Ask the Expert: Is the Jake Bentley hype train justified?
Kentucky fans are feeling pretty good about their quarterback situation after Stephen Johnson has balled out for consecutive weeks to open the 2017 season, but the quarterback position is also why South Carolina is getting so much positive publicity these days.
Jake Bentley, a quarterback Kentucky did not face in the 2016 meeting between these teams, has made the Gamecock offense click better than it has in some time. He's off to a good start and has led South Carolina to a pair of wins over Power Five opponents away from their home field.
College football and SEC analyst Gary Danielson recently raised some eyebrows when he called Bentley the SEC’s best quarterback.
The expectation of improved quarterback play is one reason many pundits have been saying the league will take a step forward after an uncharacteristic “down year” by the league’s lofty standards last year. Bentley, along with Johnson and others, is a part of that argument.
Bentley has played well through two weeks of the season and South Carolina is 2-0, but his numbers (35/57, 402 yards, four touchdowns, one INT) are more solid than spectacular. Then again, he has played two Power Five games away from home.
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Cats Illustrated asked GamecockCentral.com's Chris Clark to break down Bentley as a quarterback and his career to date.
Is the hype justified or are people putting the cart before the horse when they see a young quarterback with arm talent have a little success? Clark said in part that’s just because of how important the quarterback position is.
“We all know, anyone who follows college football knows that if you have a really good quarterback you’re going to have a chance to win every game. You’re going to be in it. And Jake Bentley looks like he has the makings of a really good quarterback,” Clark said.
Then again, Clark cautioned that Bentley isn’t a finished product and anyone who watched him should remember how young and inexperienced he still is.
“I think he’s a very good quarterback right now but at the same time he’s a guy who played in not very many games overall. He came in halfway through the season,” Clark said. “Just beating a dead horse, but yes, he was supposed to be a senior in high school. He’s a young guy. Arrived in the summer. He wasn’t an early enrollee who went through spring ball. So he was very inexperienced. Came in, did some very good things with a limited offense through six games of the season and a bowl game. So I think people have to remember, I think people are putting the cart before the horse in terms of what he should be. I think people realize how talented he is, how highly touted he was, how big of a recruiting get he was for South Carolina, and they see some of the things that he does on the field and expect him to just be a complete finished product right now he’s not. What is that, nine games that he’s played right now in his career?”
However, Clark said, there is no denying Bentley’s development in his relatively short time as South Carolina’s starting quarterback.
“You look at some of the plays he made against NC State and that very good defensive front. He had a couple of big-time scrambles. He had a 39 yard touchdown pass where he rolled out, evaded a blitzer and hit a guy dead-on on the run in the corner of the end zone,” Clark said.
Then against Missouri some of the inexperience and lack of polish showed up. Clark pointed out Bentley had a “tidy” and efficient stat line, meaning he avoided game-deciding mistakes and got his numbers in the end. But he was far from perfect.
“He was fairly efficient but didn’t really play a great game, if you go back and look at the tape,” Clark said. “Early on he missed some guys. He missed a potential touchdown pass to Hayden Hurst, his tight end. He threw a ball low. They ended up scoring on the drive on a jet sweep anyways, but he was a little bit off and that’s going to happen sometimes. No quarterback’s going to go through and have a perfect season but he’s a guy who’s a playmaker at the quarterback position and that’s really what they’ve needed on this offense. They’ve needed to upgrade their playmakers. They’ve found some at the skill positions but they’ve also got one at quarterback.”
And at the end of the day, there’s no more important position on the field where you need to have a player, and a winner. Kentucky fans know that well.
