| No. 15, 11, 7, 9 | |||||||||
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| Position | Quarterback | ||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||
| Born | (1945-11-09)November 9, 1945 (age 80) Annabella, Utah, U.S. | ||||||||
| Height | 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) | ||||||||
| Weight | 192 lb (87 kg) | ||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||
| High school | Folsom (CA) | ||||||||
| College | BYU | ||||||||
| NFL draft | 1967:6th round, 142nd overall pick | ||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||
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| Awards and highlights | |||||||||
| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||
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Virgil R. Carter (born November 9, 1945) is an American former professionalfootballquarterback who played in theNational Football League (NFL) and theWorld Football League (WFL) from 1967 through 1976.
Carter was the first notable passing quarterback to play atBrigham Young University, whose football program became well known for producing great passers. While at BYU, Carter set six national, 19 conference, and 24 school records and was an academic All-American. Carter began his college career under first-year coachTommy Hudspeth, taking over a program that had produced two winning seasons in the previous ten years. BYU went 3–6–1 thatfirst year, but Carter threw for over a thousand yards.
The Cougars won theWestern Athletic Conference championship in1965, going 4–1 in WAC play and 6–4 overall to win the first conference championship in program history. Thefollowing year, the Cougars won eight out of ten games despite finishing second in the WAC, and Carter threw for over two thousand yards.[1][2] Notably, the success BYU experienced with Carter at quarterback influenced then-assistant coachLaVell Edwards to later adopt a pass-oriented offense after replacing Hudspeth as head coach in1972.
| Year | Team | Passing | Rushing | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Comp | Att | Pct | Yds | Avg | TD | Int | Rate | Att | Yds | Avg | TD | ||
| 1964 | BYU | 66 | 193 | 34.2 | 1,154 | 6.0 | 9 | 14 | 85.3 | 107 | 388 | 3.6 | 5 |
| 1965 | BYU | 120 | 250 | 48.0 | 1,789 | 7.2 | 20 | 13 | 124.1 | 121 | 474 | 3.9 | 4 |
| 1966 | BYU | 141 | 293 | 48.1 | 2,182 | 7.4 | 21 | 16 | 123.4 | 95 | 363 | 3.8 | 9 |
| Career | 327 | 736 | 44.4 | 5,125 | 7.0 | 50 | 43 | 113.7 | 323 | 1225 | 3.8 | 18 | |
Carter was selected by theChicago Bears in thesixth round of the1967 NFL/AFL draft,[3] After complaining about lack of playing time after the1969 season he was waived by the Bears and briefly joined theBuffalo Bills.[4][5][6] AfterCincinnati Bengals' quarterbackGreg Cook was injured during the1970 preseason, Carter was traded by the Bills to the Bengals in exchange for a draft choice.[7][8] He led the NFL in pass completion percentage in1971 and was third in overall passing. His best game of that season was the opener, in which the Bengals defeated thePhiladelphia Eagles 37–14. Carter completed 22 of 30 attempts for 273 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions. In thefollowing year, he split time withKen Anderson before Anderson took sole possession of the starting job. In1973, the Bengals decided to go with Anderson as the starting quarterback, but Carter had to miss the entire season due to a broken collarbone.[9]
In 1974, Carter was traded to theSan Diego Chargers for quarterbackWayne Clark, but opted to sign with theChicago Fire of the newWorld Football League. The Chargers attempted to void the trade under the claim that Carter's collarbone had not healed, but the league approved the trade anyway.[10]
Carter was the WFL's leading passer in1974 until an injury sidelined him in week eleven. He finished the season with 358 attempts completing 195 for 2629 yards. He threw 27 touchdown passes and was intercepted 16 times. The Fire offense in 1974 is compared today to theWest Coast offense.
In1975, he went to theChargers, then was traded to theBears during the season, and retired after the1976 season.
Carter was a highly intelligent quarterback, who blossomed in Cincinnati under the West Coast system implemented byBill Walsh, then the Bengals' quarterbacks coach and later head coach of the San Francisco 49ers.[11] In his first stint with the Bears, Carter earned a master's degree fromNorthwestern University inEvanston,[12] and while in Cincinnati with the Bengals taught statistics and mathematics atXavier University.[13]
Carter is credited as one of the founding developers of a metric in football known as "Expected Points". Under the advising of Northwestern University professor Robert E. Machol, Carter analyzed over 8000 plays from the 1969 NFL season, averaging results of 10-yard strips to determine the expected number of points a team should generate from each position on the field.[14] This work was later expanded in several works (Carroll, Palmer, and Thorn - Hidden Game of Football, Yurko et al. - nflWAR) and is the foundation of several aspects of analytics in the game.[15]
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