Keller Chryst took to Twitter to announce that he’ll be transferring from Stanford after he graduates in June.
In three seasons for the Cardinal, Chryst threw for 1,926 yards with 19 touchdowns.
This means that KJ Costello, Davis Mills, and incoming recruit Jack West will be the Cardinal’s scholarship QBs when the 2018 season begins.
One school that will likely be mentioned in this process is Wisconsin, where Keller’s uncle, Paul Chryst, is the head coach.
Comments
Was to be expected
Good luck, Keller! I hope he ends up in a system that is tailored to his skills and that he is able to produce some excellent results as a 5th-year senior. Seems like only yesterday we were anticipating the Keller Chryst era at Stanford. Now it’s over before it ever really got started. We can only wonder what might have been if he had not suffered that injury in the Sun Bowl.
By Jeff Tarnungus on 01.22.18 11:43am
Probably for the best
Best of luck, Keller!
By worldblee on 01.22.18 12:44pm
It's a good decision on his part
I wish him luck — the decision makes some sense if he really wants to play another year of college football (I do not think he is a real NFL prospect — not sure what others think). With Mills coming off redshirt and Costello pretty solidified as the starter, it wouldn’t make sense to stay at Stanford if you want to use that eligibility year.
By Brendan Ross on 01.22.18 2:31pm
Nothing but appreciation for Keller
He didn’t have a great year last year, but the guy played hard and tried to do what they asked of him. Good luck, Keller!
I actually thought Chryst seemed better earlier; is it possible that he regressed the longer he was coached by this staff? I’m still not convinced that Stanford’s offense and development plan for QBs is all that great. Anyone else have this concern?
By g8tgod on 01.23.18 2:33am
Everyone has that concern
Every year, some Power 5 program switches QBs and even a few NFL teams. It’s impossible to know who much of a QB’s progress, or lack there of, is attributable to the coach. Most of us at Stanford had no issues with high school essay writing. Fewer breezed through writing in college, and fewer still could write a best selling book. Is that a failing of the university or the student? Some kids are going to work harder or have things click for them more than others. Kind of hard to figure that out about kids in high school.
The biggest part of this equation is also largely ignored by fans and downplayed by the media, and that is the year to year changes in the surrounding cast (which includes the Defense). Mark Sanchez was a first round draft pick by the Jets and a bust as an NFL QB. Somehow people continued to think he could play QB, but he really couldn’t. At USC, he looked like a world beater. But analyst fail to give credit to the entire team that made him look better than he was. Teebow is another prime example.
Last year, Jake Browning at UW was briefly in the Heisman conversation. This year, he kind of sucked. Why? Did he really get worse, or was it the fact that he didn’t have John Ross to take the top off of the opposing defense and demand such attention that it left the running game and other receivers open? Impossible to know the truth of the situation.
By Blackjoy on 01.23.18 10:00am
No, he didn't have a great year.
Chryst has never looked "great," imo. The first time I saw Andrew Luck play against Wake Forest, a game Stanford lost, the next day at work I told a guy that Luck was the best QB I’ve ever seen. It was obvious from the first game Luck had the potential to be dominant. Chryst has never looked that way to me. Not last year, not this year. His game against Rice was particularly uninspiring.
Chryst could continue to improve, so I don’t blame him for pursuing it. But like essentially every other QB, he’s going to need a good team around him.
By Blackjoy on 01.23.18 10:05am
Unless he faces Oregon i.e.
Somehow both his starts against the ducks were his 2 most prolific ones of his career:
In fairness, he didn’t have to go against the juggernaut between 2009-15
By layman on 01.25.18 12:00am
The Concern Is Real
But as Blackjoy most fairly points out…."it is complicated". What is less complicated to me is picking the right QB. I think Shaw has gotten this wrong three times (Nunes>Hogan, Burns>Chryst, Chryst>Costello), in fact, EVERY TIME he has had an opportunity to make that choice. I know that I am going to hear that I don’t attend practice and mastering the position at Stanford takes more than raw talent etc. etc. but this has not been an isolated issue. If a guy is "not ready", how much is this a function of him not being identified early enough and then made ready? Does jamming in new QBs in the middle of the year contribute to a development issue as they have not had the benefit of Spring and Fall practices as the starter? Not if they are around long enough but there may well be a development lag initially.
However, complexities aside, I think it is fair to say that we do not have a "Quarterback Whisperer" on staff. It would be nice to hire one.
By hoyaparanoia on 01.23.18 3:21pm
Nobody has a QB whisperer
Show me a PAC-12 team whose QBs get better and won more games ever year? Doesn’t exist. Rosen? No. Darnold? No. What you have to do is find the right guy, which is what you said, and have the right circumstances surround that player…e.g. you surround the QB with world beaters and a defense that keeps giving him the ball back and doesn’t pressure him to score because the team is down by three TD’s at halftime.
Sure, there is probably some guy out there who can really coach up kids. But I’ll argue that any such ability is dramatically overshadowed by other variables e.g. the team he’s playing on.
A perfect example is Russell Wilson. When he had Marshawn Lynch and a Seattle Defense that kept opponents to 15 points a game, RW lead the NFL in TD/Turnovers. When RW lost those component and had more pressure to throw the ball and score, his celebrated TD/TO ratio took a nose dive. What’s more, RW just got his O/C fired on account of the offense being just as mediocre as its always been with him as QB.
By Blackjoy on 01.24.18 4:50pm
Perhaps - Would Just Like To See Correctable Stuff Addressed (Like Staring Down Receivers)
And I agree that you see more inter-season variability from excellent starting QBs than smooth growth. Plenty of recent examples in the PAC 12 (Browning, Rosen, Darnold, Hogan even). Which speaks to all of the things that you have alluded to.
By hoyaparanoia on 01.24.18 5:05pm
Yep
I agree that inconsistency seems to be the norm in the conference. You don’t see that everywhere (one can look at this year’s Heisman winner for a good example of that), but some of that is the surrounding team, as blackjoy says, and some of it is just the number of starts you have. Hogan had over 30 starts entering his 5th year senior season, and over 40 entering that Iowa Rose Bowl. For most of that season he was the most experienced player, in terms of snaps, on either team, on either side of the ball. That kind of experience really does add up over time, and it made him nigh-on unstoppable much of that season (having the guy who should have won the Heisman next to him helped a lot, obviously, too, but McCaffrey also credited Hogan for his own success). Mayfield also had a TON of starts for Oklahoma, and just was a very experienced QB coming into his final season. Many of these guys don’t stick around long enough to get that many snaps/starts to get to that level (which is understandable given injury risk and the $$$$$ at the next level, potentially), and so you see some wobbliness when they are really still learning and getting the kinks out of their play.
By Brendan Ross on 01.24.18 6:34pm
Adding my 2 cents - QBs need to be groomed, not thrown to wolves
I have watched a lot of stanford football from the harbaugh days but only recently in the past 2 years I have noticed shaw insisting the 3 plays almost to a fault. I don’t know if freshman andrew luck or hogan had to deal with the same or if they had a mix of coaches picking play calls and then allowing QBs some freedom at the line of scrimmage. This helps the talented freshman or redshirt freshman get his feet wet and start rolling. Only after a year of maturation and saturation should the QB be tasked with handling 3 plays all game.
This is where I love watching someone like a kiffin who scripts his first 15 plays for his QB regardless of game situation. Then he makes his adjustments playing chess match against DCs. When I watched the rose bowl this year, georgia OC eased their freshman QB with easy throws and mixed run and pass in the first half. In the second half is when his QB made a lot of adjustments at the line.
Shaw’s QB development is like his playcalling – obdurate to a fault. He wants to shove his entire fat playbook on the QB and will not start unless they have full grasp of it. Then he throws them to the wolves real time and lets them pick calls and make mistakes and then teaches them retroactively in the film room – "what do you see, why did you chose this play". With the VR machine he gives them more mental reps, etc.
But, coming back to my point – the best of the best often talk about simplifying the game for the freshman before throwing more on their plate. I feel he could certainly use some of that for more team success. The only downside is that the reason why talented 5* QBs want to play stanford is because it prepares them for the NFL. So in some sense they feel that intellectual challenge draws them. Certainly interested to hear other takes on this theory.
By layman on 01.24.18 11:50pm
Georgia is a bad example
Georgia, like most (but not all) SEC teams, subscribes to the run-gam+Defense=Win. Georgia does not require its QBs to do much, so it’s a lot easier to have Freshman QB’s come in and be serviceble when they pretty much just hand the ball off and then throw on 3rd and short. There’s a reason why the SEC does not put very many QBs in the NFL and the PAC-12 does. Who does the SEC send to the NFL? Defensive linemen. When you’re only down by a TD or a field goal in the 4th Q, that takes a lot pressure off the play-calling and the QB.
I pretty sure that Luck and Hogan dealt with the same system. Though I would wager 10-1 that Shaw did, in fact, simplify the offense when Hogan started. To my untrained eyes, Nunes ran a far greater variety of plays and put up far more points than Hogan did. It was just that on the road, Nunes fell apart.
Not sure what evidence you have to support that, but it’s demonstrably false. Hogan did not have a full grasp of the playbook when he played and it was publicly stated/alluded to as so. But he started Hogan nonetheless because Nunes was just not getting it done.
By Blackjoy on 01.25.18 9:58am
QBs definitely matter
I was with you until you began w your example… You spoke on college players then attempted to make your point discussing guys playing in the NFL. Not the same dude..lol
I get the point your trying to make though…
By Slot_Man22 on 01.25.18 12:16am
Not like you think they do.
Yeah, QBs matter, so do cornerbacks, defensive tackles, guards, and even place kickers. Everyone "matters." But QB’s are overvalued. Waaaaaay overvalued.
The discussion is about QB maturation and development and lack thereof at Stanford. My response is that whatever growth and maturation occurs within the four years at college, is largely overshadowed by everything outside the QB. The way to prove this is the NFL, where a QB may stick around for 10 years, but a team doesn’t consistently win more games every year as the QB gets more experience and training. In fact, some times a QB’s best years are his first, when the QB is relying more on instinct and is unpredictable. Russell Wilson hasn’t got worse as an individual player since he’s been in Seattle, but the win-loss % has started to decline along with Russell’s TD/INT ratio. So why is that? Shouldn’t a QB get better and better with experience? The only logical explanation is that it isn’t the individual growth that has the biggest impact on a QB’s performance, but the circumstances under which he plays.
One of the biggest snow-jobs by the NFL and media is that a team has to have a "franchise" QB to win. How many times during this playoff have you heard announcers poo-poo these NFC QB’s for being nobodies? Yet, Drew Brees, a probably Hall of Famer, got beat by who? How is that possible? It’s possible, because the team and coaching matters a helluva lot more than the QB.
But it’s a lot easier for ESPN and the NFL to shove Russell Wilson or Drew Brees down your throat than the front seven or offensive line. Tom Brady has more charisma than the four 300+ fat-bodies that make his day possible. And aside from Pete Carroll, most Head Coaches are just not very engaging people, let alone any random assistant coach. So the NFL/ESPN pushes Brady down your throat and sells you the idea that he is the greatest QB of all time and ignores the fact that he’s a system QB, that Brady wouldn’t do shit on a team like the Browns and wouldn’t have a single ring either.
Remember that year that Brady sat out? Matt Cassel won 10 games in his first year as a starter. Until the 2008 season, Cassel had thrown a total of 22 passes in the NFL . His first year, he set NFL records and was one of only five QBs in NFL history to have back to back 400+ yard games. What did he do the next year on the Chiefs? He won FOUR games. What is Cassel doing now? He’s a back-up for Marcus Mariota on the Titans and Brady is going to Super Bowl. It’s the team (which includes the coaches) that determines wins and loss, not QB growth and maturation.
Yes, of all the players on a team, the QB has the most impact on a game by virtue of his taking the hike on offense. But teams win because of coaching and team play. The QB just has to be competent. If you don’t believe me, go look up Trent Dilfer and tell me why he won a Super Bowl and Dan Marino never did? Or how Peyton Manning won a SB when he was probably the worst he’d been since a rookie in the NFL?
QB’s are simply marketed more than any other position. Their important is vastly overstated by media as is concerns about QB coaching in college. Yes, on average a QB could benefit from better coaching, but the impact on wins and losses pales in comparison to everything else that affects wins and losses.
By Blackjoy on 01.25.18 10:24am