The most futile (winning) passing performances of the last 15 years

Photo Attribution: USATSI

Clint Chelf’s performance in Ames on Saturday started off nicely enough. He was 4-5 for 43 yards on his first drive of the game. In the next 55:53 of game time he was 6-21 for 35 yards (and a TD!)

OSU rolled though — as much as it has rolled in a game since the UTSA affair back in early September.

This got me wondering about the most futile college football passing performances of the Miles/Gundy era that resulted in wins. Surely Chelf was at or near the top of the list (I mean, in all of college football).

Here they are — of the 10,000+ college football games that have been played since 2000,[1. So, 14 years — 14 looks weird on a headline though.] only eight have featured QBs who attempted 25 or more passes for 80 or fewer yards and still got the win.

And only two (including Chelf’s) were in BCS conference games.

So that’s not good.

Chelf actually had a somewhat-respectable QBR of 42 (50 is average, 100 is perfect, 0 is the opposite of perfect) on Saturday but that was mostly because he ran for almost 100 yards and threw a TD. It wasn’t even close to the three worst QBR outings of the Miles/Gundy era.

Here are those beauties in order:

Al Pena against Texas A&M — 2.4 QBR

Bobby Reid against Colorado — 3.4 QBR

Al Pena against OU — 6.0 QBR

I have no idea what to do about the QB situation.

I don’t understand this most of all:

Chelf completing 49.4% of passes in 2013 down from 60.4% in 2012. Walsh at 59.6% down from 66.9%. #Okstate

— Colby Daniels (@Colby_Daniels) October 28, 2013

Are defenses getting better? Was Joe Randle that important to this offense? Does Yurcich really not know what he’s doing? Has the offensive line been that bad?

I have no answers. I know these two guys are having the worst season-over-season (non) improvement since Zac in 2009, though. Here’s a look at Zac’s career progression:

That was something you could point to, though. He lost Dez in 2009. On the contrary this year OSU gained receivers (Seales and Ateman) and brought back its No. 1 guy (Stewart). Unless I’m underrating the graduation of Isaiah Anderson, which I’m not.

I’ve reached the “throw my hands in the air and hope Kingsbury isn’t vindictive” portion of the season with this QB situation. Chelf isn’t good,[1. Interesting to note, however…Games Walsh has started: OSU averages 36 points, Games Chelf has started: OSU averages 52 points.] Walsh isn’t better, and Yurcich doesn’t appear to be helping things (nor does the offensive line, for that matter).

Maybe Gundy can smoke-and-mirrors this thing to nine or 10 wins but I have to think we’re pushing our luck at this point. Unless one of these guys breaks the mold set so far in 2013, we could be in for a lengthy last five games.