The Nebraska Bias Runs Deep

I got into a discussion the other night with a couple friends. We all live in Nebraska, where the sport of college football reins supreme to all others for 12 months of the year. They talked about how the NU quarterback of the 1994-1995 National Championship teams, Tommie Frazier, could have been a NFL quarterback. A friend of mine then said that if Michael Vick can play in the NFL, so can Tommie Frazier. I responded with, "I don't know about that," but laid low the rest of the conversation, because they were on a Husker rant.

Even though I was critical of Vick a couple days ago, because of the lack of fire and passion I felt from his play this past year, I have to defend the guy here.

There's no doubt that Tommie Frazier was a leader and winner at Nebraska. He ran the option about as well as one can. He made use of the weapons in his backfield and could take the ball himself for a good chunk of yardage, as well. He was a great college quarterback, but an option quarterback in college will not be a NFL quarterback. He could've maybe played in the CFL or in the Arena football league. Perhaps he could've switched positions and played in the NFL as a safety.

Even though Frazier led the Huskers to two National Championships in four seasons and Vick only led the Hokies to a runner-up in the 1999 season, Vick still had a better winning percentage as a starter than Frazier. Frazier was 33-3 (.917) as a starter at Nebraska and Vick was 20-1 (.952) as a starter at Virginia Tech.

As I had mentioned before, Tommie Frazier was an option quarterback. Vick ran the option once in a while, but was, by no means, an option QB. In his four years at Nebraska, Frazier completed 232 of 469 (.495) of his passes for 3,521 yards, 43 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. He ran the ball 342 times for 1,955 yards (5.7 average) and 36 touchdowns. Combine those numbers and on 811 attempts, Frazier accounted for 5,476 yards (156.5 p/game) and 79 touchdowns.

In just two seasons, Michael Vick completed 177 of 313 passes (.565) for 3,074 yards, 20 touchdowns and 11 picks. He ran the ball 212 times for 1,202 yards (5.7 average) for 16 touchdowns. Combine those numbers and Vick accounted for 4,276 yards on 525 attempts (213.8 p/game) and 36 touchdowns.

In about half the time played, Vick completed just 55 less passes in 156 fewer attempts, and 447 fewer yards. Unless Vick played blindfolded, even for a single season, he would've easily surpassed those numbers. It is debatable on who would've accounted for more passing touchdowns. Frazier definitely held the edge in interceptions and touchdown to interception ratio. But, there are a lot of factors that play into account. Seeing that he threw the ball only 469 times in four years, defenses had to defend the run first and foremost. When the run was successful (which it usually was), Frazier would have no problem dropping back to pass around the goalline for an easy score.

Rushing the football, Frazier had just 753 more yards than Vick in two more seasons. Again, the touchdowns accounted for is debatable, as Vick had 20 fewer with two years left to play.

Looking at their combined offenses, Frazier was just +1,200 on Vick in two additional seasons of playing football. Vick averaged 57.3 more yards a game in his short college career than Frazier. The one stat where Frazier may have reigned supreme is in his total quantity of touchdowns.

In 4+ years of starting in the NFL, Michael Vick has thrown for 11,505 yards and 71 touchdowns. He's also run for 3,859 yards and 21 touchdowns, to account for 15,364 yards and 92 touchdowns.

Tommie Frazier is not nearly as quick as Vince Young, let alone Michael Vick. He has less throwing strength than Chad Pennington. Vick has one of the strongest arms in the game. Vick is not known for his passer precision, but next to Frazier, he'd be seen as Tom Brady.

It's a shame that Tommie Frazier's career had to end the way it did, but let's not kid ourselves. The guy was a great college quarterback, much like Heisman winner Eric Crouch, but would have never amounted to anything in the NFL. This friend of mine has never seen Michael Vick play, so yeah, he's making quite the biased statement, but even then, it's ridiculous.