FanPost

Colt's Completion Percentage - History in the making

I'm about as big of a Colt supporter as you can find around here, but even I thoroughly believed he could not keep up his performance once we got to conference games.  When are you completing 4 out of every 5 passes, no team is going to stop you.  It doesn't matter if they are short, long, or in between, you can score on anyone.

Then we came into conference play, and so far so good.  Colt is actually completing a higher percentage of his passes now (82%) than he did when we had Irby and were playing the weaker schedule (80%).

I still don't think it can last, history tells us its not possible, but then, you look at what we have ahead and who is behind, and begin to wonder if that is true.  The highest completion percentage in the history of the NCAA was Dante Culpepper in 1998 with 73.6%, who beat Steve Young's 15 year record of 71.3%.   Stephan Lefours came very close to Dante with a 73.54%, but the record still stands.

Assuming Colt throws the same average number of passes per game as he has through the first 7, he only needs to complete 63.12% of his passes from here on out, and he will set the single season record (excluding whoever else is challenging it this year as well).

You read that right, if he only completes 63.12% of his passes against defenses such as Baylor, aTm, TTech, Kansas, and OSU, he will set the single season mark and against a real bonafide quality schedule.

How likely is it that Colt will dip so very low?

In his 33 games as a starter, Colt has gone below 63.12% passing only 6 times. His second game ever as a college QB against tOSU (59.4%).  Then against OU, and aTm in 2006, he had 61.1% and 60.7%.

Three games in 2007 saw him below 65%.  One was the unquestionably abysmal K-State game (48.7%), that I still shake my head over, the others were the  Aggie loss (53.1%) and the Nebraska fiasco (42.9%). 

In 27 of his 33 games played at the collegiate level, he has been over 63.12% accurate.

Here as well is what the opposing defenses we have left are giving up, on average:

OSU - 56.5%

Ttech - 63.4%

BU - 61.8%

KU - 55.12%

aTm - 67.9%

Average - 60.94%

Teams we have already played average - 58.18%

Teams already played, minus Colts beatdown of them - 55.08%

So keep your eyes open folks, Colt is making history right in front of them.

Edit:  As noted in the comments, the Conference Championship game and the Bowl game will most likely be counted toward his statistical totals.

This changes to make Colt need to complete 66% of his passes throughout the next 7 games (assuming we win the South) to beat Dante's mark in 14 games played, averaging as many throws per game as he has thus far.

This number is still well within his reach given the data shown above, and that Colts career completion percentage is above the 66% average (69.5%), even if you dont count this years ridiculous totals (66.4%).

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