Hutson Mason: Beyond The Numbers (Breakdown/Long)

quote:

---

Since I keep hearing about how well Mason did from UGA fans in his starts, I decided to try and break him down.

I decided to mark down all of his passes from the GT game. The categories are:

5 Yards or Less

6-10 Yards

11-20 Yards

20 Yards or More

The other thing I did was actually mark down how far Mason threw the ball, then I added how many yards the play ended up going for. Essentially, I broke it down to how many yards he actually threw for, and how many were YAC.

Here's what I found:

First Half:

Passes 5 yards or less (Screens are behind LOS): 1 (bubble screen turned into a 10 yard gain) 2( Screen for 2 yards) 3 (Screen pass for 13) 4 (5 yard pass incomplete) 5 (5 yard pass, goes for 13) 6 (4 yard pass to Gurley, goes for 9, Touchdown)= 5/6, 83.3 percent, 1 TD

Passes 6-10 yards: 1 (Throws 10 yards, goes for 12)= 1/1, 100%

Passes 11-20 yards: 1 (12 yard pass incomplete) 2 (Throws 11 yards off his back foot, picked) 3 (Throws 13 yards, goes for 17) 4(14 yard pass incomplete) 5(Throws 12 yards, goes for 15) 6(Throws 13 yards, goes for 19)= 3/6, 50%

Passes 20 yards or more:

TOTAL= 9/13, 69 percent, 1 TD/ 1 Pick


Second Half-

Passes 5 yards or less (Screens are behind LOS): 1 (4 yard pass, goes for 6) 2 (4 yard pass incomplete) 3 (Screen pass for 8) 4 (Screen, incomplete) 5 (Screen pass, goes for 11) 6 (Screen incomplete) 7 (2 yard pass incomplete)= 3/7, 42.8%

Passes 6-10 yards: 1 (9 yard pass for a Touchdown) 2(6 yard pass complete)= 2/2, 100%, 1 TD

Passes 11-20 yards: 1 (19 yard pass incomplete) 2 (13 yard pass complete) 3 (18 yard pass incomplete) 4 (14 yard pass complete) 5 (12 yard pass complete) 6 (12 yard pass incomplete) 7 (14 yard pass incomplete) 8 (11 yard pass complete) 9(9 yard pass complete) 10(12 yard pass, goes for 21) 11(12 yard pass incomplete)= 6/11, 54.5%

Passes 20 yards or more: 1 (31 yard pass complete) 2 (25 yard pass incomplete) 3 (33 yard pass complete)= 2/3, 66.6%

TOTAL= 13/23, 56.5%, 1 TD

OVERALL TOTAL= 22/36, 61.1%, 299 yards, 2TD/1 pick.

Now, I also did an adjusted total. That is, I took out the YAC to see what it would look like. I also completely eliminated screens that were behind the LOS.

Adjusted Totals Minus Screens: 17/26, 65.3 percent, 211 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT (TD To Gurley Not Included as it was YAC)

You can see his percentage actually goes up, as some of the screens were dropped. However, his yardage also drops significantly, and he loses a TD as Gurley turned a 4 yard pass into a 9 yard TD.

Now, it was only one game. I admit, I haven't had time to watch the Nebraska game. Maybe he did significantly better in that game. But here's my pros and cons for Mason.

Pros:
1. The first thing that stood out to me was his mobility. IMO, he's faster than Murray. He's not Manziel, but he turned some broken plays into pretty decent yardage.

2. He's pretty accurate from about 5-15 yards. He could drop it in or bullet it through a window in that range.

3. He doesn't make a lot of mistakes. He doesn't force a lot of passes, and will hit his checkdown (which he did with Gurley a lot). HOWEVER...

Cons:

1. He didn't seem to handle pressure that well. The interception that he threw was awful. A defender for GT broke free and got in his face, and he lobbed it up for grabs off his back foot. Very bad decision. He also heard footsteps when no one was around quite a few times and would take off when it wasn't needed. When GT got to him, he got flustered and didn't make great decisions.

2. His pocket presence needs work. Almost every sack could have been avoided had he stepped up into the pocket away from the rush. Too often, he stepped backwards or just froze and ate it.

3. His accuracy beyond 15 yards is not great. A good bit of both over and underthrows. And some of them that were caught were great plays by the receivers, not necessarily good throws. Not that he didn't have any good throws beyond 15 yards, but it was very inconsistent.

My final thoughts, again, purely from this game, are that Mason is not as bad as I thought he was. With that said, he's not Aaron Murray either. He did a lot of good work off of playaction, which Bobo loves, so that could be a concern. However, I wouldn't be too worried about getting burned by him like I would be with Murray at the helm.

---