So How's James Franklin Doing?

that this team is going to be pretty good next year and a total bear in 2013 when Josey and Franklin are seniors (of course, barring injury). And DGB wouldn’t hurt a bit.

that Franklin’s issue is his footwork in the pocket. I think too many times he does not step into his throws. When he does, it’s a strong, straight throw. But other he sails them, and you get the third interception. Granted, he does get happy feet, but that will come with time and age. I don’t know if his ceiling is as high as our past QB’s, but there’s a lot to be excited about in the future.

Also, want to say thanks to Beef and the Tailgate Queen for letting me come and hang yesterday morning. Bill C is taller than I thought. And Bill Carter’s idea could get some legs.

I wonder if it is the proverbial ‘game hasn’t slowed down yet’ transition that gets everybody about this point. I wonder if their brains at times just get overloaded- they don’t process where a safety is, whether there is a good enough throwing lane to make a pass, don’t concentrate on their footwork when making a throw.

He will be fine- I think his ceiling is plenty high. And I also think it is two way learning process- Yost and GP are also learning how to best take advantage of what he can do.

than say Gabbert was in 2009 or Daniel in 2006

Not making excuses but Brad, Chase and Blaine faced many more cupcakes at this point of their collegic careers. Yes, there are many mistakes being made but so are the ones being made collectively as a team.

Mizzou to SEC East. Stadium expansion to 84,000. Announcement tomorrow.

Couldn’t have gotten much worse than that right? Or San Diego State?

If you had to pick the rival from the West Division, would you rather have the Arky or aTm?

Matter points out having a game in Texas (or showing in Texas) would be good for maintaining recruiting ties there. Arky makes more geographical sense (I googlemap’ed this, and it’s 5:30 from CoMo to Fayetteville).

I think people need to relax and give Franklin a break. Now, if he plays like this next year, then we have a problem and grumbling can be expected.

What are the chances we never play kU again because of the possible move? This actually saddens me that it may end, I’m a sucker for tradition

Just how competitive will next spring and fall camp be? Assuming that Franklin continues on the good but flawed trend this year, how secure will his position be? Would it be like this year’s past camps, where it is completely open?

Thank you for putting some perspective out there on good Franklin is and how great his will be.

M-I-Z!

FYI, I didn’t care much for BG as a QB either.
 
 But, let’s compare apples to apples. This was Franklin’s 7th game, not his 6th not his 9th. So I sort of think the information is cherry-picked to make a point and like all statistics, they’re usually skewed to make the writers point.
 
 In his 7th game in 2002, Brad Smith’s line was 20-32-0, 275 yards, and 3 TD’s in a road loss to a 9&5 Texas Tech team. FYI, that loss to NU they’re comparing was in Lincoln and yeah, NU wasn’t all that in ‘02, but who wins in Lincoln?
 
In his 7th game in 2006, Chase Daniel’s line was 21-29-0, 295 yards and 1 TD in a road loss to a 9& 4 Texas A&M team (Daniel rushed for 33 yards too).
 
In his 7th game in 2009, Blaine Gabbert’s line was 8-16-0 for 84 yards and 1 TD (Costello was 3-6-2 for 25 yards to a 13-1 Texas team (whose only loss was to Alabama in the NC title game) 2 weeks after the NU game in the monsoon where BG’s ankle was injured.
 
In his 7th game in 2011, James Franklin’s line was 14-27-3 for 184 yards and 1 TD.
 
 So, in their 7th games, Smith, Daniel, and Gabbert combined for 0 INT’s. Their combined completion rate was 63.6% (take out the injured Gabbert and Smith/Daniel completed 67.2% compared to Franklin’s 51.8%). To his credit, at this point, Franklin’s QB rating is 135.0. For their first season as starters their ratings were:
Gabberts – 140.1
Daniel’s – 145.1
Smith’s – 117.3 (recall, he also rushed for 1,029 yards)
 
 Again, is Franklin the entire problem? No. But, he is clearly NOT the level of QB our last 3 starters were at this point in his career. He does not have the arm strength to get the ball to the side lines (I think he’s EXCELLENT throwing between the hash marks and if we’d run more plays there we’d have much better success) nor does he have much touch on his passes. Some of the shorter passes he floats and I’m surprised he’s not picked off more often. Sometimes there are gaping holes that if he ‘felt’ it, he could take off running and pick up yardage. (we also get a LOT better rushing results when we run straight up the gut which we don’t do enough but that’s another rant).
 
 Losing Elvis Fisher as our starting left tackle doesn’t help at all. Travis Ruth missed time as our starting center too. Losing Will Ebner at LB doesn’t help. Having literally NO pass rush doesn’t help. Having lost Eberflus as D coordinator to the NFL and Christensen to Wyoming doesn’t help because I don’t know if Steckel and Yost can run the D/O respectively. Our offense just hasn’t clicked since Yost became the coordinator.
 
 But Franklin isn’t a game changer and maybe we’ve become conditioned to expect game changing quarterbacks? Smith and Daniel were, to me, game changers. They made our offense click whether it was with their feet or their arm’s. Gabbert could affect a game (see OU last year) but he seldom rose to grab the team and pull it to a victory. I know Chase had better receivers than we have now, but TJ and Egnew aren’t slouches. I’m mostly just afraid of how fast we can fall if things don’t get better quickly

We had a 1st round, top ten NFL draft QB at the helm. Look at the scores across the last 2 years and see how consistent the offense was week to week. And really, you haven’t scratched your head and asked, “WTF is Yost calling that for?” a few times every game? How long has it taken him to recognize that we need to run more? 3 games? Really, he’s not an offensive genius.