Manziel Statistical Split: 1st Quarter Compared to the Last 3 Quarters

Bear Disciple

1st Team
Oct 27, 2009
868
0
0
Tuscaloosa, AL
I haven't seen this mentioned in detail yet, so I thought I would give it a shot.

What I saw yesterday were two football games within the same 60 minutes, as I'm sure many others did as well, so I thought I'd take to the stats to see exactly how Manziel performed on the stat sheet in each of these two hypothetical games.

First Quarter:
5 rushes for 74 yards
10-11 passing for 86 yards

Quarters 2-4:
13 rushes for 18 yards
14-20 passing for 167 yards

I'm a believer that stats don't tell the whole story, but here, I think they come pretty close. What I saw in the first quarter was that we simply did not execute our contains on Manziel across the board well enough. Not to take anything away from Manziel's stellar performance, but he's a running quarterback, not a quarterback who runs, to me, and 13 rushes for 18 yards over three quarters is extremely unsuccessful in my mind.

He threw some phenomenal passes as well, which surprised me more than his running performance, but to improve a player's yards per completion by 3.3 yards, while still maintaining a 70% completion percentage and only scoring 9 points (12 if you count the FG Manziel had nothing to do with missing) really shows me that we had the ability to stop and contain him, but it just took us too long to get in a rhythm.

Always tough to dig yourselves out of a hole 20 points deep, but it's really too bad we couldn't, because our defense showed me more in those last 3 quarters than they have in any game all year. Just my 2 cents.
 

trenda

Hall of Fame
May 17, 2000
6,496
213
187
55
Hendersonville, TN USA
Totally agree. And I actually think we executed our containment in Q1 fairly well; but we did not wrap up when we had him (and others). You can't 90% defend a play. You have to finish. This has been a problem for the past two weeks now.

You could see Manziel's frustration as he left the field time and again in quarters 2-4. We just dug too deep of a hole to start the game and our decision to move away from our identity on offense (pass vs run) did us in.
 

RTR91

Super Moderator
Nov 23, 2007
39,407
6
0
Prattville
Kept telling myself that yesterday was going to be a repeat of the Florida and LSU games. It was, but those two didn't give up 20 points in the first quarter.
 

selmaborntidefan

TideFans Legend
Mar 31, 2000
36,432
29,735
287
54
The kid is a sandlot wimp. He was a big tough dude when he was shaking his hips and avoiding contact. Amazing to me how his sudden drop in stats coincided with him getting hit clean by our guys on back to back plays in the second quarter. I noticed that, too. Go back and look at the first couple of aTm possessions in the third quarter. He would stay behind the line desperately looking to throw the ball - he didn't want to get hit. Remember that pass the Aggie bobbled and held onto? He threw that and let the receiver get plowed rather than himself.

Make no mistake: Texas A&M outplayed us and deserved to win the game. But impressive he was not after Smart figured him out. He's like a pitcher who throws five or six great games and then gets rocked the second time he faces a good team. We gave them a few first downs with poor tackling. But the great Johnny got all of 9 points after the first hit, and six of that was because we turned the ball over (Yeldon).

I'm sorry but the kid is a wimp. He is not Tim Tebow or Cam Newton, who both got in and mixed it up and took big hits and then made plays. The moment that kid gets hit, he decides the game isn't fun. He's a flag football player wearing a uniform.

Let me remind everyone that he didn't score every single drive, which means we stopped him. And he wasn't on the field when McCarron threw the last pick or the offsides jump on the non- punt.

He looked great - until he got hit.
 

257WBY

Suspended
Aug 20, 2011
2,077
1
0
Selma, he is a redshirt freshman and has just run the vaunted SEC West gauntlet. About time Alabama starts looking for a Johnny Football or RGIII so the Tide can run the table. Statue QB's are a liability these days.
 

TideLegacy

Scout Team
Nov 22, 2005
145
0
0
54
Dallas, TX
He looked great - until he got hit.
Which the same can be said of all QBs that have ever played a game.

Bottom line a RS Fr. QB cam to Bryant-Denny, put up more rushing yards vs Tide D than most RBs (Aggie OL played great), threw for 230+, and had zero TOs.

You should listen to the comments of Saban and the Tide defensive players an follow suit.

It's just one game, Bama will still likely win the SEC, but the reason Bama will not play for an NC is this supposed wimpy kid Bama defense could not stop consistently when they needed to.

Not to mention the fact the A&M outplayed the Bama D in Tuscalosa.....
 
Last edited by a moderator:

TrueGritnPluck

Suspended
Nov 21, 2011
1,658
0
0
Which the same can be said of all QBs that have ever played a game.

Bottom line a RS Fr. QB cam to Bryant-Denny, put up more rushing yards vs Tide D than most RBs (Aggie OL played great), threw for 230+, and had zero TOs.

You should listen to the comments of Saban and the Tide defensive players an follow suit.

It's just one game, Bama will still likely win the SEC, but the reason Bama will not play for an NC is this supposed wimpy kid Bama defense could not stop consistently when they needed to.

Not to mention the fact the A&M outplayed the Bama D in Tuscalosa.....
I see Selma's points, and fall between those and your post
 
Last edited by a moderator:

CrimsonEyeshade

Hall of Fame
Nov 6, 2007
5,409
1,520
187
I see no reason or evidence to disparage the kid or his performance. He played as good a game at QB as we've seen in the Saban era.
 

Bama By Birth

3rd Team
Dec 3, 2010
274
0
0
69
Ellaville, Ga
He's 19 years old. Think of that for a second. Coming into Bryant-Denny stadium and performing like he did. That is the loudest I have heard it at the stadium. I was impressed with the velocity on his passes and his receivers hanging on to those "fastballs"
.
 

BigEasyTider

FB | REC Moderator
Nov 27, 2007
10,029
0
0
14-20 passing for 167 yards
With all due respect, BD, I think you're deluding yourself quite a bit here. We stopped the run a bit better (though his first quarter runs really go back to a couple of long scampers), but the pass numbers in the final three quarters are horrendous. Maybe not quite as bad as the first quarter, but really bad nevertheless.

14-20 for 167 means that during that stretch he completed 70% of his passes and averaged roughly 8.5 yards per attempt. If a QB does that over the course of the entire year, he likely wins the Heisman. And that is also not counting the fact that those 20 throws includes a touchdown, or that the six incompletions were far closer to being completions than turnovers for the defense.

I'm not going to gripe about the defense, because those guys gave it all they had, but the fact was they just didn't have anything for Manziel. We were going to have to beat them in a shoot-out, and the offense just couldn't quite get it done.
 

BigEasyTider

FB | REC Moderator
Nov 27, 2007
10,029
0
0
That's how LSU beat them. LSU made them turn the ball over but we didn't.
LSU just flat-out stopped Manziel cold in the passing game. They intercepted three passes and forced 27 incompletions.

We didn't even come close to a single pick, and at the rate we went we would have needed to play him for a solid month to reach 27 incompletions.
 

Bear Disciple

1st Team
Oct 27, 2009
868
0
0
Tuscaloosa, AL
With all due respect, BD, I think you're deluding yourself quite a bit here. We stopped the run a bit better (though his first quarter runs really go back to a couple of long scampers), but the pass numbers in the final three quarters are horrendous. Maybe not quite as bad as the first quarter, but really bad nevertheless.

14-20 for 167 means that during that stretch he completed 70% of his passes and averaged roughly 8.5 yards per attempt. If a QB does that over the course of the entire year, he likely wins the Heisman. And that is also not counting the fact that those 20 throws includes a touchdown, or that the six incompletions were far closer to being completions than turnovers for the defense.

I'm not going to gripe about the defense, because those guys gave it all they had, but the fact was they just didn't have anything for Manziel. We were going to have to beat them in a shoot-out, and the offense just couldn't quite get it done.
I agree the passing stats were still impressive, that was my point in the OP that him putting up those passing stats but only scoring 9 points proved that we were able to contain his running ability and get off the field on 3rd down much better than our previous 5 quarters.

Some of his throws were so good that they were indefensible, and he played a phenomenal game and I in no way meant to discount that, I merely think the stats show that our original gameplan combined with whatever adjustments were made after the 1st Quarter were more than enough to win the football game had we been able to execute for 60 minutes. But we did not, and Manziel took advantage of nearly our every mistake, and that was enough for them to win the football game.
 

Latest threads

TideFans.shop : 2024 Madness!

TideFans.shop - Get YOUR Bama Gear HERE!”></a>
<br />

<!--/ END TideFans.shop & item link \-->
<p style= Purchases made through our TideFans.shop and Amazon.com links may result in a commission being paid to TideFans.