Patrick Stevens The Washington Times - August 18, 2008, 11:52PM

Before I went to bed, wanted to give everyone a brief preview of tomorrow’s dead-tree edition story.

It’s different than the online-only story. Much different.

SEE RELATED:

I talked with John Turner, the father of Chris Turner, earlier today. It was a brief but cordial conversation, and the guy was clearly stunned his son didn’t get the Terrapins’ job over Jordan Steffy.

“We are shellshocked,” John Turner said. “We’ll probably talk about some things tonight, but right now we’re shellshocked.”

And, really, if you assumed the decision would be heavily influenced by last year’s performance, you can’t take issue with that insight. It’s safe to say a lot of Maryland fans are feeling something rather similar right now.

John Turner didn’t want to discuss much else, and that was probably wise of him. “Much else” would, of course, include the possibility of a transfer. Of course, that leaves that possibility on the table at this juncture.

I thought I’d do an extensive rundown of the stats by quarterback from last season. Seemed like a reasonable thing, even if it cost me way too much time. Waaay too much. But if I can’t produce practice stats, I can surely put together something from all the data gleaned from last fall:

Category STEFFY TURNER
Comp-Att-Int 70-104-4 
153-241-7 
Comp. Pct. 67.3 63.5
Yards 686 1958
Yards/Comp 9.8 12.8
Yards/Att 6.6 8.1
Int. Pct. 3.8 2.9
Opp. Pts off INT 7 20
TD passes 2 7
TD pass pct. 1.9 2.9
Pass efficiency 121.37 135.51
W-L/starter 3-2 3-5
Opponents’ record 36-26 61-42
Opponents winning pct. .581 .592
Drives 58 108
TD/Pct. 13/22.4% 24/22.2%
FG/Pct. 3/5.1% 14/13.0%
Scores/Pct. 16/27.6% 38/35.2%
Punts/Pct. 27/46.6% 41/38.0%
Category STEFFY TURNER
Total plays 297 581
Total yards (team) 1458 2973
Yards/play 4.91 5.12
Explosive plays (16+ yards)
21 46
Explosive plays pct. 7.1 7.9
Explosive pass (16+ yards) 13 34
Explosive pass pct. 12.5 14.1
25+ yard passes 3 18
25+ yard pass pct. 2.9 7.5
Third-down conversion 25/67 51/124
Third-down pct. 37.3 41.1
Fourth-down conversion 2/5 4/9
Fourth-down pct. 40.0 44.4
Sacks 19 21
Attempts/sack 5.5 11.5
Heyward-Bey yards/catch 12.6 16.7
I. Williams yards/catch 7.4 17.9
Pct. targets/WR 53.9 62.3
Pct. targets/RB 26.5 22.6
Pct. targets/TE 19.6 15.1

Well, now. That’s a lot of data to digest, and it should probably be considered that Steffy benefitted from a healthy offensive line and games against a decent Division I-AA team and awful Florida International, while Turner played a little more than three quarters behind a fully functional offensive line.

The various subplots stemming from this decision aren’t disappearing anytime soon, but it’s time to get some rest. But this should at least provide about a lucid a look back at 2007 as there is possible.

And with these numbers from actual games, there’s probably reason for more than just John Turner to be a little shellshocked.

—- Patrick Stevens