The talk of benching Mangum boils my blood. Unpopular viewpoint, I get it, but it bugs me still the same. I love how much of his heart, soul, and body he has sacrificed for our program and all the dragging his name in the mud that is happening seems really immature and stupid to me. Anyway, I decided I would look into the stats and see how Mangum was actually stacking up against comparable talent. I did a sample of 23 P5 QBs with teams that have winning records and excluded the superstars. Some might argue I should've included the superstars, but for the sake of comparison I thought it would be more meaningful to compare Tanner against successful non-superstar QBs.

So far this year Mangum (3-3) has thrown for 1,042 passing yards with a completion rate of 61.5% and YPA of 5.73, 5-3 TD-INT ratio (1.66.)

Here's the stats from the sample:

Avg. Win %: 68.11%
Bottom: 60%
Top: 83.33%
Tanner: 50%

Avg. Passing Yards: 989
Bottom: 422
Top: 1,487
Tanner: 1,042

Avg. Completion %: 59.3%
Bottom: 49.6%
Top: 66.4%
Tanner: 61.5%

Avg. Yards Per Attempt (YPA): 7.22
Bottom: 5.78
Top: 8.45
Tanner: 5.73

Avg. TD-INT ratio: 2.441
Bottom: 0.6
Top: 6
Tanner: 1.66

Conclusions:

Remember, the sample was restricted to only P5 QB's whose team has a >50% winning percentage and wasn't a superstar QB.

Compared to the sample...

- Tanner is above average in passing yards.
- He is above average in completion percentage.
- He worse than anyone else in YPA (by 0.05 yards.)
- He is below average in TD-INT ratio.

Take it for what it's worth, but I can't shake the feeling that Tanner is not a below average QB and can do more than we're letting him do.