Two games in to the season with a veteran quarterback and his job is already seemingly on the line. University of Pittsburgh’s current starting quarterback, Tino Sunseri, started every game last season and the two already played this year. There is also a one hundred percent chance that he starts this week’s game against Iowa.
The redshirt junior from Central Catholic in Pittsburgh, was a three star recruit and threw for 2,000 yards and 23 touchdowns as a senior in high school. In his first season as a full time starter at Pitt, Sunseri threw for over 2,500 yards with 16 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. As a new quarterback, you can’t really say the guy had a bad year. As a student who was at every home game and watched every other one religiously, I can say that he did not live up to his statistics.
Tino is a playmaker, he can make plays with his feet and extend plays and do some exciting things. The things that he had problems with were his accuracy, timing, and ability to make some of the harder throws. His biggest problem was his inability to hit receivers deep down field, usually over throwing them by about ten or fifteen yards. I would rather know my quarterback has the arm strength to get there, but on a team that had potential for a BCS Bowl bid, he needed to hit those guys.
Now I am going to put it out there, I am a big Tino Sunseri hater. It’s not that he can’t be a decent quarterback, because he can. My problem is that when teams like Pitt that is trying to jump back in the conversation for BCS Bowls and all that, we need a stud out there leading out team. As good as Sunseri will get, he is just not stud material. We have had the receivers, the running backs, the defensive players. The only position on the field that we have lacked a star at in the last decade or so, is at quarterback.
This conversation is coming up at this point in the season because of freshman walk-on, Trey Anderson. Anderson is a dual-threat quarterback from Pearland Texas. He led his team to a 5A Texas state title last year, an achievement that speaks for itself. He was only given a 2 star rating on Rivals.com, I am assuming because of his lack in size. Anderson stands an inch or two under 6 feet tall and around 180 pounds.
His senior season though, his statistics outweighed all of his competition. He threw for nearly 2,900 yards and 25 touchdowns against arguably the best competition in high school football. To go along with his passing statistics, he tallied 442 rushing yards at 8 yards per carry and 6 touchdowns. After watching his highlight reel on youtube, I can tell that he does look to pass first but excels at extending plays, throwing on the run, and even making tacklers miss.
Although the highlight tape was not against college caliber players (well not all of them at least), it was against some more than average competition, and Anderson torched them. His technique and throwing ability already seems much more developed than that of Sunseri.
Last week, Coach Todd Graham went on record saying, “Trey has some things he brings to the table that you could see him in a package in a game. But we have one starting quarterback and that’s Tino.”
He told the Tribune-Review (the whole article can be found here) that he has confidence in him, but he knows that in order to run the offense the way Graham wants, he has to get better. This all comes after Todd Graham decided to not redshirt Anderson. If the starting spot was so “locked up” as Coach Graham said it was, then why are they wasting a year of a potential future starting quarterback’s eligibility?
Trey Anderson played in the game against Maine last Saturday. Coach Graham said he did not pull Tino from the game, but placing Anderson in was a pre-meditated idea. The true freshman came in to the game calm and collected. On his first drive leading a college football team down the field, Anderson led his team to a touchdown. He was 5 for 7 for 33 yards, and watching it in person, it was a good 33 yards. His throws looked crisp and much smoother than that of Tino’s. He got the ball out of his hands quick, just like Todd Graham wants of his quarterbacks.
“We are a timing passing team – 1-2 and out on our quick passing game; 1-2-3 and out on our drop-back passing game,” said Graham about his offense.
Anderson looked good, and not “oh-we-hate-the-starting-quarterback-so-anyone-else-that-can-throw-a-football-instead-of-him-is-god” good, but literally good. He made a few tough throws and a few easy ones, but I am telling you reader’s right now that he looked better than Tino has in all of his games. By no means are 5 completions and telling of what is to come, but with some of the comments coming from Pitt’s coaching staff about being unhappy with the play of their “leader”, things could get a little more interesting down the road.
No comments:
Post a Comment