Passing in College in 1984

A dangerous pastime

Passing in College in 1984

As my losing streak continues, one lesson I’ve learned is how dangerous it is to call passing plays with 1984 teams.

The truth is that most of these teams simply don’t have great receivers, and a lot of the quarterbacks are even worse.

That’s going to be true of college teams in any era, of course. Because it’s at the college level, you wind up with a big mix of players, including guys who are extremely talented and guys who are far below that mark.

If you look at the passing stats for 1984 in the back of this book, you’ll see what I mean. College teams may have been more efficient passing, but they didn’t do a lot of it - averaging 181 passing yards per game on only about 14 attempts per game. Meanwhile, running almost 45 times per game netted them a little over 168 yards.

Of course, when most people think of 1984 quarterbacks, they think of some of these guys:

But, if you’re playing a ton of games with a ton of teams like I am, you’re not going to be playing with Robbie Bosco and Bernie Kosar game in and game out. I’ve wound up using more quarterbacks like Doug Strang, John Congemi, and Don Smith - players who aren’t exactly household names, and for good reason.

It’s been a long losing streak, full of plays like this:

And it’s hard to figure out the right way to adjust. The truth is that teams simply ran more often back in those days - and I need to figure out a way to get these running games to crack through the defense.