Get Loud pt. 2

This really isn't a two-parter, but it's sort of related to my previous post and I couldn't think of another title so it is what it is.

Anyway, last week at the USC/ASU game, our head coach Dennis Erickson finally made everyone happy when he took out our senior starting QB Danny Sullivan and played our true freshman Brock Osweiler. Sullivan's situation was one I had honestly never seen before. He was hated in Tempe to the extent that we would boo him just because he sucked. I mean I've seen home crowds boo their own players if they said something about the organization or the team or the fans or maybe committed a crime for something, but never just for being bad. As a Dodger fan I don't remember ever booing Hee-Seop Choi for instance. But Sullivan was different. He'd get booed during the announcement of our starting lineup. To put things in perspective, we cheered for our center and other non-skill players and booed our starting quarterback.

If you just look at the numbers, "Sullie" wasn't really all that bad. 54.2 completion percentage, with 8 touchdowns, 1,771 passing yards and a 109.57 passer rating. But this is also a guy who threw 3 of his 9 interceptions to the lowly Washington State Cougars and couldn't find the end zone against Idaho State. Watching him is simply brutal. You'll see screen passes under and overthrown, open receivers having to jump to grab a ball thrown 3 feet over them, and that's on a good day. More often they don't even bother to leap because the ball is so far out of their reach.

So all in all, the move to our backup was long overdue. Maybe some will question the wisdom of throwing a true freshman into the wolves (first significant minutes against USC, now starting against Oregon), but Osweiler is pretty much carrying the hope of our football program on his shoulders along with fellow freshman phenom, linebacker Vontaze Burfict. Osweiler looks to be ready or will be soon. His passes are much crisper and on target than Sullivan and he's a big kid standing at 6'8" 237 lb. And also he kind of looks like Edward from Twilight.

http://phoenix.fanster.com/sundevils/2009/08/25/osweilers-already-got-a-nickname/