Is UCF's Jeff Godfrey That Good Or Are Conference USA Defenses That Bad?

by Brian Favat on Jun 17, 2011 3:37 PM EDT in Boston College Football

Part of UCF Week.

Meet Jeff Godfrey, UCF's highly touted sophomore quarterback. All this guy did last year was put up 2,159 passing yards, 13 TDs, a 154.3 passing efficiency, 566 rushing yards, and 10 rushing TDs in his freshman season. Godfrey would finish the season with a higher passing efficiency rating than Matt Barkley, Landry Jones, Denard Robinson, Darron Thomas and Robert Griffin III, just to name a few.

So how good is this kid? Let's take a closer look at his 2010 splits compared to UCF's opponents final 2010 ranking in total defense and passing defense:

DATE	OPP	RESULT	CMP	ATT	YDS	CMP%	LNG	TD	INT	RAT	TOTAL D	PASS D
20-Nov	@Tulane	W 61-14	6	8	133	75	60	2	0	297.2	74	28
27-Nov	@Memphis	W 37-17	14	17	252	82.4	56	2	0	245.7	115	116
5-Nov	@Houston	W 40-33	15	19	294	78.9	49	2	0	243.7	103	68
30-Oct	East Carolina	W 49-35	8	12	159	66.7	40	2	0	233.0	120	107
4-Sep	South Dakota	W 38-7	6	7	65	85.7	23	1	0	210.9	N/R	N/R
6-Oct	UAB	W 42-7	9	11	137	81.8	44	0	0	186.4	80	105
4-Dec	SMU	W 17-7	15	19	167	78.9	21	1	0	170.1	40	43
23-Oct	Rice	W 41-14	13	18	178	72.2	59	1	1	162.5	107	119
11-Sep	N.C. State	L 28-21	7	10	107	70	29	0	0	159.9	31	72
13-Nov	Southern Miss	L 31-21	16	25	190	64	40	2	2	138.2	47	99
18-Sep	@Buffalo	W 24-10	15	24	130	62.5	27	0	0	108.0	33	18
13-Oct	@Marshall	W 35-14	11	21	138	52.4	19	0	1	98.1	71	94
31-Dec	Georgia	W 10-6	16	29	117	55.2	14	0	2	75.3	23	16
25-Sep	@ Kansas St.	L 17-13	8	18	92	44.4	32	0	2	65.2	106	52

Four of Godfrey's five best passing performance came against defenses that finished ranked 100+ (or unranked, in the case of I-AA South Dakota) in Total Defense, including an ECU defense that finished dead last in the nation. In all, five of UCF's 11 I-A opponents finished with a Total Defense ranked 100+.

On the flip side, Godfrey's passer ratings were much lower when he faced tougher defenses like Georgia, Buffalo and N.C. State. Buffalo and Georgia, in particular, both finished the year with Top 25 ranked passing defenses.

Now while BC finished in the middle of the pack last year in terms of passing defense (76), they did finish 13th in total defense and tops in rushing defense, something Godfrey does particularly well. In recent seasons, the Eagles defense has also done a really good job bottling up mobile QBs, including Cameron Higgins, Russell Wilson, Tyrod Taylor, Colin Kaepernick and Brandon Connette. It's probably not a stretch to say that the Boston College D will be the toughest unit Godfrey has gone up against in his short UCF career.

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Comments

It’s worth noting that his numbers vs. NC State came in about 20 minutes of action. He didn’t see the field until late in the third quarter, which is part of the reason why UCF lost that game, because Godfrey killed us.

Based on that limited experience, I like him quite a bit. But you’re definitely right that BC’s defense presents a big challenge for him.

Backing The Pack

by Akula Wolf on Jun 17, 2011 11:18 AM EDT reply actions

About Godfrey's performance,

for the Positive Impact Factor (which takes into account QB rushing, passing and receiving) in 2010, Godfrey was 17th out of 130 qualified quarterbacks with a 58.4 (Cam Newton led all QBs with a 70.4). When I ranked the schedule strength of each quarterback, Godfrey’s was ranked 122nd. C-USA Positive Impact Factor defensive rating was a 53.6, which was last in the country (MWC was second worst at 49.1). When I adjusted Godfrey’s rating based on his schedule he fell from 17th to 32nd. The South Dakota game was excluded from the schedule strength ratings (all the FCS games are), but he recorded a perfect 100 rating in that game. Overall, the performance against South Dakota was worth 2.6% of his total touches on the season.

Overall, not too bad at all for a Freshman.

Big East Coast Bias
One-Handed Grab
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by Patrick_the_Ruminator on Jun 17, 2011 11:20 AM EDT reply actions