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Originally Posted by Alexander
I agree. I never even knew Carson Palmer had a brother until I watched UTEP's bowl game last year to look at Howard. I wasn't all that impressed.
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I guess that just proves the danger in judging a player off one game... lemme share Jordan's stats the last 2 years, perhaps you'll be able to see what I'm talking about
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He started 24 games, attempted 800 passes (33.3 per game), completed 471 of them (58.9 per cent)... threw for 6321 yards in those 24 games (263.4 yards per game)... 55 TDs (2.3 per game) against 37 ints (1.5 per game, his biggest problem)...
His quarterback rating over those two seasons is 138.7... he ranked 25th in Division I last year, with a 140.5 rating... he was 7th in total passing yards, at 291.9 per game...
Any of that impress you??
And lest some be tempted to blow those stats off with "yeah, but UTEP was a wide-open passing offense", they ran the ball 849 times in those two seasons, threw it 851 times... that's the ideal that coaches claim they're looking for, a 50-50 split...
Jordan holds every major career passing and total offense record at UTEP, in spite of being a full-time starter for just 2 seasons... and there WERE times in their not-so-glorious past when all they could do was throw the ball, so holding all those records is no small feat... here's a blurb from the UTEP website:
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Palmer is UTEP's career record-holder for passing yards (7,489), touchdown passes (62), completions (569), attempts (998), efficiency (130.53), total offense (7,532 yards), touchdowns responsible for (68) and 300-yard passing games (10). He set school seasonal records for passing yards (3,503), touchdown passes (29) and total offense (3,453 yards) in 2005. Palmer was also 16th in the country in total offense (287.8 ypg) and 25th in passing efficiency (140.54) a year ago.
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Jordan's biggest problem, as I said earlier, is that he throws a lot of ints... however, much of that is because he's still awfully raw as a quarterback, having only started playing high school ball as a senior... there is no reason that he can't improve on that as he gains more experience, as he learns to recognize situations on the field rather than having to think about them... I also think he could stand to improve on the completion percentage, but again, I think that experience will help a lot in that area... we should also remember that he's a downfield passer, not a short passing game specialist (he averages 13.4 yards per completion, obviously he's not dumping the ball off much)... downfield passers don't generally have glittering completion percentages, so he doesn't really need to improve his percentage THAT much...
And on a more subjective note, he's got that "gunslinger" air about him... I particularly like the way he comes roaring back after he makes a mistake... he doesn't go into a shell, he comes back out and tries to make amends by taking the ball downfield... this is what I mean when I say I see some Brett Favre in him...
No, there's no way of knowing if he has what his big brother has, but he really has been a pretty fair quarterback these last two years, especially last year... I'm quite eager to see what he'll be able to do this year, since the Miners still have a pretty fair team around him-- the Sporting News predicts they'll win the Western Division of Conference USA this year... Palmer will have himself a pretty fair running back in Marcus Howard to take some of the pressure off of him...