When someone focuses on completion percentage in this offense, you can often find yourself being mislead by the data.
In an offense throwing the ball away to avoid taking a sack or because all your receivers were covered doesn't have a great effect on a QB's completion percentage when they're throwing the ball 30 - 40 times per game. But in an offense throwing the ball 12 - 15 times per game, throwing away 2 balls in those situations (which we would all acknowledge as the proper thing to do in that situation) now makes your completion percentage drop by a significant percentage. Furthermore, you can look at things like the interceptions and see that Vad had 2 interceptions in that game. But that doesn't tell the story that one of them came on the last play of the 2nd quarter when he threw the ball on a Hail Mary to the goal line and it was intercepted at the 5 yard line and ended the half. Again, that's a play that I would argue our coach want him to do in that situation...throw the ball up for grabs and hope we get a play. Because the chance of a 54 yard run on that one play is exponentially less likely to succeed than even the rarely successful Hail Mary.
Let's examine the game you mentioned. For those (like me) who hate to have to go back & rewatch that game (
Link), here's a summary of the Play by Play (
Link then click on the Play by Play tab).
If you do have the stomach to rewatch that game though, you'll see that the pass was what set up every point we had in that game and it's actually easy to argue that we didn't pass enough.
In the first drive, we throw an incomplete pass on 1st down but then on 3rd & 8 at the GT 26, Vad hits Waller in stride for a 68 yard completion to the 3 that sets up a TD.
On the second drive, after Godhigh rushes for 3 then loses 3 on the next play, we're facing 3rd and 10 and Vad hits Godhigh on a pass for 43 yards to the Georgia 37. At this point, we run seven consecutive running plays (no passes) and end up kicking a field goal. Perhaps another play might have resulted in a TD? Who knows.
On the 3rd drive, GT has intercepted the ball and takes over @ the GA 36. After a 5 yard false start by Beno and a 15 yard facemask by GA, Vad hits Smelter for a 26 yard TD pass.
On the 4th drive, 2 pass plays (18 yards to Synjyn on 2nd and 11 and a swing pass to Godhigh out of the backfield for 16 yards to the GA 9) were the 2 biggest plays of the drive. On 3rd and goal (after 2 runs that only gained 4 yards), Vad is pressured and threw the ball away out of bounds to allow the field goal attempt to make it 20-0. Again, perhaps more pass plays would allowed a TD to be scored instead of a FG...who knows?
On the final drive of the half that results in the interception on the Hail Mary as time expires, there is an incomplete on a long pass to Godhigh where Robbie was 2 yards behind his man with no safety help and Vad overthrows him. Still a play that I'd like to take my chances with, given the way GA LB's and safeties were creeping up into the box.
My point? Well, it appears to me that your original contention is to bolster the argument that we tried to pass too much and it hurt us last year. Or if we did pass, we didn't do it effectively. If that's your contention, then go back and watch that game again. Because the passing of Lee is what kept us in that game. There were certainly other days where he wasn't "on" but that day wasn't one of them.
