Mailbag 222: Is Jackson Arnold holding onto the ball too long?
This week: Running the dang ball, Perry Thompson, Demarcus Riddick, Steven Pearl, changes in a new era and co-worker betrayal
AUBURN — As it was once said: There are decades where nothing happens in mailbags, and there are mailbags where decades happen.
Or something like that.
Since the last time I wrote a mailbag, Auburn has lost a controversial and close football game at Oklahoma, seen its legendary head basketball coach retire, promoted an assistant to that job on a permanent basis and has prepared for another tough road trip in football with some significant developments.
Oh, and we’re selling stickers.
We will talk about all of that, and more, in these next several thousand words. Let’s get right to it.
A lot of the sacks last week seemed to be coverage sacks, where Arnold had the ball in his hands 4+ seconds. On the one hand, he hasn’t throw an interception yet, but the OU game felt like the other extreme of taking zero chances.
Do you think that’s been a coaching emphasis, asking Arnold to prioritize ball control? Or was last week more just a case where the moment overwhelmed the player, and things unraveled?
Ryan
Heading into the Oklahoma game last week, Jackson Arnold was praised multiple times by Hugh Freeze for not turning the ball over. This is something the Tigers have talked about a lot since early last season, when turnovers killed their offense before giving way to a general lack of finishing drives down the stretch. Arnold had made good decisions with the ball in his hands and wasn’t trying to be Superman out there.
Against Oklahoma, there were 12 plays in which Arnold was brought down behind the line of scrimmage on clear-cut dropbacks: Nine sacks, two that got wiped out for penalties and one scramble that was well short of the line of scrimmage. This was going to be the basis of a Film Room earlier this week, before the gigantic basketball coaching news broke.
Freeze said earlier this week that he felt like around half of those plays where Arnold has “got to trust that our receivers in 1-on-1s will protect him and make a play.” The other half, roughly, came down to breakdowns in pass protection. When it comes to fixing the passing game from Oklahoma, it’s an everybody kind of problem.
According to Pro Football Focus, Arnold has had an average of 2.97 seconds to throw this season, which is the 14th-most among the 91 FBS quarterbacks with at least 100 dropbacks. He has also had 4.31 seconds to throw on plays ending in sacks, which is the 15th-most. Both marks are fourth in the SEC right now. Against Oklahoma, PFF had Arnold down for an average of 3.07 seconds to throw per dropback.
What does that mean? Essentially, those numbers show that Arnold isn’t getting pressured quickly. He’s got some of the most time to throw the ball of any college quarterback right now, and his sacks have been even longer.