New Georgia QB Jamie Newman has some big shoes to fill. Is he ready?

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Which QB would you choose for your team given the statistics shown below?

Before you make your decision, let me give you some more information. Player 1 had 110 rush attempts for 350 yards (3.2 yards per rush) while Player 2 had 180 rush attempts for 574 yards (3.2 yards per rush).

I think I’d prefer Player 2, because he had a slightly higher completion percentage and a higher yards per attempt average. But I wouldn’t fault you for selecting Player 1 at all, as he clearly takes care of the ball better then Player 1, which is why the difference in their passer ratings are basically negligible.

So if you chose Player 1, you chose Feleipe Franks from the 2018 season. If you chose Player 2, you chose Jamie Newman from the 2019 campaign.

This was my starting point for examining Georgia’s new graduate transfer QB from Wake Forest. Essentially what we’re talking about is someone with the track record of the guy who Kyle Trask just pushed out of town.

I have a ton of respect for Franks. I think he improved significantly in 2019 before he was injured. And prior to the 2019 season, I thought he was poised to put on an aerial show that Florida fans hadn’t seen since Tim Tebow roamed the Swamp.

But he was limited.

And so that’s what I expected to see when I dove deeper into Jamie Newman. I expected to see a limited, but effective, quarterback. I certainly didn’t expect to see a player that some pundits are immediately calling the best QB in the SEC.

But I have to say, after looking at the film, I see what those pundits are talking about. Newman looks like the best QB in the SEC when you turn on the actual game tape and see some of the throws he can make.

But as you’re going to see, what he shows on film doesn’t always match up with his statistical profile. That makes the question of whether Newman can lead Georgia to where Jake Fromm could not fascinating.

Skill Set

When you first turn on the tape of Newman, the first thing you notice is that he has a pretty quick release and an absolute cannon for an arm. The ball just seems to jump out of his hand.

This….is an NFL throw. Third-and-5 and he has to throw an out to the numbers from the opposite hash. Not only is the ball on-time, but it hits his receiver as he curls back inside and allows him to turn a first down into a big gain.

Here’s another example. Newman is able to hit the tight end over the middle, throwing a rope that allows his receiver to get to the ball before the safety can come over to make a play, let alone get a hit to break up the pass.

But this is my favorite one.

Virginia Tech only rushes three defenders. Newman has to give his receivers time to get open behind the coverage defense. He goes through multiple progressions and then throws an absolute laser to Hinton on the sideline for the first down with a defender at his feet.

So he has a strong arm. But that play also shows his poise in the pocket and his ability to go through progressions. This wasn’t the only time I saw that either.

This is a pretty good touch throw by Newman. But what is more impressive is that he recognizes that the defense in in a single-high safety look. He then uses his eyes to get the safety to commit to the receiver at the top of the screen. At that point, he shifts back and hits his receiver in one-on-one coverage for a big gain.

He also shows a knack for throwing his receivers open.

Virginia Tech only rushes four defenders here, leaving seven in coverage against the five Wake Forest receivers. Newman finds Surratt (#14) in one-on-one coverage. But he doesn’t lead him towards the back of the end zone like a lot of QBs would do in this situation. Instead, he throws to his back shoulder, even though the throw isn’t on the boundary.

If this play reminds you of someone, it should.

That isn’t to say that Newman is Joe Burrow. Burrow made an incredible leap from 2018 to 2019, and expecting that happen for Newman is a reach. The main reason is that even when he was struggling in 2018, Burrow always showed good throwing mechanics. You can’t always say the same for Newman.

Virginia Tech brings the blitz on this play. Wake Forest picks it up. But look at how Newman throws off his back foot trying to avoid contact. He still made a good throw that probably should have been caught, but this is something that’s going to have to improve if he wants to be more consistent.

This is another example of poor mechanics, as the receiver is open and Newman isn’t pressured. But he drifts left while throwing the ball and doesn’t really step into the throw. The result is that the ball ends up in the dirt and Wake Forest has to settle for a field goal.

And when we’re talking about Newman’s skills, we can’t ignore his running ability.

Newman had games of 78, 87, 102 and 144 yards rushing in 2019. This is an example of what he can do when given the green light to take off. He’s going to get a chance to do that more often at Georgia, as the Bulldogs are going to be way more gifted on the offensive line than Wake Forest.

Accuracy

One of the interesting things (to me, at least) is that there is a real disconnect from all of the things I’ve shown you on film above and Newman’s stats.

Newman only completed 60.9 percent of his passes in 2019 on 361 throws. He completed 59.6 percent in 2018 on 141 attempts. We have a pretty large sample size at this point that says this is who he is.

And I don’t think you can blame Wake’s offensive line. The Demon Deacon’s line ranked 28th in sack rate and improved to 11th on passing downs. Certainly Newman has something to do with that, but it’s not like he was getting hit all the time.

One thing I think I’ve uncovered while writing at this site is that there is a correlation between high school completion percentage and college completion percentage. The idea is that accuracy at both levels is because the quarterback is reading defenses correctly and finding the open man rather than fitting the ball into tight windows.

One of the reasons I suspected Feleipe Franks likely had reached his ceiling at Florida was because he completed 59 percent of his passes his senior year of high school. Consequently, it wasn’t a surprise to me that he completed 59 percent of his passes in his three years at Florida.

Compare Franks to Newman in high school and it’s no comparison. Feleipe was a way better player, at a higher level of competition. This is how Newman wound up as the 649th ranked recruit nationally in 2016, being pursued by Wake Forest, Air Force, Appalachian State, Boston College and Duke.

He has already significantly outperformed his high school completion percentage in his time in college. Some of that might be because of the offense he ran in high school, but I also think it suggests that he has capped out. I wouldn’t expect much more than a 60 percent completion percentage in 2020 at Georgia.

The other thing that jumps out to me is how he was described by Pro Football Focus:

“No quarterback was forced to throw into a tight window more than Newman last season, and he overcame that to produce the second-highest passing grade on those throws – behind only Joe Burrow – and the third-lowest rate of uncatchable passes.”

I don’t doubt that the receivers at Wake Forest were inferior to the talent that Newman will enjoy at Georgia. But the thing that would concern me if I were a Georgia fan is the “forced to throw into a tight window” part of that quote.

Remember what I said above, that accuracy at the college level is tied to going to the right read rather than fitting the ball into a tight window. Even at Wake Forest, there are going to be times that the coverage gives you an open man. If Newman was “forced” to throw into those situations, it’s because he chose to do so.

This play is a perfect example. It’s a third down and short and Newman immediately looks at his best receiver, Sage Surratt (#14) at the bottom of the screen. But notice how Virginia Tech has its corner up on Surratt while the defensive backs at the top of the screen are eight yards off both receivers.

This should be an easy pitch and catch to one of them, and they are both open. Instead, the pass rush gets to Newman and forces a sack because he both initially looks to Surratt and also because he stays with him for so long.

On this play, Virginia Tech bracketed Surratt. I’ve paused the tape in the play so you can see exactly where the two defenders were when Newman let go of the ball. How in the heck did he get it through? At the same time, look at the slot receiver and how wide open he is in the flat at the top of the screen.

This could have been a walk-in touchdown had Newman decided to go to the open receiver. Instead, it’s still a touchdown, but this time required a pinpoint throw by Newman and an unbelievable catch by Surratt.

This is something you see pretty consistently when you watch the tape on Newman. He clearly trusted Surratt and Kendall Hinton more than his other receivers as those two accounted for 50 percent of Wake Forest’s receptions and 53 percent of its yards receiving.

But targeting those two means that the defense knows where to focus. That means to continually target them, you have to ignore throwing to where the coverage dictates, which means you’re choosing to throw into tight windows.

You might be able to get away with that against Virginia Tech, NC State or Duke. You’re going to have trouble doing that consistently against Alabama, Auburn and Florida.

Takeaway

Jamie Newman is a really hard QB for me to get a read on.

I say this because when you watch film of most QBs, you see a reflection of what you see in their underlying statistics. Gators QB Kyle Trask – for instance – gets rid of the ball quickly and spreads the ball around but is almost always throwing to the correct man. His high completion percentage is a function of the things he does well.

When I looked at Kelan Mond earlier this month, it became obvious that his decision-making – particularly on third down – was responsible for holding back his offense.

But Newman shows the ability to read a defense. His cannon of an arm seemed to be accurate in the two complete games that I watched. And he has the ability to run the ball when things break down.

Yet, he only completed 61 percent of his throws. He only averaged 7.9 yards per attempt. And he only averaged 3.2 yards per rush.

He looks really, really impressive on a play-to-play basis. But his overall body of work just doesn’t add up to all of the impressive skills that you can see.

So is that an issue of the talent around him?

Well, I don’t think so. When you look at advanced statistics for his offensive line, they weren’t terrible in the running game and were actually pretty good in the passing game. Additionally, there are scouts out there who believe Surratt would have been a day 2 draft pick had he come out this season. And while Kendall Hinton and Scotty Washington weren’t drafted last week, they were both brought in as undrafted free agents, Hinton by the Broncos and Washington by the Bengals.

So that’s three receivers that the NFL thought might be good enough to make a roster.

Instead, I think the issue is what I alluded to up above. The fact that Hinton and Surratt were targeted so often indicates that Newman often predetermined where the ball was going before the snap. That makes things easier on the defense, especially if the QB is unable to adjust.

In all of the throws that I showed above – even the impressive ones – it was almost always Hinton or Surratt catching the ball. That’s fine when it’s the right read. And those guys are good; Newman should be looking their way. But when he looks their way to the exclusion of others, that becomes a problem.

That’s how you get a huge difference in your splits based on the quality of a team’s defense. Newman faced two top-25 defenses (in yards per play allowed) in 2019 and went 18-41 (43.9%) for 216 yards (5.6 yards per attempt). Against Power-5 teams, that improved to 54.8 percent and 7.2 yards per attempt. But he cleaned up in six match-ups against defenses ranked 75th or worse, completing 67.9 percent of his passes with a passer rating of 159.5.

The competition is going to get ratcheted up in 2020 for Newman, as he’ll face five defenses that finished in the top-32 in 2019 in yards per play allowed (Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Tennessee and Missouri). So while the talent that will surround him is going to be better, so will the talent of his opponents.

I think all of this says that Newman has the skills you need to be an elite QB, but has not been able to consistently apply them yet over the course of a season. I’m not sure that his high school or college career to this point indicates that he will be able to do so, even in Athens.

That means that the most likely scenario for Newman is maybe a slightly better version than the 2018 season that Florida fans got from Feleipe Franks. That Florida team was able to go 10-3 – and Georgia will have a better defense than the 2018 Gators – but it also lost to Kentucky, Missouri and Georgia. Inconsistency at QB was a key cause for all of those losses.

But Newman is an extremely high variance QB. He has a chance, albeit small, to put things all together. And that’s a scary proposition, not just for Florida or the SEC East, but the whole country.

Fortunately for those of us who despise the Bulldogs, this scenario has a bunch of things working against it. The foremost thing is that even in normal circumstances, Georgia would be breaking in 9-10 new starters on offense with a new offensive coordinator in Todd Monken.

But these aren’t normal times. With COVID-19 shutting down everything, Newman, Monken and all of those new starters aren’t going to have spring practice, they aren’t going to have extra film work, they aren’t going to be able to do extra throwing on the side and they aren’t going to be able to build trust.

Because at some point, those new starters are going to get in the huddle down late in a game and the question will be this: do they trust that Newman is going to be able to lead them to victory?

And you can ask the same thing about Kirby Smart and Monken.

Smart clearly didn’t have that trust with Fromm, especially early on. He actively took the ball out of his hands when he had the opportunity to step on Alabama’s throat in the championship game three years ago.

And if Newman comes up short against Alabama or Auburn prior to the game in Jacksonville, there’s going to be another question rattling around Bulldogs’ fans heads if Georgia finds itself down late against the Gators.

How did Kirby let Justin Fields transfer to Ohio State?

Featured image used under Creative Commons license courtesy Tammy Anthony Baker