Last season, Nick Marshall had a well-deserved reputation as a great athlete and a deadly runner. Nick was a wizard on the speed option and a threat to take it the distance on any given running play. His feet perpetually put pressure on defenses. He also had a reputation as a somewhat sketchy passer who struggled with progressing to his secondary and tertiary pass options and who sometimes missed an open receiver on a deep route. His shortcomings as a passer would seem to have strong support in the fact that Marshall is now playing corner in the NFL.
But in spite of questions about his passing ability, there are some stats from last season that indicate that Nick might not be so easily replaced, even by wunderkind Jeremy Johnson. For instance, in conference games only, Auburn led the SEC in passing efficiency at 159.07, just ahead of UGA and bama at 157.94 and 157.78. Likewise, against conference opponents, Auburn led the SEC in passing yards per attempt by a significant margin at 9.5 ypa. bama was second with 8.7 ypa followed by MSU and UGA at 8.3 and 8.1 respectively. Auburn was 3rd in completion percentage at 64.0, behind only UGA and TAMU with 67.9 and 65.8. Auburn was also tied with bama, Arkansas, and Ole Miss for second-lowest number of interceptions in conference games with only 5 on the season behind only UGA with 3. This stat may not be definitive considering Auburn threw fewer passes than most the others aside from UGA, but is impressive nonetheless.
Jeremy Johnson's fantastic first half performance against Arkansas surely made some contribution to the team stats above, but obviously are not solely responsible for them. Keeping in mind that all of the above was accomplished without the support of the dominant running game in 2013 and high first round NFL draft pick Greg Robinson at left tackle, these passing stats are pretty impressive. If Jeremy Johnson truly is as significantly better at passing than Nick Marshall as he is reputed to be, he could be very good indeed. But taking into account how dangerous Marshall was as a runner, Jeremy has some pretty large shoes to fill in order to do so.
But in spite of questions about his passing ability, there are some stats from last season that indicate that Nick might not be so easily replaced, even by wunderkind Jeremy Johnson. For instance, in conference games only, Auburn led the SEC in passing efficiency at 159.07, just ahead of UGA and bama at 157.94 and 157.78. Likewise, against conference opponents, Auburn led the SEC in passing yards per attempt by a significant margin at 9.5 ypa. bama was second with 8.7 ypa followed by MSU and UGA at 8.3 and 8.1 respectively. Auburn was 3rd in completion percentage at 64.0, behind only UGA and TAMU with 67.9 and 65.8. Auburn was also tied with bama, Arkansas, and Ole Miss for second-lowest number of interceptions in conference games with only 5 on the season behind only UGA with 3. This stat may not be definitive considering Auburn threw fewer passes than most the others aside from UGA, but is impressive nonetheless.
Jeremy Johnson's fantastic first half performance against Arkansas surely made some contribution to the team stats above, but obviously are not solely responsible for them. Keeping in mind that all of the above was accomplished without the support of the dominant running game in 2013 and high first round NFL draft pick Greg Robinson at left tackle, these passing stats are pretty impressive. If Jeremy Johnson truly is as significantly better at passing than Nick Marshall as he is reputed to be, he could be very good indeed. But taking into account how dangerous Marshall was as a runner, Jeremy has some pretty large shoes to fill in order to do so.
