It’s Big Ten Media Day! The first of two actually! You know what that means: football season will soon be here! So let’s talk shop.
By Paul M. Banks
1. Terelle Pryor, Ohio State. No surprise here. You know all about this kid. But seriously, WHY DIDNT THEY BRING HIM TO MEDIA DAY???
2. Scott Tolzien, Wisconsin. Has little to no NFL potential, and he’s about as exciting and flashy as Ben Stein, but he commanded last year’s number one offense, and scoring offense, in the Big Ten. As good as he was last year, he still needs to cut down on big game interceptions.
3. Kirk Cousins, Michigan State. His early season position battle with Keith Nichol seems to have really faciliatated his development. He’s a true dual threat. Trying to stop him this fall will be like hitting on a woman out at a bachelorette party- your outcome will just not be favorable.
4. Ricky Stanzi, Iowa. Athlon rated him ahead of Stanford’s Andrew Luck and just behind Pryor in their list of NFL ready QBs in this class. Ok, so that assessment is laughably inaccurate, but the Hawks’ leader should hear his name called at some point on draft day. Especially if he finds a way to stop throwing the ball away so often. He epitomizes whose slogan could be “Winning Khloe Kardashian,” I was going to say “Winning Ugly,” but replacing thw word ugly with Khloe’s name drives the point home more effectively.
5. Kevin Newsome, Penn State. Here’s where the dropoff begins. There isn’t a lot of talent or experience from here on out. Newsome is the front-runner to inherit Darryl Clark’s position. But he’ll be pushed by star freshman Paul Jones; among others.
6. Robert Marve, Purdue. We haven’t seen much at the college level from this Florida high school “Mr. Football.” But we do that he throws with a lot of zip, and left one program (Miami Hurricanes, “The U.”) for another one famous for producing star QBs.
7. Dan Persa, Northwestern. Style of play perfect fit for replacing Mike Kafka in their spread-option. He’s faster and throws the ball with more zip than Kafka, but he’s also much smaller and doesn’t have as big an arm as the man he replaced. (He’s also much smaller than he’s listed at) Like Kafka, the running element of his game developed ahead of the passing component.
8. Tate Forcier, Michigan. He regressed considerably as the season went on in 2009. Also, nine of eleven Big Ten starting QBs were named all-conference, or honorable mention last year (which shows you how useless and what a pathetic joke those lists truly are). Forcier was one of them.
9. Ben Chappell, Indiana. A lot of his solid numbers were generated by the fact that the Hoosiers were often behind, and had to pass.
10. Adam Weber, Minnesota. Yes, he owns or will own like every passing record in school history but I’m not fooled. This guy is not the same QB without stud receiver Eric Decker, and you’ll see that this year. His maddeningly inconsistent play helped drive the Offensive Coordinator out of town last year. He was the other signal-caller left off the all-conference lists.
11. Nathan Scheelhaase, Illinois. He’s highly touted, and starting over from scratch in Champaign is -like Wilford Brimley told us in those old Quaker Oats commercials, “the right thing to do”- but, he hasn’t played a game. And the Zooker guiding him won’t help. Maybe new Offensive Coordinator Paul Petrino can step in and acclerate his development.
Paul M. Banks is President and CEO of The Sports Bank.net , a Midwest focused webzine. He is also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, the Chicago Tribune’s blog network, Walter Football.com, the Washington Times Communities, Yardbarker Network, and Fox Sports.com
You can follow him on Twitter @thesportsbank and @bigtenguru