Eleven Warriors

LOL @713.

Also, Hail, Ernest Shazier?

Ignoring the differences in offenses is impossible.

But here is a difference of opinion that comes to mind immediately:

RB: Jordan Hall (OSU)-you said to include experience and leadership.  He is a senior and is considered one of the offensive leaders of the Buckeyes.  As far as talent and type of back, I consider them very similar.

I keep waiting for someone to post something about how Braxton is the better choice at QB.  I would agree that he has strong potential to be the better collegiate QB once his career is complete, but right now Denard is the proven QB and proven leader.

I'm with J. Mo on Michael Bennett, granted he did come on strong late last year--so he's not completely proven.  Though, Fitz is unquestionably the choice at RB, his numbers were stellar after his emergence, and his consistency through that half-season was more than Hall's ever been able to show, consistency-wise, over a similar period.  Granted, Hall's just now stepping out of Boom's shadow, but I still like Fitz here.

Good list Hail, though it does speak to the wasted potential of last year's Buckeye squad.  We're 50/50 with Wolverines here on this team, yet we lost five more games than they did.  Bollman's playcalling and Fickell's game management are the two real culprits here, and it goes to show how valuable good coaching truly is.

@ Hodge

I agree that Fitz had better (half) season then Hall has ever had, my point is that he had the benefit of a much better play caller and absolutely no competition taking carries away outside of Denard.  I think their strengths and weaknesses are very similar.  I believe Hall's experience and leadership trump Fitz's good half season considering all circumstances. 

Ill say it, I would take Braxton for the same reason you took Fritz over Hall. Braxton played better than Denard over the same stretch of games with less talent, less coaching, less experiance. To be fair, let's take the last 6 games and compare. This best represents and "second half breakout season" credit given to Friz over Hall. Fair enough?

Denard (Purdue ,Iowa, Illi, Neb, OSU, VT)

Miller (Wisc, Ind, Pur, Penn, UM, FL)

Competition is fairly even enough, agreed?

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Denard - 920 yards passing, 9 TD's, 5 INT's

Miller - 756 yards passing, 8 TD's, 2 INT's

Denard has more yards, an extra TD, but two more INT's. I for one believe INT's are killers for a team and think that these data points make the passing a tie if not in favor of Braxton.

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Denard - 414 yards rushing, 7 TD's, 1 Fumble

Miller - 472 yards rushing, 7 TD's,0 Fumble

Winner, Miller obviously.

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IMO, given that it was his Freshman year, terrible offense coord, and less talent around him I would take Braxton this year over Denard. Denard can wow, but he can also be a liability. 15 INT's for Denard last year.

@Lou:  I think people understand where you are coming from, but since ttun are our rivals I (along with many others) probably know them better than any team not wearing Scarlet and Gray.  Additionally, discussing them seems obvious since we probably compare ourselves to them more than any other team, rivalry breeds obsession.  And if the topic doesn't suit you, there are probably some others that you can visit instead (like the one about how awesome it would be if we get Hand, McMillan, and Glass; or the one about how awesome Burrows and Woodard are).  There are some topics on here that I avoid, but if others want to discuss, I have no problem with that.  I just enjoy ridiculous hypotheticals, so this thread is fun for me to follow.  To each their own...

I wouldn't take fitz over and of our rbs let alone as the Allstar team starter

Hail - If Gardner plays WR this year, do you expect him to return to QB next season or remain @ WR if it goes well there?

@ Carolina,

I agree that Braxton could likely have better passing numbers when its all said and done at the end of this year, however I believe that coaching and offensive strategy play into that big time.  If Denard were in Columbus and Braxton up there (terrible thoughts, I apologize for that) I believe Denard would have the better numbers.  My point is that Denard is more experienced and is more of a leader (at least to the outside world).  Braxton has the higher ceiling, I think Michigan fans would even agree.  Just my thoughts.

@ Steensn

I understand your point with Braxton.  Couldn't you also give Hall the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the coaching and playing time.  Fitz only played half a season, but had considerably more carries than Hall did (186 vs 100).

@Lougroza

I totally understand, the offseason makes us lose our mind.  I think many of us wouldn't be involved in a conversation like this during the season.

Forgive me. Denard is at best the second best Heisman candidate out there. Matt Barkely is clearly the front runner. His name escaped my memory.

Kind of agree with you Hail. Braxton will be a better QB, but Denard is a better athlete(though not by much). Either way both are very dynamic players who have had(Denard) and will have(Braxton) great success and huge numbers.

@HAIL - One point of contention about Denard's sophomore year.  His system--though similar in formation to Meyer's--was very much a "tailored" offense (I hate the term "gimmick"), thereby making his stats more reminiscient of Case Kennum's passing numbers; clearly the mark of a truly gifted individual, but also the mark of a tailored (read: "Airraid") offense exclusively featuring a great talent.

Braxton will not replicate those numbers, simply because his system is a spread to run--where the ball is spread evenly across multiple backs.  Granted, Robinson didn't really have that luxury (due in large part to ill-equipped or underperforming personnel), but he was the entirety of the Wolverines' offense that year.  In Chris Brown's The Essential Smart Football, he details Borges' "West Coast" scheme, and sums up Robinson's utilization under Rodriguez perfectly: a do-it-all runner/passer, the likes of which had last been seen during the heyday of the single wing back in the '40s.  

That's not a bad offense for a guy like Shoelace, though.  Les Horvath gave us our first Heisman trophy doing the exact same thing.

@ Hail

I was just busting your balls.  I don't really care what you call Ohio State.  But I cant really think of one player off the top of my head that I'd replace on OSU with a player from Michigan.  Shoelace included.

@HAIL...

I'm not arguing against Denard being a good football player. I do truly hate the guy, which is a true sign that he is doing something right.

Bottom line, the guy is a fierce competitor and a fierce football player that leaves it all out on the field and I can't take ANY of that away from him.

The same argument you use for experience though is the same one that is going to bite Denard in the butt.  As a passer goes, he has reached his ceiling. His mechanics are poor, his accuracy is inconsistent at best and his decision making has not faired much better with experience. His athleticism and never say die attitude is what allowed you guys to win games last year

Some QBs do turn the corner and make vast improvements YOY but  ones with the experience Denard has, you usually know what you're getting by your senior year.

For the most part, I agree with most of your points about Braxton but I am going to say that for Braxton, the learning curve for Urban's offense is a lot less than many believe. Former BGSU QB Josh Harris (he who put up 400+ yds passing in the shoe) came out point blank and said if he could master Urban's offense in 1 off-season, Braxton will have no problem.

Couple that with the fact that Urban is out to prove something this year, there aren't going to be games of yore where we go up by 2 scores and take our foot of the pedal. I don't have the numbers nor do I know where to find them but I would be interested to see the number of snaps each QB took last year. I would venture to say Denard was the beneficiary of a greater amount of snaps than Brax. Braxton will get more snaps in the Miami of Ohio game, than he did in the first 4 games of last season combined. The sheer increase in snaps he will take this season would be enough alone to put him in position to surpass Denard's numbers w/o making any marked improvement in skill from last year.

Braxton doesn't come without shortcomings though, he needs to improve his accuracy, timing and relationship with receivers (damn you Stoney, JHall) and like you and others have pointed out, truly master the offense.  It wont' come without hiccups but I think that his shortcomings last season were much more a result of two completely inept coaches and less because of his inability as a true passer

I pretty much agree with the list.  I'll take Denard over Braxton at the moment, but that is subject to change as this coming season unfolds.  Braxton could definitely become a better QB than Denard in the future.  This is also a pretty fair team as far as the allocation of OSU/UM players go.  I'd put this team up against anybody in CFB.

Most of you guys were alive during the Ohio State/Michigan, Cooper years but really couldn't have been old enough to appreciate the significance of having a couple undefeated teams have their hopes dashed for a National Championship by a Michigan team. So you really can't understand just how offensive it is to see Buckeye and Wolverine teams being put together. You haven't really seen the depths of hatred for Michigan yet. Rest assured, that team up north will be ticking us off again real soon. So before you go getting upset with the guys who don't like this post, please realize some of us lived through those god awful years and had to endure Michigan's arrogance!

That being said, I'm ashamed to say that I have an uncle who went to Ohio State, who's an idiot by the way, who married a woman who went to Michigan. They have a son, who's also an idiot, who roots for Michigan and is always mouthing off about said Piss and Blue. I know, it's shameful and I no longer wish to hide in the shame. So I'm coming out of the closet and admitting my blood is not pure Scarlet and Gray. Yes friend, I am a mudblood....Oh the shame..

At the end of last year Braxton was already better than Denard. Compare their stats of the second half (last six games). Braxton protected tha ball much better, ran for more yards, ran for the same number of TDs, an passed for only slightly less yards. All in a horrible offense that never passed.

Put him in a real offense- not even the Urban explosion we all expect but just a normal offense- and he is already better than Denard. Denard is an exciting, explosive athlete, but he reached his ceiling a long time ago. Braxton has also reached Denard's ceiling. Braxton will have a much better season, and career, than Denard.

@HAIL

You started the Brax/Denard argument based on stats and when we have shown that with no experience, no coaching, and an offensive scheme that would have rather given the ball to the other team Braxton's stats as a true freshman were only slightly behind those of Robinson.

So now it comes down to, how do we measure the true impact of a player?

Look HAIL, we've all taken a look at your list, thrown up in our mouth a little, and then swallowed it and played along.  We aren't all on here saying that no TTUN player deserves to be on this list.

However, dancing in circles and trying to justify why a glorified running back is going to somehow be better than Braxton really makes me question your knowledge on college football.  We ask posters here not to wear the scarlet and gray glasses and be objective....those same requests apply to piss and blue

Carolina - The point of this silly list was to build a team based on RIGHT NOW, not what we THINK will happen. Noone in their right mind doesn't acknowledge that Braxton will be a better QB based on potential but Denard, while not a true QB, has excelled and has 2 years more experience. We are all assuming that Braxton will excel in the offense. And while that is likely going to be the case, there is no shame in saying that based on all other factors, RIGHT NOW Denard would be better choice. We know what we get with Denard, we don't know yet what we will get with Braxton. 

CPLUNK - You're wrong, and most objective OSU fans will agree. The mark of a good QB is leadership and WINS....Denard is the clear team leader and has more wins. Braxton has yet to develop into the leader we need him to be. Your "guarantees" have no way to be proven and are only a biased opinion. We have to deal with what we KNOW.

***I am NOT saying Braxton will not be better as I fully believe we will see Braxton begin to grow up this year and blossom into a start next year, but basing this off of results and experience as of now, most ppl with football knowledge would take the known(Denard) over the unknown(Braxton).

@CINCYOSU

We'll have to agree to disagree. 

What we KNOW is that Braxton put up equal numbers in an offense that was statistically a shambles. 

What we also KNOW is that football involves a minimum of 24 players per team on the field, playing the specific plays called by a coaching staff. One player does not determine wins.

I think those two things add up to Braxton being better than Denard. You don't. We'll just have to disagree. I think most objective non-OSU fans would agree with me. You don't. That's fine.

Hail: your argument concerning cumulative past stats is irrefutable; and even if we look at only the last six games of last year - as CPlunk suggests above - DR was 5-1 and BM was 2-4, so you have that argument as well.

But I think the question is which QB will be better in 2012. DR's past stats are definitely in his favor as a predictive tool, but they won't mean anything between the lines this year.

The way I see it: assuming both stay healthy, BM has the more complete package compared to DR. Because he has more upside in the passing game in particular, BM has the potential to put up ridiculously efficient dual threat numbers. In contrast, DR's passing "highside" is more constrained, but we can also reliably expect him to produce great numbers overall (i.e., he his "lowside" isn't as low as BM's). DR figures to once again rush for 1,000+ yds and throw for over 2,000 yds; I see him again finishing about 70th in passing yards, 40th in rushing, and 40th in total offense. 

If these two players were stocks in the stock market, the DR stock would be the safer play, while the BM stock would have greater potential to yield very high returns.  

Part of it is, which player has more targets in the passing game?

TE: UM basically has no TE, OSU has Stoney, advantage OSU.

WR: UM has Roundtree, he's atleast proven at times he can be effective, advantage UM

WR: OSU's secondary, tertiary, etc. receivers are far more encouraging than the handful of incongruous slot guys UM has behind Roundtree, advantage OSU.

RB: When Hall is healthy, he'll be a threat catching passes out of the backfield and out of the pivot role, Toussaint is a tradtional RB, advantage OSU.

Support Overall: Advantage OSU

Can someone do this all star team for Minnesota and Indiana?

@FIDO - I guess I look at a lot of his runs being because of the fact that he's had hardly any line to defend him.  Outside of David Molk, D-Rob had no one giving him time to throw, and a young dual-threat QB will always tuck-and-run before going through a progression (and I'd have personally rather seen Brax do this more often, rather than trying to find recievers downfield--granted, this is also due to poor playcalling), it's what Troy Smith did a lot of in '04.  Speaking of Smith, he too was undersized (6'0, but more solid than Denard).  Not to mention his performance against us last year echoed that of our old signal-caller (14/17, 167 yards, 3 TD, 0 INT, 170 yards rushing).  Now, I'm not saying Denard is Troy Smith, but I just cannot accept that Denard will not improve his passing this season--especially since it's been such a glaring weakness of his.

My prediction is that he runs less, as Fitz shares the load with him; his O-line improves, giving him more time to throw; his passing improves his completion percentage to 60-65%, and he'll be throwing a lot less jump balls; he'll throw less interceptions, but still more than Miller; and he'll pass for ~2700 yards.

Miller will run more, but he'll have less yards per carry than Denard (Denard will break bigger runs more consistently, whereas Brax will be running lots of designed plays); he will have more rushing TDs than Denard, and the two will have similar passing TDs; he'll throw less interceptions, and have a completion percentage between 62-65%, and will throw for ~2500 yards.

My point is that Braxton has the greater potential (he'll be the equivalent passer of a senior Denard this year), but Denard's the superior "big play" threat right now.  I do think that they're cut from an eerily similar cloth, though.  Considering that Braxton's big play rush ability is superior to both Smith and Pryor.

"He wasn't comfortable dropping back in Borges' offense, and it wasn't until half way through the season when coaches started letting Denard be Denard that his productivity shot up a lot."

If we go back to the stats, quantitatively speaking you have no idea what you are talking about.

In the first 6 games of the 2011 season, Denard Robinson put up better numbers than he did in the second half of the season.

In the first 6 games he threw for:

1,130 yds, completed 57.6% of his passes, threw 10 TDs

He also rushed for:

720 yds and 8 TDs

In the last 6 games of the year, he threw for:

1,043 yds, 58.3 comp %, 10 TDs

He rushed for:

456 yds and 8 TDs

So his season split is pretty identical, he was actually more productive in the first half of the year than the second half of the year. So his productivity never really "shot up a lot" once he got comfortable with the offense.

As far as being more than a passer to be a complete QB. If you want to look at rushing stats Denard was the better runner but also had 64 more carries than Braxton. So I suppose if you want to count designed running plays at the tune of 65 more opportunities making Denard a better QB then have a field day buddy.

@Hail, I don't necessarily agree with you or disagree with you, but that argument is the exact reason why everyone's viewpoint should be accepted. 

Your argument of different result trends against different levels of competition show that there are confounding factors, to the point where there is no way to know for sure. Braxton didn't start in the beginning, he played in a bad offense, behind a bad line, and what have you. Denard played different against different competition, but stepped up when it matters.

Theres no way to quantify those things, so instead of people being stubborn and refusing to accept other people's views, try and understand that there's no way to truly be 100% correct here, analytically speaking.

For me, I would take Denard at QB right now over Braxton, and that's not a knock on Braxton. Braxton has all the tools to be a special player for OSU. But for now, Denard is the more 'proven commodity,' if you will. We can all criticize how his style of play or his skill-set or whatever, but Denard is a playmaker. Quite frankly, when he's got the ball in his hands you never know what's gonna happen. I for one will be happy when he is no longer taking snaps in Ann Arbor. 

Hail: thanks for the compliment, which I will return. You regularly make excellent comments, which is why it is nice to have you, M Man, and MichBred here to provide fresh and different perspectives.

Obviously, I've never had a chance to rap with DR and actually I haven't even heard him give an extended, in-depth interview. You might be right, but I have no reason to question his football mind. I'll give him the benefit of doubt if for no other reason than to defend myself - because if you put my brain in DR, his tendency to look lost and panic on the field would be multiplied by about 100 times! (And I like to think of myself as reasonably intelligent). 

Yes, "football intelligence" comes into play, but maybe we tend to overinterpret "dumb QB play" as a lack of football smarts, etc. For example, it seems like there are a range of factors/attributes that go into what we think of as "QB vision" and "QB smarts": 

1. An elite QB probably literally needs to have good peripheral vision. In contrast, people like me (space cadets, aka "absent minded professors") might do okay at a peripheral vision exam at the opthamologist, but the exercise would be a real chore for us, not naturally easy, and we'd get the right answers more slowly; then, after the exam, we'd go back to seeing the world through a kind of "tunnel vision" because our brains are wired to concentrate on other things.
2. Whereas an elite QB not only literally has excellent field-of-vision, his brain is particularly sharp at quickly, acurately processing the most important "objects" within a wide field of vision and then reacting immediately to that stimuli.
3. In addition, we often say that an elite QB has a good "feel" for where the ball needs to be delivered - maximizing the odds the receiver will be able to catch and run with the ball, while minimizing the odds a defender will intercept it or knock it down. I'm guessing that this attribute does not relate to what we traditionally regard as "intelligence." Larry Bird had an awesome feel for how a bball would bounce off the rim or backboard, but he's no rocket scientist.

There's probably 3-4 other factors I didn't even think of. We occasionally see DR "play dumb" on the field, but then Ryan Fitzpatrick so far has had an NFL career 68 TD/65 INT ratio and 75.0 QB rating.        

@HAIL,

I'm really not trying to argue with you but when I brought up the qualitative aspects of why Braxton would be my pick, you said...

"Well, Carolina, I don't claim to be an expert on college football, by any means.  All I'm doing is looking at stats (quantitative evidence), in which Denard has better numbers---as he should being a Junior.  From a qualitative perspective, Denard has meant much more to the Michigan teams he has quaterbacked for Michigan than Braxton probably will; which isn't really a good thing."

So you refuted my claims because statistically, or quantitatively, Denard is the better QB.

Then when you make claims such as, his production went up a lot in the second half of the year, I take a look at the quantitative evidence and you all of the sudden want to tell me that it isn't all about stats, it matters about all of these other qualitative factors such as SOS, time of the season, injuries, etc.

I accept that you would have Denard as your QB, I accept that a lot of posters feel that way. I don't accept when someone makes a blanket statement like you did, "his production went up a lot" the second half of the season when he was comfortable with Borges offense, because that simply is not true. 

I respect your posts, I like the opposing viewpoint, but when you toss a statement out that doesn't have merit I'm going to call you on it. I understand statistics don't tell the whole story but you were the one who brought up the "quantitative evidence" as a way to support your viewpoint and when I looked at the evidence that relates to Miller v.  Robinson, while trying to project for the upcoming season who will be better, they simply don't favor Denard Robinson making a great improvement over his stats last season.