So I mentioned in another thread that I was going to write a couple of things about Garbers and his development. To clarify - I did play HS football, but I was not a QB, so my opinions here can be taken with a grain of salt. I do watch a ton of football and like to geek out on some stats stuff for whatever that's worth.
The first thing about Garbers that is important is that he is accurate. I'm a big believer in Mike Leach's ethos that you can't teach accuracy. Garbers is @ 66% completion percentage for the year (24th nationally and 4th in the P12 behind Minshew/Montez/Costello), but he's actually being hurt by the quality of his receivers in that metric, so he's probably a bit better than that. Garbers is only 102nd nationally in passing yards per completion, which speaks to the inability of his receivers to get separation and to the limitations of our offense to throw the ball downfield.
For as crappy as our passing offense is, Garbers is 44th nationally in passing efficiency. That's ahead of guys like Drew Lock, Khalil Tate, and JT Daniels. Garbers' efficiency rating is comparable to Justin Herbert and Jake Browning, believe it or not.
The stat regarding his accuracy that most jumps out to me came in the ISU game - Garbers was 20/25, but all 25 balls hit receivers in the hands. I get that the game was against Idaho State, but that's hard to do against air. He's been similarly efficient against BYU and Washington. Washington's defense is elite, and their secondary is one of the top 5 in the country. To complete 70% of your passes against them without a playmaking receiver who can beat his man or a running game that is forcing them to drop a safety into the box is VERY impressive.
Last thing to note for those still on the McIlwain train - Garbers is better than McIlwain in every passing statistic, most of them by a significant margin.
Ok - on to the UW game and things that I thought were impressive.
The biggest one that jumped out to me was Garbers' ability to read the CB blitz. At least twice in the game, UW sent the CB on Garbers left on a blitz, and both times Garbers read it immediately and flipped the ball out to that WR (it may have been Wharton on both) for good gains. One of these plays came on the last drive, and Garbers threw a 3/4 arm angle seed right to Vic for 6 yards on first down (play happened with about 2:50 to go in the game). Fantastic play. If he hands off, it's probably a tackle for a loss, and if he doesn't make that read, he gets sacked.
Speaking of that last drive - maybe the most important part of it was that the coaches had the confidence to let Garbers pass rather than playing it conservatively to try and chew clock. Cal got the ball with 4:50 left to go in the game, and Baldwin called four straight pass plays. Garbers scrambled on the first two and then hit Laird over the middle for the first down. The ensuing first down was the aforementioned quick pass to Wharton on the CB blitz. Because Garbers is so efficient and a good decision maker and we called passing plays, it opened up the defense and allowed for Laird to run for a first down on the following play and effectively end the game. That's a little thing that a lot of people won't notice, but Garbers helps keep our offense from being predictable because he is an efficient passer even if we don't have really any deep passing threat.
Another thing Garbers did well Saturday was take sacks. That sounds like a weird compliment, but Garbers is good at knowing when to tuck the ball and take the sack as opposed to forcing something into coverage. He was sacked 4 times on Saturday. On two of them, a UW player immediately beat his man and was on Garbers before the play could develop (Gaines swim move on Ooms and Burr-Kirven on a blitz that Daltoso whiffed on). Nothing he can do there. The other two were coverage sacks and those are the ones I care about. On both of those plays, Garbers tried to get yards, protected the ball and didn't make a dumb play. Good stuff.
So what mistakes did Garbers make on Saturday? I saw three, one big and the other two not as big. In the 3rd Q, Garbers had a play where he scrambled out to his right and threw a nice ball that Moe Ways caught a step or two out of bounds. Garbers should have tucked and ran in that situation, as he had about 10-15 yards of free space. That's a lot of yardage and a first down that just went missing - can't have that. The second play was the wheel route to Laird that he hung in the air. To be fair to Garbers, that pass hit Laird in the hands and he probably should have caught it, but the ball could have been there a bit sooner. Additional fairness to Garbers - he barely gets any opportunity to throw a deep ball during games because our receivers don't get separation. The third play was on a swing to Wharton where it he put the ball on the wrong hip and a bit too late. Wharton probably gains 5-6 yards if the ball is on time and in the right place, and instead Wharton fought for about 2 yards.
This will get some eye rolls from some readers who aren't fans of Baldwin or Tui, but to me, Garbers looks well coached. He doesn't flail in the pocket and his read progressions are good. One thing he could probably improve on is keeping the ball more on the running back read, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him do that against WSU. I'm pretty bullish on Garbers, obviously. I think he has a ton of upside and would look even more impressive on a team with average or slightly better than average receivers. His ball comes out quick, he's accurate, and his arm strength is at least average if not slightly better. There is work to be done on some of the deep balls, but opportunity and better receiving talent can fix a lot of that.
Sorry again for writing a book.
The first thing about Garbers that is important is that he is accurate. I'm a big believer in Mike Leach's ethos that you can't teach accuracy. Garbers is @ 66% completion percentage for the year (24th nationally and 4th in the P12 behind Minshew/Montez/Costello), but he's actually being hurt by the quality of his receivers in that metric, so he's probably a bit better than that. Garbers is only 102nd nationally in passing yards per completion, which speaks to the inability of his receivers to get separation and to the limitations of our offense to throw the ball downfield.
For as crappy as our passing offense is, Garbers is 44th nationally in passing efficiency. That's ahead of guys like Drew Lock, Khalil Tate, and JT Daniels. Garbers' efficiency rating is comparable to Justin Herbert and Jake Browning, believe it or not.
The stat regarding his accuracy that most jumps out to me came in the ISU game - Garbers was 20/25, but all 25 balls hit receivers in the hands. I get that the game was against Idaho State, but that's hard to do against air. He's been similarly efficient against BYU and Washington. Washington's defense is elite, and their secondary is one of the top 5 in the country. To complete 70% of your passes against them without a playmaking receiver who can beat his man or a running game that is forcing them to drop a safety into the box is VERY impressive.
Last thing to note for those still on the McIlwain train - Garbers is better than McIlwain in every passing statistic, most of them by a significant margin.
Ok - on to the UW game and things that I thought were impressive.
The biggest one that jumped out to me was Garbers' ability to read the CB blitz. At least twice in the game, UW sent the CB on Garbers left on a blitz, and both times Garbers read it immediately and flipped the ball out to that WR (it may have been Wharton on both) for good gains. One of these plays came on the last drive, and Garbers threw a 3/4 arm angle seed right to Vic for 6 yards on first down (play happened with about 2:50 to go in the game). Fantastic play. If he hands off, it's probably a tackle for a loss, and if he doesn't make that read, he gets sacked.
Speaking of that last drive - maybe the most important part of it was that the coaches had the confidence to let Garbers pass rather than playing it conservatively to try and chew clock. Cal got the ball with 4:50 left to go in the game, and Baldwin called four straight pass plays. Garbers scrambled on the first two and then hit Laird over the middle for the first down. The ensuing first down was the aforementioned quick pass to Wharton on the CB blitz. Because Garbers is so efficient and a good decision maker and we called passing plays, it opened up the defense and allowed for Laird to run for a first down on the following play and effectively end the game. That's a little thing that a lot of people won't notice, but Garbers helps keep our offense from being predictable because he is an efficient passer even if we don't have really any deep passing threat.
Another thing Garbers did well Saturday was take sacks. That sounds like a weird compliment, but Garbers is good at knowing when to tuck the ball and take the sack as opposed to forcing something into coverage. He was sacked 4 times on Saturday. On two of them, a UW player immediately beat his man and was on Garbers before the play could develop (Gaines swim move on Ooms and Burr-Kirven on a blitz that Daltoso whiffed on). Nothing he can do there. The other two were coverage sacks and those are the ones I care about. On both of those plays, Garbers tried to get yards, protected the ball and didn't make a dumb play. Good stuff.
So what mistakes did Garbers make on Saturday? I saw three, one big and the other two not as big. In the 3rd Q, Garbers had a play where he scrambled out to his right and threw a nice ball that Moe Ways caught a step or two out of bounds. Garbers should have tucked and ran in that situation, as he had about 10-15 yards of free space. That's a lot of yardage and a first down that just went missing - can't have that. The second play was the wheel route to Laird that he hung in the air. To be fair to Garbers, that pass hit Laird in the hands and he probably should have caught it, but the ball could have been there a bit sooner. Additional fairness to Garbers - he barely gets any opportunity to throw a deep ball during games because our receivers don't get separation. The third play was on a swing to Wharton where it he put the ball on the wrong hip and a bit too late. Wharton probably gains 5-6 yards if the ball is on time and in the right place, and instead Wharton fought for about 2 yards.
This will get some eye rolls from some readers who aren't fans of Baldwin or Tui, but to me, Garbers looks well coached. He doesn't flail in the pocket and his read progressions are good. One thing he could probably improve on is keeping the ball more on the running back read, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him do that against WSU. I'm pretty bullish on Garbers, obviously. I think he has a ton of upside and would look even more impressive on a team with average or slightly better than average receivers. His ball comes out quick, he's accurate, and his arm strength is at least average if not slightly better. There is work to be done on some of the deep balls, but opportunity and better receiving talent can fix a lot of that.
Sorry again for writing a book.
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