The Victors

These arguments always exist based on small sample sizes until they don't. For years, there was a line of thinking that teams should not draft Air Raid QBs because none of them had made it in the NFL and several had been busts (Klingler and Ware at the start; Geno Smith at the end) and then Mahomes happened.

Or take Urban's QBs. After Alex Smith, he coached at Florida and Ohio State where (unlike BGSU and Utah) he had access to the best HS players. Here's what he produced:

Chris Leak - five-star, undrafted, no NFL career

Tim Tebow - five-star, late first round pick, out of the NFL quickly

John Brantley - five-star, bust in college

Braxton Miller - five-star, moved to WR in the NFL

JT Barrett - four-star, undrafted

Dwayne Haskins - four-star, first round pick, was busting in the NFL when he died

The only guys whom Urban had on his Florida and Ohio State teams who had good NFL careers were the guys he had buried on the depth chart: Cam Newton and Joe Burrow. And yet no one would quibble with Urban's performance as a head coach because he won a ton of games. It's really hard to produce a good NFL QB. Mike Debord was a shit coordinator and he produced Griese, Brady, and Henne. Would a college fan rather have a great CFB coach whose teams constantly win or a mediocre coach whose teams are only OK and then those guys succeed in the NFL? The only way that Whittingham's track record with QBs would be a problem is if it affects recruiting but: (1) NIL will make up for that; and (2) I assume that he will have an easy rejoinder of "I have access to better talent at Michigan, which is why I made this move."

I'm not surprised that a rival coach would spew a meme that they probably use in recruiting against Michigan but there's no reason for the rest of us to take it seriously.