The Origin
There comes a time in every young quarterback’s life where he is faced with a life-changing choice. At this crossroads, will he become great? Or will he fall by the wayside like so many others before him? For Alex Hornibrook, that time was the 2018 football season. That was when Alex Hornibrook plowed straight through a stop sign and careened off the highway of excellence onto the dirt path of mediocrity. His performance last season was something of a car wreck. Something you can’t bear to see, but at the same time, you don’t dare to look away.
With a completion rate of just over 50% and 13 touchdowns to his 11 interceptions, Alex Hornibrook flipped on the cruise control and slid over into the middle lane of mediocrity. While national media outlets drooled over Tua Tagovailoa and Trevor Lawrence for most of 2018, there was not enough credit being given to other, more average quarterbacks. It was this realization that gave rise to the Horni Rating and the Horniman Award.
The Horni Rating
Seeing the overwhelming mediocrity of Alex Hornibrook, I needed a stat to gauge the overall Horniness of other quarterbacks across college football. How do we calculate the averageness of a quarterback? We simply compare their passer rating to the 2018 passer rating of Alex Hornibrook (132.5).
The further away from a passer rating of 132.5 a quarterback gets, the less Horni they are. This can be especially true for quarterbacks that have taken the path of greatness. For example, Tua Tagovailoa of Alabama (199.5) had the highest passer rating of 2018. Applying the Horni Formula, Tua comes up short with a Horniness of 49%. Not all quarterbacks are cut out for the hard life of such average performance.
On the opposite end of the field, a quarterback with an abysmal passer rating, such as Art Sitkowski of Rutgers (76.4), will also score low. Applying the Horni Formula again, Art gets an effective Horniness of 58%. A rating this low results in Art being limper than an overcooked noodle. Now that I have explained all the boring background math, we can determine the most average quarterback in the land.
The Horniman Award
And now the moment you have all been waiting for. It is finally time to unveil the winner of Week 1’s Horniman Award:
Austin Kendall – West Virginia University
That’s right! Austin is this week’s lucky winner of the coveted Horniman Award celebrating quarterback averageness! In a 20-13 win over James Madison, Austin completed 27 of 42 passes and threw 2 touchdowns. Taking all of this into consideration, Austin ended with a passer rating of 132. Throwing this into the Horni Formula harder than a Sitkowski pass in the dirt results in a Horniness of 99.6%! Needless to say, Austin is going to be standing at attention in next week’s game against the Missouri Tigers.
Be sure to tune into Between The Numbers to hear more about the Horni Rating and other earth shattering stats.
Box is a co-host of Between The Numbers, a weekly podcast recapping the best college football news from around the country and offering smokin’ hot takes.
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