Maybe even two. The Ohio record for single season pass efficiency is held by Tettleton at 148.6 in 2011, followed by Tettleton at 141.2 in 2012, then comes Bruce Babbitt from 1962 at 139.4. Currently Rourke is 33-49-0, 445 yards and 3 TDs, an efficiency of 163.8. Maxwell is 13-21-2 for 214 yards and 2 TDs, an efficiency of 159.9.

Umm, he used the Delorean?

I fixed it, thanks.

Maxwell was 185 against Hampton, only 33.5 against Purdue, and then 248 against Kansas:
http://www.espn.com/college-football/player/_/id/3920819/...

Rourke has been improving, 121 against Hampton, 161 against Purdue, and then 190 against Kansas. Those are excellent numbers against 2 P5 foes, especially Purdue, which actually has a defense. The Louisville QB had an efficiency of 149 against Purdue, and the Missouri QB had 68. Rourke's numbers were the best anyone has done against them so far.
http://www.espn.com/college-football/player/_/id/4244688/...

Amen! (Do I get an extra point for succinctness?) :-)

The difference is that the QB efficiency rating weighs everything from each of these games equally. It's not a perfect system, but the QBR run by ESPN takes into account the opposition, time of the game, and multiple other factors. Thus, a great game against Hampton is not equal to a great game against Purdue.

In that metric, the statistics are pretty telling right now. The QBR is on a scale of 100. In that, Maxwell is at a raw QBR of 23.6 this season (14.7 adjusted QBR), whereas Rourke is at 84.4 this season (76.6 adjusted QBR).

I think we have the potential to have a great MAC quarterback in Rourke. I wouldn't say the same about Maxwell.

Extrapolating out information from the entire MAC, here are the QBRs of each team's top QB:

EAST:
Buffalo--Jackson 77.7 (75.5 adjusted QBR)
Kent--Holley 62.1 (48.3)...but he has been sparingly used
Akron--Woodson 47.3 (42.6)
Miami--Ragland 37.7 (27.7)
BGSU--Morgan 30.3 (21.1)

WEST:
Toledo--Woodside 88.0 (75.9)
Ball--Neal 73.9 (67.1)
EMU--Roback 66.3 (55.7)
CMU--Morris 66.0 (52.8)
WMU--Wassink 59.3 (63.0)
NIU--Santacaterina 55.5 (46.4)

So, Rourke's 84.4/76.6 trails only Woodside in the MAC. Meanwhile, Maxwell's 23.6/14.7 is the lowest in the MAC this year. For comparison, Maxwell's freshman season was a 43.3/36.9, which would have him above Ragland and Morgan this year but below everybody else.

Good work. Thank you.

I think it's obvious to anyone that has watched Ohio play the last two weeks ... the offense is in better hands with Rourke running the show.

Nothing against Maxwell ... he's had his opportunities ... but the offense rarely has clicked with him at QB.

With Rourke, you can just see it come together.

Maxwell might have the tools ... but there's just something that isn't clicking consistently with him.

I'd like to see Rourke get 99.9% of the snaps this weekend at EMU unless he just totally stinks up the joint.

Enough of this "Maxwell will get the 4th series, blah, blah, blah."

Stick with one QB.

Even though Maxwell is listed as bigger than Rourke (6-3, 224 vs 6-2, 209), Rourke just seems to play bigger. Maybe he was a lumberjack in Canada (and that's okay).

I hope the announcers covering this year's WMU-NIU game do a lot of tongue and mouth exercises before the game having to say those two names repeatedly!

I'm not familiar with the QBR, so I can't really comment on this. I'm familiar with two formulas for pass efficiency, the college one and the pro one. Either of those you can compute yourself, so you can understand what goes into it. If I get time, I'll read something about the QBR.

Edit... OK, I read a little about QBR. It sounds rather proprietary, convoluted, and bizarre. That doesn't mean that it's not useful, nor that it is. I'll watch it a little in the future to see if I find it useful.

Note that I agree that Rourke has played better than Maxwell. I predicted before the season that Maxwell would be significantly improved, but that he would have a hard time staying ahead of Rourke, who I believe is going to be great. I think that the difference is more than the pass efficiency rating shows, but less than the QBR rating indicates.

Looking at QBR for various seasons, it shows for Ohio QBs:

2004 Ryan Hawk 16.1, Austin Everson 18.1
2005 Everson 17.6, Brandon Jones 5.7
2006 Everson 24.5, Bower 23.4
2007 Bower 29.8, Scott 25.9
2008 Jackson 51.5, Scott 41.8, Jones 24.9
2009 Scott 39.8, Jackson 22.5, Tettleton 1.6
2010 Jackson 41.4, Bates not computed
2011 Tettleton 60.5, Bates, Snyder not computed
2012 Tettleton 59.9, Vick 44.9
2013 Tettleton 55.6, Vick 52.2
2014 Sprague 29.3, Vick 61.5, Windham, 29.1
2015 Vick 50.8, Sprague 52.8, Windham 39.3
2016 Windham 55.4, Maxwell 14.7
2017 Rourke 76.6, Maxwell 36.9

These stats are, umm, interesting. If you accept them, Ohio's QBs were all pretty bad until Tettleton, but since then, Ohio's QBs have been good, in Vick, Sprague, and Windham.

They don't compute career numbers, but if I do a sort of weighted average, I get the following, from worst to best:

Brandon Jones 14.9
Ryan Hawk 16.1
Everson 20.8
Bower 28.5
Maxwell 34.3
Scott 36.9
Sprague 37.5
Jackson 45.7
Windham 52.6
Vick 54.1
Tettleton 57.6
Rourke 76.6

Another interesting thing pops out at me when you look at QBR. Some have argued that most QBs showed no improvement from year to year, but on QBR, all of them did, except for Boo Jackson. Scott and Tettleton improved a lot from their first years, but then were pretty constant. Resorting the list from above by QB:

Ryan Hawk, 2004 16.1
Everson 2004-6: 18.1, 17.6, 24.5
Jones 2005-2008: 5.7, 24.9
Bower 2006-2007: 23.4, 29.8
Scott 2007-2009: 25.9, 41.8, 39.8
Jackson 2008-2010: 51.5, 22.5, 41.4
Tettleton 2009-2013: 1.6, 60.5, 59.9, 55.6
Vick 2012-2015: 44.9, 52.2, 61.5, 50.8
Sprague 2014-15: 29.3, 52.8
Windham 2014-16: 29.1, 39.3, 55.4

Is this how people see it? Rourke at the top, with Tettleton, Vick, and Windham all about the same? Almost all the QBs showing steady improvement from year to year?