Free Ryan Katz!
by BeaverBeliever12 on Sep 13, 2011 7:18 PM PDT
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PrintSo as it is reported today Sean Mannion is the new starter for the Beavs. While I have no problem with Riley selecting Mannion over Ryan Katz I don't like how Katz is getting treated. He came into the season the incumbent starter and worked through the entire camp as the starter as well, and after one half of football he is pulled and for someone of roughly equal value? Judging from what I've seen in games and in several fall practices I did not see anything to really separate one from the other. Mannion has greater height and his passes will not be deflected at the same rate as Katz (which seems fairly high). Mannion also seems to go through his progression better than Katz, which seems to be the main knock on Katz. Katz has the obvious edge in arm strength and athletic ability. Both have long wind ups, it seems to me that these abilities mostly even out. Now two games into the season Riley has taken Katz out in favor of the essentially even Mannion. This is the not the NFL, this is college football, it is not a business. Katz is a junior and cannot transfer now without using the Masoli/Russell Wilson grad school loophole. This is affecting the future of Katz, it goes beyond just a simple football decision. I really hope that Ryan Katz gets to transfer somewhere else next year, just because he won't be the starter here doesn't mean he cannot do well somewhere else. If RIley truly believes that Mannion is and will be the better quarterback then he should start him, but he needs to grant Katz an unconditional release for next year. That is the best thing that could happen for all parties involved.
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of SB Nation or the Building the Dam staff. FanPost opinions are valued expressions of opinion by passionate and knowledgeable Oregon State fans.
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Kind of morbid, but...
with all the freshmen on the line, I’d give it even odds that Katz gets his chance to start later, if you know what I mean :-/
I understand what you are saying and agree with what you are saying
but what is a coach to do the pressure is on and the knock on Coach Riley has been he does not change enough so he make a change and know everyone does not like the change darned if you do darned if you do that that you are hating on him but he should let him go if this is what he wants
oh, them beavers
Though Katz situation is really quite unfortunate and I feel bad that it has coming to this. But the football team is not just made up Ryan Katz, there are about 80+ players who are part of that team.
Coach Riley has to make a decision that he deemed best for the team, emotion aside.
as thembever alluded…. Coach decides one way, he is being accused of being too nice, decides another way and he is being accused of not giving his player a chance. Meanwhile, the season goes on….
There are actually over 100 players
(not to mention a lot of other involved students, family, staff, etc….. who are significantly impacted),
which is why the head coach has the responsibility to make the best decisions for the good of all.
Whether this was the right decision won’t be known for a little while. But in this case, how the decision process unfolded, or unraveled, has an impact on how likely the decision is to work out.
Andy Wooldridge, andy_wooldridge@yahoo.com
BuildingTheDam.Com
Go Beavs!
Sure it was strange to us all
Especially that strange start Katz then put in Mannion what was it like three snaps later against Wisconsin. That was bizarre. But you, and BeaverBeliever seem to be implying that the decision making process has been questionable and that how this has come down will have some larger effects on the team’s performance (?).
But in the grand scheme of college football I really don’t see how this is that big of a deal. I think it is much more a big deal that Katz showed a ton of potential then folded into mediocre. Maybe it is the play calling, I have questioned that at times, but all-in-all it seems like the team needs a leader out there on offense and with the loss of Quizz and lack of James it has come back to Katz and personally I don’t think he stepped up and Riley is going for a change up.
Guess what I’m saying here is really doesn’t this all come much more down to Katz’s lack of productivity (look at his numbers in the games last season after the UA one, even the wins, and he was terrible against Sac State) and lack of leadership versus the decision making process, even if that process was bizarre for three snaps?
I know I’m critical at times, but it is a bit ironic that we were just defending Riley’s judgment on the suspensions and now we are questioning his decision process about changing out QBs when one was not making the grade? I mean he’s mentored some pretty decent QBs over the years there could be something we have not seen, since we haven’t been to all the practices, in Mannion?
-RVM
There are a number of good points involved here...
As far as Katz’ performance tailing off, while I think we can all agree that Katz, at least subconsciously, lost some confidence when he lost James Rodgers (as did everyone, for obvious reasons), it’s worth noting the other thing that happens about half way through the first season for all new star players. Other teams get some tape on the new guy, and instead of being an unknown quantity, they formulate a better plan to deal with him.
That doesn’t, however, account for Katz’s hesitancy against Sac. St., which is actually the biggest surprise in all of this. The only reasonable explanation I’ve been able to come up with is he was so concerned with making a mistake that he wouldn’t take even a calculated risk.
He didn’t display that last week in Wisconsin, but getting in for only 7 plays, its not a large enough sampling to draw any conclusion from, and Riley had already reached his conclusion, he just hadn’t announced it formally.
Riley seems to have fallen in love with the new kid with the big arm that can sling the ball all over. Which, ironically, is the same thing that happened with Katz, and made it expedient to jettison the more experienced Peter Lalich, who was clearly better at that point, but could reasonably be argued did not have as high a ceiling as Katz appeared to have.
As far as transferring, its too late to do anything this season/term, and it would be foolhardy to do anything irreversible until some time to cool down from the shock of the events of the last 2 weeks has passed.
There’s also still a good possibility that Mannion, a much less mobile player than Katz, may go down. 11 of 12 Pac teams had to change qbs unexpectedly and under duress last year, and its already happened to two teams this year. Or Mannion may flame out so badly that he deletes himself. I’m in no way hoping for either, but the reality is it could happen, and Katz may be called on to save the season.
Once the season winds down, and we all know a lot more about the situation is with the Beavers and other teams is, there will be plenty of time for Katz, and Cody Vaz as well, to reevaluate their situation and their options.
Andy Wooldridge, andy_wooldridge@yahoo.com
BuildingTheDam.Com
Go Beavs!
I understand
that Riley thought that something needed to change, and it did, but I feel that the whole situation was poorly handled. Now that Riley has named Mannion the starter he needs to stand by that choice, and as such, Katz should be free to seek out a starting opportunity next year with no hindrances for OSU. Thats what I intended for my post to really mean.
by BeaverBeliever12 on Sep 14, 2011 4:47 PM PDT reply actions
Poorly handled?
I have to say I’m with the above comments and why is it so poorly handled in terms of Katz personally? He has not produced for a good many games now and he’s on a competitive team, the coach made a decision that he felt was best for the team. In many ways it seemed to me that if anything was poorly handled was the fact that Riley seemed to give Katz more chances than maybe he would have got with another coach and this led to a strange “what is going on” in the media, public, and for the team.
I’m not sure what it achieves Katz to give up and leave the program because of this in terms of his long term chances (for instance the NFL). I would be more inclined to say it would benefit him to prove himself here. Not the first time a QB on a college team lost their starting position. Plus where would he go to get a better opportunity? He’s on scholarship, that’s a pretty good deal. Does he go to a lower tier conference so he can be sure to start? I can tell you I don’t see him starting for a team in a conference like any of the major Div 1 ones the way he has been playing. That said maybe I’m wrong and he could excel transferring like Matt Moore did to here, just don’t see him playing right now with that much confidence, and with that much skill, though to make that type of leap.
-RVM
It seems to me
that Katz was sort of blindsided by all this. I realize that much of the fault for the switch falls on Katz and that it was certainly tough on Riley after hearing an interview with him today. While watching fall camp it did not seem like an open competition, and so I think that Katz was not prepared for this whole thing. Hearing his comments after sac state, I did not think that he was aware of a plan to play each qb for a half.
From a football standpoint I think that it is a fine decision, I trust Riley’s talent evaluation over my own. I just think that if it was a more blatant competition a little earlier it would not have been so awkward for the last game and prior week.
Also I think that transferring would best for Katz unless he really wants to finish his degree. For his pro prospects I think he needs to show that he has grown, his best opportunity would be in a starting position. The only NFL qb that was drafted as a backup college qb that I can think of was Matt Cassel and that was USC. If that starting job is at a lower tier school then thats the best available spot. If he stays he could try and work himself back in, but I think that Riley really believes in Mannion
by BeaverBeliever12 on Sep 15, 2011 5:40 PM PDT up reply actions
Katz, and a lot of others,
were blindsided. The result is something of an emotional free for all for the whole team, which is the last thing a team with so much inexperience needed.
Any coach always has the prerogative to change up any player when the team’s best interests are at stake, but there is more to that than just as small a sampling of data as one half in the first game of the season.
Of course Mannion has caught some attention. Katz was held out of spring ball over concerns about his wrist, and after it initially looked like a couple of weeks was going to be plenty.
Then, Riley put him on a pitch count during fall camp for the stated reason of not over-using his arm, and wearing it out. There’s no reason to do that if you aren’t planning to actually use that arm later.
At the same time, the publicity department was selling Katz as a key piece to the puzzle this season. If that wasn’t Riley’s doing, he certainly was on board with it, or should have been. If there was uncertainty about going forward with a commitment to Katz, which would have been ok, Riley shouldn’t have allowed the message to the contrary to be sent to the rest of the team, and the world.
Vaz then missed a week of camp with a back problem the training staff didn’t want to get worse. Mannion got all the snaps either Katz or Vaz missed, and became the eye-catching new guy.
One thing that has carried Riley through thick and thin has been the trust his players and everyone else has had in his word. You could disagree with him, and many did, but you could also take him at his word.
This episode, especially in conjunction with his maddening hesitancy in the Rodgers affair, has put a doubt in the back of everyone’s mind about every major decision. Everyone seems to agree that this team needs leadership on the field as much as anything, but they also need it on the sideline. Riley has inadvertently created doubt, and therefore hesitancy, in many with his efforts to deal with the hesitancy that Katz exhibited.
Andy Wooldridge, andy_wooldridge@yahoo.com
BuildingTheDam.Com
Go Beavs!
I think I'm on the same page of much of what you have posted above Andy, but maybe I'm just not following it all enough because
This episode, especially in conjunction with his maddening hesitancy in the Rodgers affair, has put a doubt in the back of everyone’s mind about every major decision.
To me this seems to go against the main arguments BeaverBeliever is putting forward isn’t it? To me this seems to say that Riley held out hope for Katz to show him something too long and as such how would that be such a bad rub on Katz if he was given a bunch of chances?
The three snaps thing was very weird, but we don’t really know do we? Maybe the staff actually had some more aggressive calls in place that Katz totally messed up and again demonstrated he was too tentative or misreading routes, so then it was “ok hell with this we are in the game now let’s put in the guy who has shown us more, Katz’s head is not in this, and maybe Mannion can give us a spark.” All in all, for whatever reason they did it, was it all the best way to handle it in that Wisconsin game? Nah, in my opinion if Mannion is the guy he should have been thrown right in as the starter and they should have opened it up a lot on that first drive. But that’s me and the dynamics of being really there and coaching are so much more complex.
I guess I just personally don’t see all of this THAT much out of the norm of football coaching decisions to see it as making me doubt “every major decision.” Maybe others do on the inside?
I do think that Riley has been struggling for the last year or so with the dynamics of players he is working with and trying hard to find some sort of spark, and with a Riley team I think that is a difficult balance for the program really works better at a level of steady and grind it out on the field leadership (Moore’s 2006 and Canfield’s 2009 seasons I think were both great examples of this), but right now there seems to be needing a much more explosive spark of leadership.
-RVM
"more aggressive calls in place that Katz totally messed up"?
He had three plays, they went well, and he picked up the first down. Anyone would have taken that script.
And then he was not only pulled, he never played consecutive plays again.
Andy Wooldridge, andy_wooldridge@yahoo.com
BuildingTheDam.Com
Go Beavs!
Yeah, I know it and agree but
That’s just from our vantage point. I’m just trying to be a bit hypothetical here to make the point that maybe we don’t know the whole picture. Just saying what if Katz has been missing more aggressive route reads like last season and all through practice, and that is what he has suppose to be working on and he had an agreement that if he needs to be more aggressive in his reads, and the staff called two of those type of routes and he went tentative again. Then maybe the coaching staff is going ok so he gave us a first down but he did by missing a deep over the middle route and had to run it, we don’t want our QBs running we want them hitting that route to stretch the defense to free up the run.
Overall to me personally it looked as if Mannion wasn’t getting plays called for longer routes or he was also missing them too, so I would tend to agree that it didn’t make a lick of sense. I’m just trying to say maybe we are missing some stuff from our vantage point. I’m not ready to go the Riley and Co. pregame night drug parties theory quite yet, and looking at more logical explanations!
-RVM
Riley had said
that he had planned to pull Katz like that the entire time with the whole different package thing. He also admitted that in retrospect it was a terrible idea.
by BeaverBeliever12 on Sep 16, 2011 10:40 PM PDT up reply actions
Yeah, I know, sorry I’m being totally confusing, I was trying to expand my initial “hypothetical” situational/thoughts here and saying “what if”, yep looking back I didn’t make that at all clear and didn’t transition that at all well with my thoughts in the first time I brought it up.
I’m just saying there is probably more going on than we know, and even more than Riley is going to let on in public. I do NOT mean to imply a conspiracy, but just stuff that I would imagine Riley and his staff want Katz to do to prove that he can compete for the starting spot again, and it is basically that coach and player “contract” that happens on every team. And this gets to why I don’t feel all that bad for Katz, it is part of the deal of being a player at this level. In my opinion I think that Riley was actually a bit too “nice” to Katz with trying to keep him in the rotations.
So my main questions really are: Doesn’t this all just then say Riley was being too nice to Katz with trying to keep him involved? Wouldn’t other coaches just benched the guy if they thought they had another player in place and said that’s that, tough luck, and prove us wrong in practice. Is Riley finally there now so the team can move on?
-RVM
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