What Texas A&M football fans are missing in the Conner Weigman-Marcel Reed debate

Texas A&M football fans are quickly becoming familiar with the concept that debate usually only serves to entrench people in their previous opinions. In the argument over who should start for the Aggies at quarterback going forward, I have seen precious few people who are willing to say that they’ve been convinced by a stat, narrative, or line of thinking.

It’s hard to be completely objective about something that you’re so invested in, of course. Strictly speaking, it’s impossible, but we see that in an especially pronounced way with how hot the emotions can run in something like this.

And they have indeed been running hot… and mostly in one direction. On Monday, we ran pieces detailing the argument for Weigman to start and the argument for Reed to start, and while surveying Facebook comment sections is nowhere approaching a sound polling method, the response has mostly been one of two things.

The most common thing I saw from people was an absolute conviction that Weigman is done for and Reed is the guy going forward. The second thing I saw—to be clear, much less often—was that maybe Weigman should still have a shot given that he was apparently injured in game one.

There was a surprising dearth of support for Weigman as the better quarterback. Of course, that doesn’t in itself mean that Weigman is not the better quarterback as much as it is a reflection of the fanbase’s attitude at this point.

Texas A&M football fans need to think more carefully about Conner Weigman vs. Marcel Reed

I don’t think I have to do too much work in service of the idea that this is not the ultimate factor in who should be the quarterback. Remember all the QB debates at the beginning of 2022? A lot of us ended up with egg on our faces there.

There’s been a low amount of quality debate about this whole thing. I think it is a little bit silly to project forward for each QB based solely on the team’s last result against P5 competition with them as a starter, but that seems to be what many are doing—Weigman lost against Notre Dame and Marcel won against Florida, so it’s clear who the better one is.

That’s very casual analysis, and to be fair, it’s not what most people are doing. But the thing that most people are doing is not much better: taking non-contextualized statistics from each guy’s last P5 start and projecting forward based on that.

There’s a big difference between results-based thinking and process-based thinking. To use an easy example, just because you hit a half-court shot doesn’t mean half-court shots are quality looks.

Results-based thinking is this: what matters is that I got the points. Process-based thinking is this: what I did to get the points is not a reliable way to continue to get points. In this way, results-based thinking is inherently backward-looking and non-predictive, and process-based thinking is inherently forward-looking and predictive.

Looking simply at wins and losses is the ultimate example of results-based thinking. Looking at play-level statistics is less so, but there’s a reason, for example, that guys don’t get drafted based on stats alone. It’s because the process to produce the stats and the stats themselves are not identical.

How did Marcel Reed actually do as a passer vs. Florida?

That sounds obvious, but let’s bring it to bear on this exact discussion. Reed went 11/17 for 178 yards against the Gators. That’s over 10 YPA (which is excellent, even against a bad defense) and is a respectable 64% completion.

Here’s the issue: 73 of those yards came on one completion to Cyrus Allen. Allen was wide open thanks to an amazing play design by Collin Klein, and so the fact that Reed underthrew the ball didn’t matter—Allen could slow down and catch it since there was not a defender within 20 yards. He also created most of those yards with his open-field running, getting all the way to the end zone.

Let’s take that completion out. Then, Reed is 10/16 for 102 yards. That’s 6.4 YPA—a massive drop. To illustrate the point further, we could take out the 29-yard touchdown pass to Theo (again schemed wide open by Klein as a first read on a play fake), and then Reed is 9/15 for 73 yards, putting him at 4.9 YPA.

This is not to say those completions don’t count—that would be silly. All I’m trying to say is that we should not treat the Florida game as though Reed was carving up a great defense with well-placed dimes the whole afternoon. There’s so much to praise him for in that game, but we need to call a spade a spade.

Breaking down film of Texas A&M football's Conner Weigman and Marcel Reed vs. McNeese

That’s why I try to hammer the McNeese game—not the statistics, but the processes of each quarterback against a common opponent. Both Weigman and Reed got snaps in that one with the first team. Conner began the day with some of the same nervous energy we saw from him in week one, but he eventually settled in and was throwing some dimes.

Those dimes are why PFF ended up grading him as the top quarterback in the country that week: the throws he was making were some that would have been impressive against air. He was hitting receivers right in stride (even if they were being interfered with), driving the ball on target in a very quickly-moving wind, and consistently placing his passes where only the WR could get them.

It’s because of that process that the team ended up scoring touchdowns on all five drives he led. When Reed came in, even with the ones, things looked far different—first of all, the defense keyed in on the rushing attack because they believed Reed was much less apt to beat them over the top… which ended up being correct. Marcel’s longest pass in that game was once again the result of a short catch and long run by Cyrus Allen.

But for all those that complained that Weigman was too quick to bail on the pocket, Reed was even quicker to do so, which is what led to his pass he made while falling down after tripping over Trey Zuhn’s leg. He was inaccurate while throwing off-platform on the run, too. He stared down receivers and threw late.

This, by the way, is one of the reasons it doesn’t make sense to throw out the McNeese game based solely on the idea that their defense is so bad that nothing should count. If that’s the case, why did Reed look so much worse against them than he did against Florida? Shouldn’t that mean that he should be even more penalized?

It should be said that while the McNeese defense is far worse than the Florida defense on a talent level, they were much better-coached and more often in the right spots. The offensive attack for A&M against the Gators was substantially different, schematically speaking, than it was against McNeese, which is likely a result of Klein tailoring things to Reed’s strengths.

Does Texas A&M football need a dynamic rusher or vertical threat?

That said, if the Aggies are unable to consistently stretch things vertically and run into a well-coached defense that can stand up to them on a physical level, things could get ugly quick. They could well face very few defenses like that through the rest of the year, but the point stands.

Let me once again be clear: the McNeese game is not finally determinative for each quarterback. However, it is a much bigger data point than many people are trying to make it out to be, since it’s the only example we have from this year of both guys playing the same opponent.

The fact of the matter is that Reed has not yet been asked to do a lot in the passing game. The Aggies ran all over that UF defense, giving Marcel the best cushion possible—and I’m glad for it! He handled pressure well in that game, especially early, but he wasn’t consistently getting out of third and longs via his arm; it was more so via the scramble.

The ceiling for this offense is highest with a QB who can be a consistent, accurate threat in the vertical passing game—yes, even this Klein offense where he likes to run the QB. That’s why Will Howard won out over Avery Johnson at Klein’s KSU last year, even though the former was a much worse runner than the latter.

Of course, if Weigman isn’t healthy, this point is moot. But it’s not like the guy is consistently being sidelined with minor knicks and knacks; he broke his foot last year, and this year sustained a shoulder injury in week 1 that he battled through for a week before suffering a setback. Point being, there’s no reason to label him injury-prone (without a results-based mindset, I mean).

I’m not saying Texas A&M football fans can’t favor Marcel Reed. I’m not saying Texas A&M football fans shouldn’t be upset with what we saw against Notre Dame. I am saying that most dismissals of Weigman are way too hasty, and most hagiography of Reed is far too overstated in a predictive sense.