Vince Young or Brad Smith?

Like many other Baylor fans, I've had the problem of explaining Robert Griffin to people who don't watch much Baylor sports. The two players that I think get brought up the most when trying to find a reference to compare Griffin to are Vince Young and Brad Smith. Both were athletic college quarterbacks who had very different career paths both in college and now in the NFL. Smith, broke onto the scene his freshman year and was the face of the program only to start to share time with Chase Daniel his senior year. Smith is now a WR for the NY Jets. Young, as most of us know, split time with Chance Mock in the beginning before leading Texas to a national championship his junior year.

Below are some stats comparing Griffin's freshman year with the other two's yearly averages. These stats are slightly skewed due to Young splitting time early and Smith late in his career. While Young was the unquestioned reason the Longhorns won the title that year, it's not a stretch to say that he had an enormous advantage with his surrounding talent compared to Smith and Griffin.

Griffin 2008 Season
59.9% Completions on 267 attempts. 15 TD 3 INT
4.9 YPC on 173 attempts, 13 TD

Young 2003-2005
61% Completions on 288 attempts. 15 TD 7 INT
6.8 YPC on 152 attempts, 12.3 TD

Smith
56.3% Completions on 200 attempts. 14 TD 8 INT
5.4 YPC on 200 attempts, 11.3 TD

When looking at passing stats, Griffin is closer to Vince with the completion percentage and attempts. This tells me that Griffin and Young were on the whole asked to do about the same thing. Young had an established running back and the usual Texas offensive line. Both offenses used safe, 1-2 read passes to keep interceptions at a minimum. On the rushing side, Smith was asked to do much more. I remember Smith running a QB draw on almost every 3rd and between 6-10 play. I think this season Griffin had a similar role. He was by far the most explosive player Baylor had and thus was used more than Briles would probably like.

I would say that right now Griffin plays more like Brad Smith but will eventually evolve into more of a Vince Young type of player. Of course all of this depends on his development as well as the talent around him. I think Briles would like Griffin's carries to go down but his yards per carry to increase. This will keep defenses honest and force them to key on him which will open up other players like Kendall Wright and Jay Finley.

Would love your comments or thoughts on this. All two of you.