How does FF stack up as a passer with some of our recent QB’s? I saw enough of him as a Gator to know that he is another league than most of the guys who played QB for us last year. How does he compare with say, Brandon Allen, Tyler Wilson, Ryan Mallett and Matt Jones?
Matt Jones had no arm talent.
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Not the same as Mallett. But strong. Above the others. Clint Stoernor had serious zip as junior. None as senior.
Joe Ferguson and Tarvaris Jackson had more gun than Franks. But don’t know any one else.
The strongest arms I’ve seen in person are Joe Ferguson, Troy Aikman and Ryan Mallett. I do not think Franks is with those three.
Tyler Wilson had a strong arm but not as strong as Franks. What Tyler had was ability to throw all the soft passes from all sorts of arm slots and take a hit. He had strength to throw deep but not the overall arm strength of Mallett.
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I always thought that the knock on Mallett was his inability to throw the passes that required a soft touch.
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Usually the case with rocket arm QB’s. The best ones eventually master it. (Soft touch passes). Some don’t. Brett Farve broke a few of reciever’s fingers until he learned to lighten up on shorter passes.
You are wrong. When Matt first got to UA, he could sling it 70 yards with some zip. It wasn’t as strong as T-Jack but he could sling it. He hurt his shoulder the summer between his freshman and sophomore year and was never the same.
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Matt did complete a few significant passes during his career. I seem to recall one to a fella named Birmingham from Atlanta that was kind of a big deal. Then there was that back yard game in Oxford his freshman year.
My favorite Matt Jones pass I saw in person was the following. It was in the last minute of regulation in the 6 OT game against Tennessee (that Tennessee won on an OT pass to Jason Whitten). Arkansas was down a TD with less than a minute to go, was on about their own 20 yard line, and had no timeouts. Pretty hopeless. Jones rolled to his right, headed toward the line of scrimmage, the Tennessee defensive backs were so scared of the run that they left the receiver to come up and tackle, and Jones I believe threw for a TD. It was inexplicable to me that the DBs bit. Let him run, the only thing you can’t do is let a receiver behind you, we have to go 80 yards with no timeouts. But they were that scared of Jones running. And they were justifiably scared in most situations, we have never had a QB that fast, but to be so scared as to totally leave a receiver in that situation was so foolhardy it was ridiculous, as good as he was, let him run.
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The ball was actually on the 8-yard-line, so Richard Smith took it 92 yards. The same thing almost happened in the Miracle on Markham I except that Jones underthrew Smith who had to wait on the ball to make the catch, giving LSU time to close and make the tackle. If he hits Smith in stride it’s probably a touchdown.
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Thanks for refreshing my memory.
Matt has a good arm when he came to campus, but it was never elite as far as the deep out. Throwing it long and high is not the measurement of throwing elite spin like Ferguson, Tarvaris or Aikman. Those threw it above Matt Jones.
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Many on here now do not know just how Joe threw the ball. It was tight. You could here the ball cutting threw the air, and all the receivers had what they called The Ferguson Cross on their chest after practice. The joke was that he started a fire on the saw Dust inside Barnhill because the balls were too hot.
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There were receivers in practice who counted when Ferguson was going to throw and make sure they were in the spot in the line that Bill Montgomery was going to throw their pass. Much softer. Of course, they were the ones who were not going to play in a game at wide receiver.
And those guys turned out to be very successful because they paid attention and used their minds!
I know that Bill Montgomery did not have the arm that Ferguson had, but I thought he threw a very nice ball. He had good touch on the deep ball and was very accurate. One of my all time favorite Razorbacks. It is impossible to state unequivocally who the best QB in program history is, but Montgomery certainly belongs in the conversation.
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Montgomery’s record as the starter was 28-5. I’m pretty sure that’s the best percentage in school history for anyone with more than one year of starting (which leaves out Freddie Marshall). Losses: Texas, Texas, Ole Miss, Stanford, Texas. And the middle three were consecutive games; otherwise 26-2.
The one thing that I come back to with Montgomery is that he didn’t ever beat Texas or make it to the Cotton Bowl. It was probably just a matter of bad timing. He faced some of the greatest Texas teams of all time.
Bill was certainly one of the best. He was very smooth and generally had the team in the right play (I think of one down around the 6 yard line I wish had been changed or not thrown - oh well). His deep ball was very nice. He did not have the arm of Joe, but it was certainly good enough.
He did beat Texas in Dec. of '69 even with the above mentioned play, but he could not beat them plus those convicts from Texas running around on the field.
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Anyone wanting to join the league with (spit) Texass were not around when the before mentioned convicts ripped us off repeatedly.
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Amen. And it wasn’t limited to the football field. Yew-tee always wanted to control everything. And since Texas schools outnumbered Ark schools 8-1 & Yew-tee had the most political clout in Texas, it was hard to deal with them.
And I say all this knowing we just got screwed by the SEC on our 2020 schedule.
We do not want to be part of the Texas league & we do not want Texas to be part of the SEC. I expect that’s one subject where we, TAMU & Mizzou will always agree.