Matt Barkley Under the Microscope

When USC comes to town on Halloween, they do so with true freshman Matt Barkley at quarterback. Autzen Stadium, Kellen Moore notwithstanding, is unpleasant to newbies.

Through half a season, though, Barkley is being heaped with praise as a guy that plays beyond his years. I suppose one has to be impressed with the early body of work given his inexperience, but can the Trojans really get away with a true freshman at Autzen Stadium in a game as hyped as any in its history?

I don’t think so (cue references to Notre Dame and Ohio State).

Of course, what I think is just an opinion so I went to work manipulating the numbers to back me up.

The first thing we need to look at is how Barkley stacks up relative to the rest of the nation.

What does this tell us?

1. This is a solid quarterback who could become great. He’s one of only 3 freshmen with a top 50 quarterback rating.
2. He passes for a lot of yards for a team that virtually never has to play from behind which indicates the yards are generally meaningful.
3. The high ranking in yards per attempt seems to support my thinking that he throws a good deep ball and will connect on those more frequently than his peers.
4. He has both a low number of TDs and INTs which indicates USC is careful in what they ask him to do.

Okay, with the setup out of the way, let the debunking begin.

When we look at who this body of work has come against, it’s revealing at just how poor the opposing pass defenses have been. Teams have played a minimum of seven games so it’s not like one can say Barkley’s performance is skewing opposing defense’s stats.

Four of the six pass defenses Barkley has faced are ranked 111 or lower in total yards per game. That’s out of 120 teams meaning he’s faced four units that are in the bottom 10 nationally. In other words, Barkley hasn’t just faced bad pass defenses, he’s faced the worst. He’s also only encountered two reputable pass rushes (Cal and Ohio State). In those two games, Barkley had no touchdowns and two interceptions.

Still there were two games against statistically respectable pass defenses. Let’s take a look.

• San Jose State, 41st: The Spartans have the third worst rush defense in the country, so this ranking is likely more a reflection of the fact teams are content to run all game. The low pass efficiency rating would seem to support that. Against San Jose State, Barkley passed for 233 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions.
• Ohio State, 29th: To date, the only quality pass defense USC has faced. Barkley, on the road in a hostile environment went 15-31 for 195 yards with no touchdowns and one interception. Everyone talks about the final game winning drive and completely forgets how inept Barkley and the offense were to that point. True, quarterbacks are judged on the end result and he deserves credit for the finish, but it’s also factual that much of the drive featured dump-offs and easy passes that allowed Trojan playmakers, namely Joe McKnight, to make something happen. I don’t want to to discount that he got the win, but that was less about Barkley and more about the team. He didn’t lose the game, but he didn’t win it either.

Saturday, he comes into Autzen Stadium on Halloween night and faces the best pass defense he has yet to see. It’s perhaps the best he will see all season. Of course, there’s a wild card in that Oregon’s secondary is depleted, but the group has held up admirably all year.

Does any of this prove that Barkley can’t handle the impending moment? No. But it does show that there is reason to believe Saturday’s challenge is greater than any other to date. I think it’s very possible this will be a historical  crescendo for Autzen Stadium and I’m afraid not even Tom Brady could escape what lies just 4 days ahead.