Thinking about how best to judge Adam Froman's performance on Saturday, I am inspired to turn to Jack Byrne's advice to Gaylord "Greg" Focker in the volleyball scene of "Meet the Parents."Jack Byrne: "Larry, keep flowing where you are, you're doing great. Denny, take the deep shots. Greg, nobody's expecting much out of you, so if I set you up with the ball, do you think you could jump up and spike it?"
For better or worse, Froman is our Gaylord Focker: we know he's not going to zip those passes to all corners of the field the way Redman, Ragone or Brohm used to do it, but he's what we've got and we have to find a way to utilize his strengths.
Did we do that on Saturday? Froman completed less than fifty percent of his passes and threw for just 129 yards. On too many plays, he seemed to look only to his first receiving option, rather than check down to his second, third or fourth receivers. Officially, he rushed five times, for five yards.
At this point, I have to agree with the premise, if not the endpoint, of the question asked by a poster at Card Chronicle during his review of the game: if Froman earned the starting nod in part for his mobility (at the expense of Justin Burke's arm strength, or Will Stein's, um, friskiness), then why aren't we calling plays that allow him to be mobile? (Eric Crawford also made some points along these lines about playcalling on his blog... gotta hand it to him -- Crawford has been on fire ever since the game clock hit zero).
By no stretch of the imagination am I throwing in the towel on Adam Froman; as I wrote a few weeks ago, I don't think we fare much better with Burke or Stein. And I do believe that Froman can move the football for us. My point is that we need to call plays that work to his strengths. It's not like Louisville needs to adopt the old Nebraska Cornhusker option attack to make this work. But if Froman is in there because he can scramble upfield, can't we figure out a way to allow him to scramble upfield? Bet there is, Panama Red.
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