was generally getting the ball out quickly, and watching the game backed that up.
- I don't really see the arm strength being an issue. We saw vs. MSU that he is fully capable of leading receivers downfield and in this game he had several really high velocity throws from opposite hash to sideline. You don't see that from a quarterback with a noodle arm. I think the more likely issue that people mischaracterize is him not feeling comfortable with his deep ball, as it seems like he's afraid to airmail a receiver with separation or lead them into a hospital pass. Looking at the TD to Fouonji would indicate that, as he placed it in a pretty conservative spot that gave Fouonji a solid chance of getting it. It probably would've been better for him to lead him more towards the back of the endzone, but the margin of error on that throw would've been smaller. As long as he develops that feel over time I wouldn't be too concerned.
- People have mentioned the seam throws that Shough made and comparing it to Smith. I don't think it's necessarily a Donovan issue because over 60% of his short/intermediate throws last year were over the middle and at least three of his deep balls that he hit were seam routes, but there is merit to the fact that Shough was hitting more throws over the middle in the intermediate zone. I'd say it's worth monitoring in the UH/NC State games because with Price and the TEs it is clear that seam routes are a weapon for us.
- I liked what I saw from Shough in this game, but if Smith shows the poise that we saw vs. Murray State with some of the flare that we saw against MSU and Iowa State it will be hard for him to lose the job in the long run. Regardless, even if it was only Murray State the QB room looked very promising and I'm so excited to see what Zach Kittley can do with this offense. I know it was only Murray State but Tech hadn't scored 60+ since the UH game in 2018, and hadn't blown out an FCS school by 40+ since Lamar in that same year. Creativity is creativity regardless of the opponent.
