Da'Quan Bowers vs. Kyle Wilber

You are a WF guy right? You should use that intellect. Bowers was the #1 recruit in the nation according to ESPN coming out of high school. Of course ESPN is going to push him out front, if only to say, “Hey look at us…we were right.” And now he leads the nation in two highly viewed statistical categories. Bowers was a guy that two NFL coaches said was ready physically to play in the NFL out of high school – so he’s had the NFL’s attention. Bowers is on a team with greater visibility – a team that was once a traditional football power. Clemson has all the football intangibles WF does not.

Your guy is on Wake Forest.

Right out the gate I’d like to mention I haven’t seen one WF game this year and with the way they have played really don’t intend to watch one the rest of the year if I can help it (might watch the game with Clemson just to see DaQuan dominate). And I’ve never heard of Wilder and I don’t really care. That is probably the case for most CFB fans. Clemson is probably a tier up on the watchability scale so I’m not harping on you there but come on man are you really whining about a player not getting the pub he deserves? You could say that about a player on half the damn teams in D-1. Hell Clemson’s DeAndre McDaniel wasn’t even on the Thorpe Award list last year much less a finalist. I think McDaniel ended up #2 in the nation in picks and he had 100 + tackles – and I don’t think any other Thorpe finalist had 100 tackles.

In just a quick critique of only one small section of your homerism throughout the article, you lose all objectivity in your discussion of PC. 1) Who gives a shit if a guy shows out against PC? 2) “Maybe an outlier”? You actually wrote that. 3) Why the hell would one of your best players even play enough against PC to get eight tackles? (I do think DaQuan played like two series vs. PC not that it matters.)

To reverse a few of your contentions I could write the following:

Your guy’s stats are skewed by one game vs. a terrible D-II team along with an extra game.

Bowers gets double teamed more. He is more recognizable than Wilder so he gets schemed for more often. Teams run away from him. Your team sucks mightily (while Clemson only sucks) so teams don’t take Wilder seriously. He gets his sacks, TFLs at the end of the game when the other teams have their backup QB and OL in the game.**

**I don’t know that any of those things are true expect for the fact WF godawful and Clemson is just awful. But I could write an article to make them look plausible.

Just take solace in the fact you know your guy is good and you can say I told you so on draft day to a few of your friends who didn’t attend WF – if he is a stud DE the NFL will find him even at WF. Don’t write articles using failed logic to make yourself feel a little better about your the current shittiness of your football program because you may or may not have one good football player who may or may not get the national attention he deserves.

With warmest regards,

DaQuan

Was a bit too emotional and harsh, but true. 8 sacks vs PC and 1 extra game inflates the stats. Bowers didn’t play much at all against PC, and we aren’t joking when we say teams are planning for him. He is a beacon of light in an otherwise lackluster performance by our team as a whole.

Again Wilber is good, and will probably be playing on Sunday. Maybe look at the stat again in a few weeks?

I think Bowers stats are significantly better than Wilber. Since you’re looking at an extra game for Wilber, the per game stats are the better ones to look at. Also, Bowers only played 21 snaps against Presbyterian.

Bowers is getting about an extra half sack a game over Wilber. That’s significant. In fact, it’s nearly 76% more sacks per game than Wilber is getting. Granted these are all small samples and what not, but a half sack a game is a lot when you’re talking about such small values. Also, Clemson opponents have given up 81 sacks on the year so far (half of which come from UNT and Pres). Bowers has had 11% of those (only 2 of his 9 sacks are from UNT and Pres). Wake opponents have given up 74 sacks on the year (with an extra opponent ). Wilbur has had 7% of those. Having to play Navy and GT matters a little, but the TFL stats sort of cancel that argument out.

Same thing with TFL; about an extra half TFL per game. That’s significant also.

Wilber has a lot more tackles (and takles per game), but it’s really hard to tease out how much of that is due to where the plays are run. My guess is that not many people are running towards Bowers, so he’s getting a lot fewer chances at tackles than he would be otherwise.

The sacks, TFL, and QB hurries stats are a better independent indicator of a player just going out and making a play. None of that is the end all be all, obviously, since a lot depends on what the coach is telling the kid to do. But when you couple these stats with a player that had a lot of hype coming into college, you get a lot of hype when he starts to dominate people.

not trying to hate, but it’s reality. nobody cares about wake forest outside of tobacco road. they were kind of a novelty for a couple of years when they had all those players and won the acc. now they’re just wake forest again. as a side-note, this is the reason big time players don’t want to go there. it isn’t because of any academic standard. it’s because if you play there, the odds are you will be in absolute obscurity for the entirety of your career. it may not be fair, but it’s the truth.