Last week, Rivals’ mike Farrell ranked the top 10 transfer quarterbacks. That list included both Alan Bowman and Tyler Shough and I sort of thought that Shough would be ranked higher than Bowman based on what I’ve read and seen from the two of them, I’ve obviously seen much more of Bowman than Shough, but I’ve done my best.

Bowman gets ranked as the 6th best transfer and here’s the blurb:

Bowman didn’t practice in the spring, but he put up impressive numbers when healthy at Texas Tech and he’s a tough leader. He’s a Jim Harbaugh-type of quarterback, for sure.

This assessment sounds as if it is based off of last year’s numbers and because he is a “Jim Harbaugh-type of quarterback” which seems like something that’s completely made up. Shough is ranked 8th overall and here’s his blurb:

Shough has some work to do with consistency and accuracy, but he’s shown he can be a rhythmic passer at the Power Five level. He could be higher on this list based on some of the film I’ve watched, but I want to see a step up in confidence on the field.

Shough’s biggest criticisms are his consistency and accuracy and that he needs to step up in confidence (again, this is something that’s not definable, but whatever).

Let’s break this down a bit further. Farrell ranked Bowman higher because of his impressive numbers when healthy. I think that Bowman was healthy last year, mostly. The cool thing about this comparison is that Bowman played 8 games and Shough played 7 games last year (similar, but not the same), both players were inconsistent, both were replaced by other quarterbacks, so obviously, there’s room for improvement for both of them.

Other than the completion percentage, which is a percent in favor of Bowman, this really isn’t all that close. In almost every respect, Shough was a better passer. I’d say that the one thing that is in Bowman’s side of the ledger is that is that Texas Tech’s offense ran a ton of screens, but I really don’t know what Oregon ran.  But Shough passed for nearly as many yards as Bowman despite having a shade over 50 fewer attempts. And then add in Shough’s ability to run and this seems like a slam dunk in favor of Shough.

Again, just basing this off of what the numbers say, this really isn’t close. Shough had a 30 point advantage over Bowman in passer rating and this seems like a bias based on Michigan vs. Texas Tech. When someone writes that a player is a “____ type of guy” that’s pretty much a red flag for me in thinking that the person writing that probably hasn’t done the research. Maybe Bowman is a Harbaugh type of coach, but that doesn’t make him a better player, at least on paper. And this isn’t to say that Shough is a sure-fire star, but based on the stats and that there were so many similarities between Bowman and Shough (both played a similar number of games, both were replaced last year, etc.), I’ll take Shough 9 out of 10 times.