Mike Teel, Rutgers Passing Game a Failure

As much as I love Rutgers football, I have never been able to stand the Scarlet Knights' quarterback, Mike Teel. He is horrible, and there is absolutely no way of denying it. Even without considering Thursday night's 44-12 loss to North Carolina.

He was highly recruited because he never lost a game in high school in which he started. As a freshman in 2005, the starter was Ryan Hart. He certainly wasn't the best out there, but he led the team. He was a senior, and with the highly touted Teel as a freshman, Schiano began starting Teel a couple games in.

I remember it well, because I traveled to UConn with a couple friends that year to see the game (miserable place and conditions for a game, by the way). Teel was looking terrible as always, and eventually the small Rutgers visitor section was becoming louder and louder with boos because of him. Halfway through the game, Schiano plugs Hart into the game, and Rutgers comes back to win a close game. Hart started every game from that point on, and Rutgers went to their first bowl game in forever.

Unfortunately, 2006 left only Teel. Schiano believed in him, and many analysts continued to play the undefeated high school card as if he was the next Joe Montana. I never understood it because it only took one game to despise him.

If you watch, Teel knows who he is going to throw to before he snaps the ball. Once the ball is in his hands, he is staring at that receiver, just waiting to throw it. Defenses merely have to glance at Teel to decide who to cover.

I don't know if he can run at all because he clearly seems to be afraid to. I have watched almost every game from 2004 on, and I can't recall him scrambling once. The offensive line has been very good over the years, so his fear of taking a sack has been mostly subsided. That said, he will never take one, and would rather just throw the ball up for grabs than to go down to the turf.

On top of that, he has had "injuries" to his hand over the years that supposedly are why he has problems. That was the story all of last year, and even tonight ESPN said he should be better tonight because last week he was fighting something else.

Now in 2006, Rutgers was a great team (11-2). If you look at the games individually, though, he was a bad quarterback. In fact, he rarely completed more than 10 or 12 passes a game.

Against Univ. of Ohio, he threw no scores, but three interceptions. Against 1-AA Howard, he went 9-for-16. In the forever famous Louisville game, he went 8-for-21! Then, he followed it up the next week to help Rutgers to their first loss by throwing four picks to Cincinnati!

In 2007, he was just as bad, but looked better because of star wide receiver Tiquan Underwood and Kenny Britt. Take them out of the equation, and the team is dismal in 2007.

I won't forget that Cincinnati beat us again in 2007 because Teel threw another three interceptions in that game. The final one secured the win for the Bearcats when Rutgers looked poised to take the win. He threw an interception when Kenny Britt was not running, but standing in the end zone all by himself jumping and waving his hands in the air. Teel had already decided he was going to throw to Tim Brown, and the ball went toward the Cincinnati linebacker who was standing between the two.

Now, Rutgers does not have Brian Leonard. They do not have Ray Rice. Defenses can focus their entire game on Teel and his inability to throw. Cover Britt, Underwood, Brown, and Brock, then you may as well have Schiano out on the field to throw passes because Teel sure can't.

So now to the question, why are they throwing short passes mainly? If you watched last week and this week, you can see that Teel does not have accuracy. To be fair, last week Kenny Britt dropped a long pass to the end zone. However, you will notice that Teel has enough trouble completing short-/medium-range passes. The longer he tries to throw the ball, the worse it gets.

Last week against Fresno State, they tried a flea flicker in the first quarter that went to a wide-open safety for an interception. In Thursday's game, he threw a perfect strike to a North Carolina defensive back by missing his receiver by about 20 feet. In another attempt, he tried to hit Britt down the sideline long, and instead overshot him by 5-to-10 yards.

The simple answer to why Rutgers doesn't throw longer passes? Mike Teel can't.

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