The 2017 Georgia football season is less than three weeks away. Jacob Eason will be the starting quarterback on opening day.
Jacob Eason had a very polarizing season as a freshman. His detractors point out how he missed deep throws and was occasionally a no-factor in games. His supporters point out how he was just a freshman and showed leadership in many instances.
Regardless of what side of that fence you fall on, you can’t deny stats. And Eason was a good statistical quarterback as a freshman. He finished with over 2,400 yards and 16 touchdowns, versus only eight interceptions.
Aaron Murray, David Green and Quincy Carter all had more yards than Eason as freshmen. But Greene and Murray were redshirted while Carter played minor league baseball for a few years. Eason also had more yards as a freshman than Matthew Stafford and Eric Zeier.
The 16 touchdowns is better Carter (12), Stafford (7) and Zeier (7). Plus, his eight interceptions is better than Stafford (13), Greene (9) and Carter (9). Statistically, Eason was very comparable to the last five freshman to start at quarterback at Georgia.
So it makes sense that he would continue to be comparable to those same five as sophomores. And each of those five quarterbacks each improved substantially as sophomores. And the teams they played for were much better, except for Carter’s team in 1999 which did lose several key players from 1998.
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Georgia went 9-3 in 1991 with Zeier, and then improved to 10-2 in 1992. Greene led Georgia to a 13-1 SEC Championship season in 2002 following an 8-4 season in 2001. Stafford also brought Georgia to the cusp of a National title in 2007 with an 11-2 year following a 9-4 freshman campaign. And Murray’s team finished 10-4 in 2011 after ending 6-7 in 2010.
Statistically, Zeier went from 1,984 yards with seven touchdowns and four interceptions in 1991, to 2,248 yards, 12 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Carter improved from 2,484 yards with 12 touchdowns and nine interceptions, to 2,713 yards, 17 touchdowns and six interceptions. Greene upped his numbers from 2,789 yards with 17 touchdowns and nine interceptions to 2,924 yards, 22 touchdowns and eight interceptions.
Stafford had the biggest jump from 1,749 yards, with seven touchdowns and 13 interceptions, to 2,523 yards with 19 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Murray had a large increase in touchdowns going from 3,049 yards with 24 touchdowns and eight interceptions, to 3,149 yards with 35 touchdowns and 14 interceptions.
Talent wise, Georgia will be better in 2017 so as long as Eason improves similarly to how the previous five sophomore quarterbacks did, the Bulldogs should win a lot this season. But this is a prediction, so we’re going to use examples set by the five aforementioned quarterbacks to predict how Eason’s numbers will look in 2017.
The five sophomores together averaged a jump of 300 yards so we can predict that Eason will pass for over 2,700 yards. They averaged 7.6 more touchdowns as sophomores so Eason should throw 23 or 24 touchdowns. They also averaged 1.4 interceptions so Eason will probably only throw nine or 10 pics.
So 2,700 yards with 24 touchdowns to nine interceptions. Pretty solid stats, especially for a quarterback who’s going to hand the ball off much of the time.
If we were to continue this experiment into Eason’s junior year we could expect an even more substantial leap in statistics. And to be fair, we will exclude Carter from the averages because his junior year in such an extreme outlier.
Next: Changes on the offensive line
And I won’t bore you even more by throwing too many numbers out there. But the conclusion is, Eason would likely jump up to 3,583 yards with 26 touchdowns and eight interceptions. Which would make sense seeing as Chubb and Michel would be gone and Georgia receiving corps would probably be at its best form since 2013.
However, it should be noted that Greene’s 13 touchdowns in 2003 brings down the average increase. Murray had one more touchdown, while Stafford had six more and Zeier and 12 more touchdowns as juniors. if we were to exclude Greene’s touchdowns, the prediction would rise to 30 touchdowns for Eason in 2018.
But of course, these are just numbers. Ultimately, how Eason performs this year and the next isn’t going to be decided with a calculator. He will decide it himself on the field, in games and in practice.