Georgia Football: Athlon magazine forgets Jake Fromm exists

The Myth of Jarrett Stidham:

Jarrett Stidham is the definition of a media darling. He’s the QB that college football writers just can’t quit on. They haven’t been able to ever since he announced he was going to Auburn and they all got excited about Gus Malzahn actually having a competent QB again.

But there’s a problem with this narrative. Sure Stidham is competent, but in his first year, that’s actually all he was. He’s given all the compliments for the season Auburn put together and their wins over UGA and Alabama, but his performances were not actually that great.

He was efficient against UGA in the regular season but it wasn’t him who beat Georgia. It was a defensive front that had their way with UGA’s offensive line. The same was true against Alabama, where he didn’t even throw for a touchdown.

Then we got to the postseason, where the games really mattered and Stidham fell apart. Playing on neutral fields, he stunk it up against UGA in the SEC title game. Then he delivered a turnover-filled performance against UCF and gift wrap them their pretend ‘national championship’.

I’m not saying Stidham is bad. He’s got potential and hopefully, for Auburn, he’ll be better next year. But his QBR score was 20 points lower than Jake Fromm for the 2017 season. That’s not a little gap, it’s a huge gulf between the two players. There are no actual stats that put Stidham above Fromm last year. The only reason you rank him above is if you ‘believe’ in the narrative about him and Gus being some offensive match made in heaven. Based off their first year together, that match is yet to catch fire.