I'd pick McNabb first but I think that McCord was the first QB in a long time that gave me confidence on 3rd down (long or short) that we would get the first down. For a long time I dreaded third downs. For me, that probably gives him a boost.
Good point about Shrader. If I had to add another it would be him. I would put him 10th.
Something like 2 wins. He shouldn't even have been on the ballot.
To each their own. Leading the nation in passing in a new offense (to McCord) is insane. What he did for our program in one year was off the charts. If you were asked which player was a better pro prospect, that would be McNabb easily. All of those 5 were outstanding for the Cuse.
IMO hurley > dungey .
I would say Dungey and Graves did the same, they just did it differently. McCord stands out because we've missed it for so long.
I think Graves was great. I have him at 4 and the top 4 are all debatable in terms of ranking IMO. However, I would not put Dungey in that group. He wasn’t a good passer and i think Graves was a better runner. Dungey was super injury prone too. He took some nasty illegal shots to the head too. I like Dungey… just not top 5. I didn’t have the same confidence on 3rd down with Dungey as I did with McCord. McCord was money.
The thing when comparing those two though is that McNabb was also the more recognized college player. He was the 3 time Big East offensive player of the year when the league was still good and he finished 5th in Heisman voting. You can argue McCord had the more impressive stats, but you shouldn't do that without understanding the difference in offensive philosophies. Even in '98 there were guys with more impressive stats that weren't as highly thought of.
I think Dungey was a better runner than Graves, but Graves was better at everything else. Overall as a QB Dungey is behind both of those guys.
Idk Graves was such a smooth runner running the option. Dungey was more of a physical runner. Both very good. It's too bad Graves' senior year played out the way it did. His junior year was great. That 2nd half vs Miami was great, just wish Gedney had been able to gain 3 more yards...
It's hard to compare since Dungey didn't run the traditional option. His running was so often off script. Graves was really good at it. I loved watching him pitch it at the perfect time. When I look back at his stats, I'm surprised at how few rushing yards he had. I suppose that's very much a function of him being so good at pitching it.
Not sure there is a right or wrong answer here. Many angles to take into consideration. McNabb was throwing to Marvin Harrison in his first year. Some decent but not superstar receivers after that. McCord's receivers were darn good imo. Jury is still out on how good though. In my mind they were pretty darn good.
I would probably say his potential was equal, but Dungey had that one healthy elite year that Shrader didn't have. That gives him the edge for me.
I think McCord probably had more options. Some of that is probably a result of the design of the offense too. McNabb had Johnson after Harrison, who ended up a second round pick, and Spotwood was stud before his injury, but not a lot of depth after that. The offense didn't really have check down options built into it, so that made McNabb have to hold the ball more and gave him fewer options to unload it in the face of a rush or good downfield coverage. Most of our passing was downfield with the running game setting everything up. I would love to see McNabb in modern offenses that would've featured his running more instead of mostly treating it as an escape hatch.
I looked at the numbers. I wouldn't say they're better. They're pretty much a wash. As a sophomore Dungey pretty much equaled Shrader's best passing year in only 9 games. He averaged over 290 ypg that year. Shrader's best was 220. Probably speaks to the differences in the offense/OC. Dungey's passing numbers went down after Lewis left. His worst passng year under Babers equaled Shrader's best. Shrader had better passer ratings.
I think he had some physical tools that were better than Dungey. I wish he could've stayed healthy.
