USC dropped their first game of the season against Washington State and it might have proved that Sam Darnold needs another year at USC.
A few weeks ago, college football expert Joel Klatt went on FS1’s The Herd and spoke with Colin Cowherd on the top quarterbacking prospects this year.
As Klatt was describing to Cowherd what makes a successful prospect, there was one key point that stood out among the others. The top quarterbacks in the NFL, be it Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan or Russell Wilson, all had multiple years starting in the collegiate ranks.
Klatt claimed that successful quarterbacks at the NFL level have at least 30 starts in college. That doesn’t mean to be a high-level signal caller at the next level, you have to make that many starts in college, but that seems to be the magic number so far.
While watching the Washington State-USC game on Friday night, it occurred to me that Sam Darnold has only made a handful of starts in his collegiate career. Three games into the 2016 season, USC benched QB Max Browne in favor of Darnold. So the current USC signal caller made 10 starts in his redshirt freshman year.
This season, Darnold has made five starts and has been fairly shaky for the most part. While he’s flashed in certain moments and shown up when the lights were the brightest, there were also a plethora of mistakes that the young quarterback has made.
Scouts, analysts and fans are quick to point out that Darnold can’t make those same errors in the NFL or that he won’t be successful. I’m here to say that this loss could show that Darnold needs another season in Southern California.
Like Klatt argued, Darnold’s still a long way from the magic number of making 30 starts. He’s about halfway to that number and by the end of the season should be around 23-24 starts. There’s a strong chance that Darnold ends up being the first quarterback taken off the board and picked in the top-5, but does it mean he’s truly NFL ready?
On Friday night, the Trojans’ quarterback completed 15-of-29 passes, for 164 yards, including one rushing touchdown and one interception. It was arguably his worst start of the season, coming off of a shaky game against Cal the weekend before.
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Darnold still is one of the top quarterbacks in the class and has the NFL raving about his talent and potential. But experience matters in college. Getting as many repetitions as possible, in different conditions, against various opponents will only further build his resume.
Regardless of what the Trojans’ quarterback chooses to do at the end of the season, the Washington State loss might show that Darnold should head back to Los Angeles for another year.