(Note: “Fun with Stats!” again – there maybe some small math errors and lapses in info from RR’s years but this is a pretty accurate take on this subject.)

We have spent a good amount of time discussing Chad Voytik’s short career as a starter with both articles and hundreds of reader’s comments. We have talked about his past, his time since coming to PITT, his winning the starting job and his performance in that position through the first five games of this 2014 season.

What has been one common thread in those discussions is Voytik’s ability to move well with the football.  That includes called rollouts on passing plays, called running plays where he is the primary ball carrier and scrambles away from the defensive line pressure.

His box score with ‘ball in hand’ is as follows:

So on the season, adding back the sack yardage (-38 yards) which comes off the top of his rushing totals, he’s has 33 carries for 253 yards at a 7.66 ypc clip with a long of 40 and one TD.

Now that is his production when he has the ball in his hand and makes a positive move to pick up yards on the ground, and is what I consider a basis when talking about a QBs running ability His stats in this are very good.  He accounts for almost 20% of PITT’s 1,347 yards rushing total to date.

That is a good thing for a QB to be able to do and we have seen Voytik use his legs to both keep series alive on shorter 3^rd down conversions but also pick up 1^st down on his longer runs.  It is a great skill for a QB to have but it has to be used to make Voytik a more effective all around QB.  After the game on Saturday I wrote the MMQB article and in it I said this about Chad Voytik’s runs during the Akron game:

“Even his running game, which is his only actual strength, was hesitant save for that one good (15 yard) 1^st down scamper, which was great to watch.  When that goes out the door I think some real serious decisions have to be at least talked about and considered by the offensive staff for the future of the team.”

It wasn’t that I thought his skill at running was diminished but that if whatever emphasis the staff, and Voytik himself, put on his ability to run the football diminishes then his total worth as a starter goes down also in my opinion. Just to be clear, I think he’s a great runner, has been since he got to PITT and it is an aspect of his game that has to be used for him to be a successful college QB.

In the comments section of that MMQB article our long time commenter, Emel, made this observation:

“Oh, I think Voytik is plenty athletic enough. He’s probably the most athletic QB we’ve had since Rod Rutherford, although they never let Rod show his running ability as QB (that was another one I could never understand).

Voytik doesn’t have the strongest arm especially in the pocket. He seems to throw much better when rolling out. Reed and I tossed this around a few weeks ago. Are they trying to make him into something he is not? That being a pro-style QB. Square peg into round hole kind of thing.”

That is something that we have talked about here on The Pitt Blather for months.

Anyway, the reference Emel made to Rod Rutherford got me thinking about which QBs we have had over the last 10+ years were decent runners.  So I crunched some numbers, and this chart is without the sack totals or sack yardage accounted for (red is the leader):

Now, subtracting the number of sacks and the lost sack yardage and it is a different story, remember it is a positive move to pick up yards on the ground):

Note: Here are the number of sacks and total yardage lost by each QB: Rutherford – 129 sacks for (-) 666 yards; Sunseri – 124 sacks for (-) 886 yards and Palko – 85 sacks for (-) 716 yards.

So, if you project Chad Voytik’s numbers over a full three full career  you get:

That is pretty impressive overall and would put him firmly in 1^st place among the four QBs if his career goes that way.

What is interesting about all of this is that when we think of a ‘running QB’ we believe that their passing would suffer because of that trait, but this isn’t necessarily the rule, at least at PITT.  All the of those past four QBs were very good passers also and are standing at #3 Sunseri, #4 Palko and #5 Rutherford as PITT’s all time passing leaders (behind Van Pelt and Marino).

Note: I dropped Bill Stull out of this because after looking that the stats he really wasn’t much at running the ball.  But for those who are interested here are his numbers after sacks and sack yardage are taken out: