Listed below are statistics of Quarterbacks in the top 100 rushers in a given year. Immediately below each one, there is a snippet on where each one was drafted, or how they did in the NFL. As you can see, the number of times a quarterback rushes the ball has little bearing on where he will be drafted. Rather, it is a matter of which skills you have.
| 2007 | |||||
| Player | Class | Rushes | Yds | Passes | Eff |
| Michael Desormeaux | Jr | 188 | 1141 | – | – |
| Pat White | Jr | 197 | 1335 | 216 | 151.4 |
| Jake Locker | Fr | 172 | 986 | – | – |
| Dan LeFevour | So | 188 | 1122 | 543 | 133.5 |
| K-N Kaheaku-Enhada | Jr | 180 | 834 | – | – |
| Stephen McGee | Jr | 181 | 899 | 364 | 117.8 |
| Tim Tebow | So | 210 | 895 | 350 | 172.5 |
| Matt Grothe | So | 198 | 872 | 392 | 121.0 |
| Zac Robinson | So | 140 | 879 | 333 | 149.0 |
All of these players are back in college this year, but several of them are NFL-bound. Pat White will be a first day pick as a receiver, and Tim Tebow and Dan LeFevour are locks to be eventual NFL draft picks. Grothe will probably also make it to the NFL, along with Jake Locker, Matt Grothe, and maybe Zac Robinson.
| 2006 | |||||
| Player | Class | Rushes | Yds | Passes | Eff |
| Julian Edelman | Jr | 169 | 658 | 232 | 124.4 |
| Pat White | So | 165 | 1219 | – | – |
| James Starks | Fr | 175 | 704 | – | – |
| Chris Nickson | So | 146 | 694 | 292 | 122.8 |
| Bernard Jackson | Jr | 155 | 677 | 219 | 103.3 |
None of these players made it to the NFL (yet, as several are still eligible).
| 2005 | |||||
| Player | Class | Rushes | Yds | Passes | Eff |
| Brad Smith | Sr | 229 | 1301 | 399 | 114.1 |
| Vince Young | Jr | 155 | 1050 | 325 | 163.9 |
| Pat White | Fr | 151 | 932 | – | – |
| Lamar Owens | Sr | 213 | 880 | – | – |
| Michael Robinson | Sr | 163 | 806 | 311 | 127.2 |
| Reggie McNeal | Sr | 96 | 664 | 265 | 128.6 |
| Shaun Carney | So | 170 | 710 | – | – |
I think we all know how Vince Young made out after leaving Texas (3rd overall in 2006). Reggie McNeal was picked as a receiver in the 6th round. Brad Smith went in the 4th round at receiver, and Michael Robinson was a fellow 4th-rounder as a running back.
| 2004 | |||||
| Player | Class | Rushes | Yds | Passes | Eff |
| Vince Young | So | 167 | 1079 | 343 | 128.5 |
| Josh Cribbs | Sr | 170 | 893 | 335 | 133.2 |
| Aaron Polanco | Sr | 246 | 980 | – | – |
| Walter Washington | Jr | 222 | 889 | 332 | 118.5 |
| Rasheed Marshall | Sr | 169 | 861 | 242 | 143.4 |
| Drew Stanton | Jr | 96 | 687 | 220 | 131.8 |
| Joel Armstrong | Fr | 114 | 608 | – | – |
Rasheed Marshall (who played for Rich Rodriguez at WVU) was a 5th-round pick as a receiver. Josh Cribbs went undrafted, but is still playing in the NFL as a receiver/returner for the Cleveland Browns. Drew Stanton was the 2nd-round pick of the Detroit Lions in 2006, and is expected to challenge for their starting position this year.
Also, for the record, Michael Vick was a number 1 overall draft pick, despite only actually playing college football for 2 years, and being as far from a prototypical NFL quarterback as you can imagine. Offensive style doesn’t dictate where a “system quarterback” will be drafted. Instead, it is skill that is paramount. NFL GMs can tell if a guy has an NFL arm, regardless of whether he’s running the zone-read (Vince Young), a different type of running spread (Tim Tebow), or a passing-oriented offense (Dan LeFevour, among others).
Posted under Coaching, Recruiting
Tags: coaching, Football, NFL who cares, Recruiting
Tim, good info. I assume you got this info from the NCAA’s stats archive. Do you have any ideas about where I could go to get archived data on injuries to QBs?
I’d like to debunking the (IMO) myth that QBs that run get injured more than pocket QBs. I don’t believe this is true, and using these QBs (i.e. those that are in the Top 100 of rushing) is a good start.
Anyway, do you know of any sources for QB injuries?