🏀 KuBuckets Archive

KU has had 10 starting Qbs since the 2010 season started and I'm betting will see starter #11 come September. He are my rankings:
1. Michael Cummings, led us to a win against ISU in 2014 but was over looked bye grad transfers Crist and Heaps for much of his career. Had the unfortunate ACL tear in his senior spring game (still say we beat SDSU and Rutgers with him starting over Cozart). I'll always wonder what he could've done with if Weis had put his ego aside and played the guy.
2. Jordan Webb, Weis ran him outta town upon his arrival even tho Webb is tied with Cozart for most wins of the group at 4 in about half as many starts and started in KUs last upset of a ranked foe. He also has the best completion percentage at 65% of the group (Why did we hire Weis?).
3. Quinn Mecham, Threw a decent ball, just wasn't very athletic. I'm sure we all remember the huge comeback he was a part of vs Colorado and actually holds a KU record for most consecutive completions.
4. Carter Stanley, Looks to be a gamer and showed flashes of being a solid QB. Has a win in just a few starts which says a lot for him.
5. Jake Heaps, The first of the Weis boys to make the list. I liked Jake, he is the 3rd on the list with 2 wins but just never could play consistently enough for my liking.
6. Ryan Willis, the highest of the 3 guys to start without a win. I like Ryan and think he has a chance to be a good player at VT. Once he speeds up his release and cuts down on the TOs. He should've had a win last year if 1 of 4 missed FGs connect or Quv makes a wide open TD grab.
7. Montel Cozart, I know you're wondering how a guy tied with the most wins at 4 is rated in the back 40%. Half of his wins are against FCS comp and one of the other 2 wins was with 12 pass attempts thanks to James Sims 200+ rushing yards in a day were most guys could've handed him the ball all day. He also has far and away the most starts. His career was summed up to me in 2013 after the WVU win in the first half vs ISU the next week, ducking outta bounds a yard from a first to avoid getting hit bye a DB smaller than him. Never liked his game, if you take away the first half of the SEMO game and last years first half vs URI game his stats are far and away the worst on this list but he does have the 4 wins but only one total good game in 4 years.
8. Dayne Crist, The first of the failed Weis saviors at QB. Threw a pretty ball but was in fear of his life for most of his KU career. He did salvage a win in his first start.
9. Kale Pick, Really only played a single half a starting QB in a loss to NDSU that saw Webb take over at half and not really do anything better. He threw a INT in the endzone from inside the 10 late in that half. I'll always wonder how his career may have been different had he connect for the TD and likely won us the game. Would we have beaten GT the next week with him under center? Was Webb really better? We'll never know 100%.
10. Deondre Ford, Was a walkon the pretty much was thrown in to action after Cozart was injured in 2015. Came from Dodge City CC. Started a single game vs Rutgers where if the offense had showed up at all we'd won in maybe one of the worst KU FB games I've ever seen baring the NDSU joke.

Just some fun stuff to talk about, I honestly think if Webb was given a chance in 2012 and Cummings in 2014 without the injury in 2015 we'd have atleast 4 more wins than the 14 we have had since Ressing left.

@kjayhawks Wow, that list is a painful reminder of our struggles on the turf. I'm fairly optimistic about Coach Meacham, but the latest description of Peyton Bender's introverted personality leaves me placing all my hopes on Carter Stanley. Why oh why do we struggle to get a competent athlete to play QB for us? Where oh where is the confident, vocal athlete who will take control of our offense and move the ball downfield?

@stoptheflop Ya you never know for sure, Heaps and Crist supposedly went thru practices without missing. I think Bender has a chance to be solid. I think Stanley could be decent, personally of the QBs played the last 2 or 3 years here I think Willis had the most upside. Its crazy to think the Ohio State had a 3rd stringer that was good enough to win the NC a few years back and we can't find one that's decent enough to compete in the B12. The kicking game and the Qbs must play better this year for us to have a chance to improve on our win total. I'd have to look it back up to be sure (which im not lol) but our QBs collectively had over 30 turnovers as a group. Which every TO wasn't their fault, I remember a couple of WR tips that lead to picks but man thats one position group. I believe we ranked 126 of 128 FBS teams when it comes to turnovers.

@kjayhawks I too had high hopes that Ryan Willis would be a steady presence at QB in 2016 after enduring and surviving 2015. But, once again reality smashed my football optimism with Willis only accounting for 3 TDs in 2016 vs. 7 interceptions. I couldn't find a statistic on his total fumbles, but I can't forget his fumble on our 5 yd line against TCU when our offensive lineman was pushed into him by a TCU defensive lineman. That fumble and the quick TD that followed lost the game for us. Maybe he hadn't fully recovered from the wrist injury. I wish Ryan well at Virginia Tech. I just wish he had been competent for us last year.

Read an article today from Athlon sports. - -they list ALL 130 projected starting QB'S in College football for the upcoming year. Seen this first off the LJW -then went to Athlons directly.

In the Article they have Bender rated as the 91st out of 130. some of the some what notable Schools they had him ranked above were: Michigan St -- Iowa - - Oregon St - -Cinn - -Maryland - - Illn - - California- - -Fresno St - -Southern Miss - - -& Minnesota. Those were some of the more notable that I seen they had him ranked above.

On an encouraging note makes me feel some what better now Keegan had him ranked as the 6th best QB in the Big 12 out of the 10.
Better then: Buechek - Texas, - - -Hill- TCU- - -, Smith- Baylor- - -& Park- ? dam had the School forgot to write it down.

But feel a little better cause -yes indeed he was beaten out of his starting QB by Luke Folk at his school before going JC - BUT Athlon has Folk as the 8th best QB in the Nation * throwing for over 4,000 yds back to back. So ya I could see why he would be hard to beat out, doesn't mean Bender is some piece of garbage right? - -Keegan said pretty accurate in the spring game so not all is lost- - although still like our boy from last year too. -- -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY

@jayballer54 Well Keegan is wrong lol.

If Bender has a season as good as Buchele or Hill, my goodness. KU would be an 8 win team with a TD to interception ration of 21-11 or 23-8. I don't expect that from Bender though. But, if he can throw 20 TDs (which is definitely possible), we might even win a 5th game. We only threw 16 as an entire team last season. Only had 11 rushing TDs too, which is also really low.

I expect us to finish last in the Big XII again. But barely. And I expect some close games at home. I think we are only one more year away from seeing some special things from this team.

@kjayhawks

I don't buy into much that Weis said. He has always hyped up his preferred QB, regardless of production. Heaps may very well have hit everything when he was in practice, but in practice, QBs don't face a rush during the week. Heaps basically evaporated under pressure.

@justanotherfan Which was 85% of the time -- ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY

@kjayhawks Great rundown. Pretty much agree with all the synopses. Crist and Heaps get a big asterisk, since they had a butt-awful offensive line, and a whole plethora of WRs and TEs that had NO hands. When they werent in fear for their life, their passes would hit the receivers right in the hands...for a quick incompletion. How many drives were killed by 1 key dropped pass?

Weis simply found out he had no infrastructure (o-line and WRs and TEs) to actually run his offense, eventhough he went and got not 1 but actually 2 number 1-ranked QBs (out of h.s.). Put Tom Brady behind the KC offensive line and see what happens...oh, and give Tom Brady someone like Dwayne Bowe to throw to.

Weis had never seen a football team as bad as KU's, so he truly didnt know what to do. Trying to copy Bill Snyder showed how out of his element Weis was.

KU has not had any quarterbacks since Reesing.

Where is Charlie Weis now?

And is he going to donate that fat, undeserved buy out back to KUAD, when he gets old?