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One of the best things about Monday mornings is Peter King's column Monday Morning Quarterback on SportsIllustrated.com. It is truly enjoyable reading. This week he talks about the draft and some of the QB's. When talking about Charlie Frye, I think he sees what most of us know. Thought some folks might like to read it.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/w ... index.html

What most of us KNOW!?!?

You have got to be kidding. How can anyone watch Charlie Frye and not love him? He's a winner. He's got a strong enough arm, and he's very accurate. He can move in the pocket enought to escape pressure, and when he does so he's always looking downfield.

He was at worst the 2nd best QB in the conference last season, and quite possibly the best.

Anyone who thinks Charlie Frye is overrated has not watched him play. That team wins 1 game without him last year, tops.

hammb wrote:What most of us KNOW!?!?

You have got to be kidding. How can anyone watch Charlie Frye and not love him? He's a winner. He's got a strong enough arm, and he's very accurate. He can move in the pocket enought to escape pressure, and when he does so he's always looking downfield.

He was at worst the 2nd best QB in the conference last season, and quite possibly the best.

Anyone who thinks Charlie Frye is overrated has not watched him play. That team wins 1 game without him last year, tops.

Couldn't agree more, hammb. Frye is the real deal...I watched him play a few times at the Rubber Bowl and he WAS the team. I hope he does very well at the next level.

Sorry, I'm with Peter on this one.

BGorDeath wrote:Sorry, I'm with Peter on this one.

Based on what may I ask?

Reading all the pre-draft stuff the main knock I have seen on him is arm strength and ability to throw the deep ball. He goes out in his workout and throws a ball further than Roethlisberger did last year (the test is flat-footed, no step). I don't put a ton of stock in brute arm strength, and even if he hadn't thrown a ball that far I'd still think he was a darn fine QB. The only other knocks are minor mechanical issues which should be cleared up when he gets a real coaching staff helping him out.

You put Charlie Frye on BG in '04 or Miami in '03 and I'm thinking you've got yourself a surefire first rounder. That boy can play ball.

I don't know...just the times I have seen him play, I was not overly impressed. Just my two cents.

BGorDeath wrote:I don't know...just the times I have seen him play, I was not overly impressed. Just my two cents.

He did not have too much to work with and was still pretty impressive I think. Like hammb said, give him the WR/RB talent that we have and he would have had huge numbers too.

Chalk me up with Peter King.

If Frye has all the tools that have been described, why did Akron win 6 games during his senior year? Why was he totally paralyzed against a 4-7 Penn State team and a Virginia team that got lit up by Fresno State? You can't say he was a victim of circumstances surrounding him. He had a 1,000 yard rusher and some talented recievers at his disposal, not to mention a West Coast offense designed specifically to maximize his skills and abilities.

Above-average physical tools? Yes. Possibly the best QB in the MAC last year, as hammb said? Heck no! That honor goes to Omar, who has the whole package: physical skills, leadership abilites and intangibles that led his team to 9 wins in his first year as a starter and rewrote the single-season MAC record books.

How many times have you honestly watched Charlie Frye play? Stats and records rarely tell the whole story. I could name 50 qb's who had outstanding college numbers and never amounted to anything in the NFL. Omar Jacobs posting the most impressive numbers in the nation last season does not make him the best talent.

You obviously didn't watch Akron play. Talent!? HA! They were among the bottom feeders in overall talent, and Charlie was the ONLY reason they won as many as 6 games.

For starters, you're wrong, they did not have a 1000 yard rusher this year. Nor did they run a WCO designed around his skills this season. They switched to a run oriented offense from the run'n'shoot that they had been running in Charlies first seasons. That run oriented offense led to a leading rusher having about 870 yards (and never had a career carry before this season). As for the WRs that he had at his disposal his top 3 or 4 WRs from the year before all graduated. His #1 WR this season was a converted QB that had never played a down as a WR until this season. His #2 guy had a total of 23 career receptions coming in to this season.

Even with a new coaching staff, offensive scheme, and all new RBs & WRs around him Charlie managed to lead that team to 6 wins and had pretty good numbers.

As for my comments as to the best QB in the conference, I'm not 100% convinced that Omar was better than Frye last year. He had far more to work with and did an amazing job with it. Frye, OTOH, excells in close game situations and has the ability to put his team on his back. Omar has yet to do that, largely because we are blowing out most teams, but we didn't win a single close game last season. I have watched Frye for the past 3 seasons and I know that he oozes leadership, work ethic, and intangibles. I know Omar has a ton of physical talent, and seems to be a tireless worker, but we have not seen him in enough situations to accurately gauge his leadership & intangibles in crunch time situations, although early indications are good with his poise in the OU game.

One player does not make a football team by himself, and if you believe that, JoeFalcon, then you obviously don't follow football enough to make an accurate argument on this subject. You cannot blame a single player for a low win total by his team. I find the 6 wins UA managed a testament to just how good Frye actually is, because that team had, other than Frye, no more talent than BSU, EMU, or WMU.

Hammb:

1) You penalize Omar for not being in enough close game situations. How about the fact that he dominated teams and picked them apart so skillfully that such late-game heroics weren't needed in the first place? Unbelievable. Plus, if you saw the Memphis game, you'd know he responded BIG-TIME under pressure and made the plays necessary to win the game by precise throws and/or scrambles and runs that kept drives alive.

2) You greatly, greatly underestimate Akron's talent. Biggs won post-season awards and the receivers, while short on game experience, were big on talent and ability. To say that the Akron offense didn't center around Charlie Frye causes me to greatly, greatly question YOUR football knowledge.

3) The QB position is the most important position on the field, and while single players doesn't win games by themselves, quarterbacks at all levels have proven to be huge difference makers for their respective teams winning or losing and creating matchups and mismatches.

Oh, and while questioning my ability to understand the game of football, contemplate this nugget of illogic as well:

Why would JD Brookhart choose to tailor his offense around a running back that had not had a single Division I carry and not the talents of the fantastic abilities of a NFL first round quarterback draft prospect?

Let me know.

Time to take off the orange goggles.

I think the world of Omar and think there is a later-in-December bowl game he can take us to, but am also a realist and saw the talent at QB in the M.A.C. last season. You could, to some very valid and good points, argue that one of three or four qb's last season were the best of the bunch in the Mid-Am.

See Bruce, Omar, Frye, and maybe stretch to Cribbs or Betts, but definitely each one of the first three could be considered "the best" last season.

JoeFalcon wrote:Oh, and while questioning my ability to understand the game of football, contemplate this nugget of illogic as well:

Why would JD Brookhart choose to tailor his offense around a running back that had not had a single Division I carry and not the talents of the fantastic abilities of a NFL first round quarterback draft prospect?

Let me know.

You've got me. Why do our defensive coaches ask undersized DTs to try and clog up the middle against vastly larger OL players? Why does OSU's coaching staff try and pound the ball up the middle with crappy RBs instead of throwing to a talented WR corps? The point: Not all coaching staffs are perfect, and most are VERY inflexible on their "system". The coaching staff at Akron came in and ran THEIR system, not what necessarily fit the talents of their roster. Frye had 80 fewer attempts than he had in his junior season. Conversely their RB, Biggs, had more carries than we gave to PJ Pope, even though we played an extra game. This was true even though they were many times playing from behind and throwing the ball a lot.

Charlie was the QB, so of course the offense centered around him to some extent, but it was clear they were trying to become more of a run-oriented team than a pass-oriented one. Like I said earlier the only reason Biggs didn't have an even more astronomical number of carries is because they were playing from behind against vastly superior teams in blowouts. In the 6 wins biggs had 136 of his carries this season...an average of > 22 carries in those games. Clearly when they were not playing from a huge deficit it was their gameplan to pound the ball. By comparison PJ Pope had 124 carries in our victories, for an average of only 14 a game. If you look at Omar's stats you'll see he attempted 120 more passes than Frye this season despite sitting in some second halves and oftentimes playing with a lead, rather than trying to catch up. I think these comparisons point to the fact that Akron's offense is not designed around the passing game nearly as much as ours is. This doesn't make Charlie better than omar, of course, but I do think it paints a pretty clear picture that he was not the focal point of their offense nearly as much as he has been in his first couple seasons.

1) You penalize Omar for not being in enough close game situations. How about the fact that he dominated teams and picked them apart so skillfully that such late-game heroics weren't needed in the first place? Unbelievable. Plus, if you saw the Memphis game, you'd know he responded BIG-TIME under pressure and made the plays necessary to win the game by precise throws and/or scrambles and runs that kept drives alive.

I do not penalize Omar for not being in close game situations. I said that he is still open to question in how he will play in those situations. That is all anyone can do. Nobody has ever seen him perform in a close game late. I've seen great players fold in that situation, and otherwise ordinary players excel in that situation. It takes something special to play in that situation, and I call it "It". J5 had "It". Charlie Frye has "It" We have yet to see proof either way that Omar does as well. He's put up huge numbers, and played fantastically, but he has yet to carry his team to a close victory. I do believe, from what we've seen, that he will be quite all right in this regard, but I just don't think you can assume that he'll be great until we see it.

2) You greatly, greatly underestimate Akron's talent. Biggs won post-season awards and the receivers, while short on game experience, were big on talent and ability. To say that the Akron offense didn't center around Charlie Frye causes me to greatly, greatly question YOUR football knowledge.

Biggs had a good year for a first timer, and did garner 2nd team all MAC honors. Charlie also got 2nd team all MAC honors. Other than those two there was not another single All MAC player on Akron's team. Their OL stunk, and I really didn't see the talent you're talking about in their WR corps when I watched them. I distinctly remember the Marshall game where they made a dramatic comeback finish. Frye was on the money the entire second half and his WRs dropped countless passes.

3) The QB position is the most important position on the field, and while single players doesn't win games by themselves, quarterbacks at all levels have proven to be huge difference makers for their respective teams winning or losing and creating matchups and mismatches.

Not denying that fact one bit, but to question Charlie Frye as an NFL prospect simply because he played on a lousy team, doesn't make sense to me. It takes a team to win. Want to analyze why they lost so many games? How about a defense that gave up, on average, 31 points per game. By comparison, our oftentimes maligned (a lot by yours truly) defense let off 23 points per game.


I by no means want to turn this into a bash Omar thread, or even a Charlie versus Omar thread. My contention is that Charlie Frye is a damn fine player who could turn out to be a pretty good pro. I feel the same way about Omar. I'm not convinced that Omar was as clearly the very best QB in the conference last year as you others are. But my point is not to knock Omar, who played out of his mind last year, but to point out that Charlie was pretty darn good as well. I think there is quite the body of evidence that Charlie's supporting cast were vastly inferior, and his system was not nearly as catered to his talents. Why the coaching staff made that decision, I have no idea, but if you watched Akron play, I think it was quite obvious.

I just think its ludicrous to knock Frye as a pro prospect simply because his college team stunk.

To start things off I think Akron did use the WCO last season. At least they tried to.
I have seen Akron play in person, two times the past two years and have also watched them on TV a couple times during that same time period. C Frye is a very good QB. You greatly overestimate the talent Akron has at the skill positions. Their #1 receiver probably would have caught as many balls as Corn McGrady did if he was playing here. Their receivers could not hold the jockstrap of Sanders, Sharon, Magner and Pope. Additionally this was Akron's first season in that system.

I am not ready to say Jacobs is the best qb in the nation, yet. Is he gutsy, hardworking, tough as nails? Hell yes. I would agree that he is as good of a decision maker that I have seen. Is he the best talent I ever seen? Certainly not. Though I believe he could be the one of the greats, he is not there yet. How many deep balls did you see Jacobs complete last year? I bet Rothlisberger had more 'homerun' throws in our two losses to them in 03 than Jacobs had all last season. Go back and look at our stats, we have very few long 'homerun' type plays. I am not complaining, our offense is built on timing and what we do works really well. You don't need to be the best QB in the nation when you have 4-5 excellent WR's who were exceptional at getting open. However, those 4-5 wr's may end up making the QB look like he is the best in the nation. Their skill level compared to the DB's of the MAC powderpuffs is like night and day. I think one of the biggest mistakes to make is to overlook how good our receivers were last season. They deserve just as much of the credit for that 4000 yd/40td season as Omar does. If you are going to say Omar is the best in the conference, how could you say Bruce NoGradkowski is not either. He has posted back to back season with a QB rating over 165.


Take C Frye away from Akron last season and they probably win 2 games. Or how about Omar Jacobs played for Akron last year. You think there is any possible way he comes up with 4000yds/40tds/4int for the Zips?