Group Stupid Mindthink and Quinn

As expected, the pendulum is beginning to swing back on the media characterization of Brady Quinn. Which is par for the course given the Shallow Hal analysis thats infuses most articles on Quinn and Notre Dame. Whenever group stupid mindthink hits a tipping point of widespread use, it's usually overrun the point or beat it beyond recognition. Before the year Quinn was the Heisman favorite and media darling, which was really a little over the top -- but understandable. Quinn played exceptionally well last year, but he also threw a lot a deep balls that were placed high rather than on target. What I mean is that with Stovall, Shark and Fasano, he really didn't have to be as on the mark, because if he put the ball at the apex, ND was going to come down with it every time. So there were some question marks in my mind going into this season about how he would fair without Stovall, who had an underrated senior campaign. But group stupid mindthink assumed things would only get better.

They didn't and the first game things didn't go as expected (Georgia Tech) group stupid mindthink immediately went in overdrive in the opposite direction. And there were some iffy moments in that game, but as we later found out Georgia Tech was a very good team. The Michigan game sealed the fate of group stupid mindthink on Quinn. But no one looked closer at interceptions that received the headlines. It wasn't noted on those Ints that the first int should have been caught, that his arm was hit on the second or that he was attempting an incredibly hard throw on the third because he had to.

I think Quinn actually made some better throws this year than he did the year before. In fact, he was very good in the first half against LSU, but drops and stupid penalties killed Irish momentum. In many ways I think Quinn is a better quarterback now even though group stupid mindthink believes his stock to have dropped. Seth Wickersham is one of the few writers (there have been several recent positive articles) approaching the Quinn draft analysis with a rational perspective. Here's his take:

It's true: College statistics really can predict NFL performance. For our 2006 Pro Football Prospectus, we studied 10 years' worth of drafts and discovered that the single greatest indicator of NFL success for QBs taken in the first two rounds is the number of college games they started. Philip Rivers, for one, started 51 games at NC State. Donovan McNabb started 49 college games and Carson Palmer started 45. On the flip side, busts-to-be Joey Harrington (28), Jim Druckenmiller (24) and Akili Smith (19) had relatively little starting experience.

What about the QBs who will go early in the 2007 draft? Brady Quinn started 46 games and completed 58 percent of his passes, almost identical to McNabb and halfway between Palmer and Jay Cutler. JaMarcus Russell completed 62 percent of his passes but had just 29 starts. Those are numbers similar to Kellen Clemens' and Rex Grossman's. Russell certainly has first-round talent, but if the past is any guide, a team that drafts him ahead of Quinn could be turning over a new Leaf.

And note here that Brady's completion % under Weis was above 60%. Is this an absolute barometer? Absolutely not. And again, I think Russell has a lot of talent. But it does point to issues that are usually more telling than group stupid mindthink. The Cleveland Plain Dealer and New York Times also ran articles wondering about the strange anti-Quinn chatter. In this case, the negative talk could help Quinn in the long run. Immediate dollars aside, he'll be much better served by going to a good team. The world will little note nor long remember high draft picks, it sure as hell remembers who wins SuperBowls.

Likewise group stupid mindthink assumed Notre Dame would be terrible in 2005, great in 2006 and mediocre to terrible in 2007. I think group stupid mindthink will be wrong again and that ND could sneak into the BCS and the press that turned negative on ND because it didn't perform at the level of group stupid mindthink expectation last year, could very well turn positive this year, just like group stupid mindthink was negative and then absurdly positive in 2005.

One thing I tend to see about group opinions is that by the time they become universal, the ground has usually shifted. This trend is exacerbated by the dog pile on the rabbit mentality that infuses every story line about Notre Dame. As Lou says, "teams are rarely as good or bad as they seem." The same is true of group, stupid, mindthink where ND is concerned.

BTW, please send edits, etc. as there is no editor for these articles.

~ The Rock