I decided to chart every pass attempt by Gavin Wimsatt and Athan Kaliakmanis from 2023 and group each throw into the following categories...
Great Throw: Perfect placement, a throw you watch and audibly saw "wow"
On Target Throw: A ball that is thrown on target to a receiver, whether it's caught or not
Bad Throw: A ball that is thrown high/low in the vicinity a receiver, whether it's caught or not. No opportunity for YAC
Uncatchable Throw: A ball that is thrown too high or too low for the intended target to catch
Throwaways: A ball that is intentionally thrown away
Tipped at Line: a ball swatted away at the line of scrimmage
Using these definitions, here's what I found...
Gavin Wimsatt
Athan Kaliakmanis
Mutual Opponents
A few notes I have based on the data and watching the film...
After watching both player's every throw multiple times now and charting both, there not much doubt in my mind that Athan had a better season in 2023 passing the ball than Gavin did. Neither QB is without their flaws, but Athan is the better passer at this time. The QB competition will be a battle in the spring/summer, excited to see how it shakes out
Great Throw: Perfect placement, a throw you watch and audibly saw "wow"
On Target Throw: A ball that is thrown on target to a receiver, whether it's caught or not
Bad Throw: A ball that is thrown high/low in the vicinity a receiver, whether it's caught or not. No opportunity for YAC
Uncatchable Throw: A ball that is thrown too high or too low for the intended target to catch
Throwaways: A ball that is intentionally thrown away
Tipped at Line: a ball swatted away at the line of scrimmage
Using these definitions, here's what I found...
Gavin Wimsatt
Athan Kaliakmanis
Mutual Opponents
A few notes I have based on the data and watching the film...
- Athan throws more balls into traffic. Sometimes this results in tight window receptions, other times it results in PBUs/INTs. He's got more of a gunslinger mentality to him. Gavin is much more likely to throw the ball away than risk an INT
- Athan is much better in deep/intermediate passing. Not only is he more accurate, but more willing to attempt deep shots. It resulted in 11 DPIs along with 18 deep receptions (20+ yards downfield), while Rutgers had only 6 DPIs all year and only 9 deep receptions
- AK utilizes his athleticism much more than Gavin. Gavin had only 23 throws outside the pocket (rollouts, scrambles, etc), while Athan had 50 in just 12 games. This is an underrated aspect of Athan's game, extending plays
- AK threw far dump-offs to WRs/RBs/TEs than Gavin
- Gavin's throwing mechanics are a lot more repetitious than Athan's. AK looks out of control throwing sometimes, twisting/contorting his body to make a throw when he doesn't need to. Gavin struggles with accuracy, but he rarely changes his arm angle/contorts his body to make a throw
- Athan throws his fastball too often, especially when trying to squeeze a ball into tight windows. Needs to learn how to better layer his throws
- When Athan is off-target, he doesn't miss the area code of his receiver nearly as often as Gavin. Gavin had a 16.27% uncatchable throw rate while Athan's was 8.75%. Athan and Gavin had a very similar bad throw rate at 21.21% and 22.37% respectively
- Athan was significantly more accurate than Gavin this year, putting up a much higher great throw rate (9.76% to 6.78%), on target rate (51.85% to 45.08%) and combined good throw rate (61.62% to 51.89%)
- Against common opponents, those numbers bore out similarly... Great throws (9.23% to 6.29%), on target rate (53.08% to 45.91%) and combined good throw rate (62.31% to 52.20%)
After watching both player's every throw multiple times now and charting both, there not much doubt in my mind that Athan had a better season in 2023 passing the ball than Gavin did. Neither QB is without their flaws, but Athan is the better passer at this time. The QB competition will be a battle in the spring/summer, excited to see how it shakes out
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