If Michigan even has a season- seeing as how the president of the school put that into question- CBS Sports names Dylan McCaffrey a very dark horse Heisman candidate.
Excerpt from the article:
“Michigan's receiving corps had a drop rate of 12.6% last season. That ranked 121st nationally. Even worse, Michigan receivers had an on-target catch rate of 75.2% last year, according to Sports Info Solutions. That ranked 129th nationally, with only Buffalo being worse at 73.5%.
This tells me two things. One is that Patterson was better than you thought. His on-target rate last season of 75.2% wasn't elite, but did rank No. 32 in the country. It was also a full 19% higher than his 56.2% completion rate. The second is that it will be hard for Michigan receivers to be worse in 2020.“
I seem to recall Ronnie Bell and DPJ dropping quite a few catchable passes. But I also question how they came up with this drop rate #. Shea Patterson threw a lot of bad, off target passes.
If a WR gets his hands on a poorly thrown ball but doesn’t come down with it, is that still considered a drop? I consider a drop a completely on target pass that hits a receiver in both hands and he just drops it. Ronnie Bell had quite a few of those.
Having said all that I would be very surprised if McCaffrey became a legitimate Heisman contender. Because either a) he wasn’t good enough to beat out a mediocre QB in Shea Patterson or b) his coach was too stupid to play him over a mediocre QB. Neither of those scenarios are good. If you’re not good enough to beat out a mediocre QB then you probably aren’t that level of player. OR if you’re coach is so dumb and oblivious in personnel decisions that he decides to go with a mediocre player over a superior player- well that means you have poor coaching- and guys with bad coaches don’t win Heismans.
