(04-25-2022 11:21 AM)GreenBison Wrote: (04-25-2022 09:43 AM)MUther Wrote: Several options aren't even on campus, including the P5 transfer. That's the price for getting rid of a defective junior. We all know Wells was a great kid, but we also know that he was going to get flustered and drop games with turnovers. Hopefully VT teaches him better decision making, but I'm of the opinion that isn't taught, but instinctual. I'll take the mentally gifted guy over the physically gifted guy every time. Chad was not a great thrower, but no one knew the game of football better than he did. Cato same thing. Byron fortunately had both attributes. We've had a string of QBs lately that fit the physical mold but didn't put the time in to break down defenses and make the best decisions or had that gift.
The good news is we don't need another Chad or Byron. We just need a consistent completer that won't turn it over 1.5 times per game. One of these guys has to be that. We also need to cut our losses when a guy starts to show these deficiencies and move to the next guy. The problems don't magically fix themselves. We can't have an all in on one guy and hope for the best mentality. Try different guys out and find the best option.
We haven't had a true Leader at QB since Cato. Doc recruited immature head cases for the most part (I think Wells could be a leader and isn't a headcase). From 2015 to 2019 we had Litton and Green.
We had more than that, but I agree. We started with Birdsong. Injured, out, never really returned. We had Morrell play some games for us and didn't amount to much. We had the dude with the shoulder problem during Green's tenure, forget his name. And a slew of backups and also rans during that time that never challenged the bad QB play we were getting from the starters. We even had a White on the roster to go with the Green for a couple years, but I don't think he ever saw the field.
Another big problem is most of these guys never got to mature on the sidelines with mop up duty once in a while. They were tossed into the fire. Cato hurt, Frohnapple comes in and does pretty well. Frohanapple transfers Cato's last year and we go and get transfer Birdsong. Birdsong went down, FR Litton forced to start. Litton got his ass kicked by TE, Morrell forced to start. Morrell moved to TE and Litton left early, Green forced to start. Green kicked out/quit, Wells forced to start. That's a pretty big string of misfortune causing us to always be starting or trying the next guy who wasn't ready to start. And Xavier Gaines had a few series in between all of that.
This year we know we have one guy for one year. If something happens to him, we will be forced to start a guy who's not ready once again. And we only have the one year to develop the next guy or we'll have to dip into the portal again for another QB. We can't hang on to a guy till his senior year since Cato, either. Not that we've really wanted to. But QB has been a vicious cycle for at least 8 years and really all starts with Stan Hill getting hurt, sans Cato being amazing.
I mean think about guys that started for us or were expected to that just never panned out since Hill. Gochneur, was pretty good. Skinner, meh, Morris, could have been a great but was misused, Devine never got a chance but made NFL camp
, Anderson meh, Cann couldn't, Graham couldn't lay off the weed. I'm sure I'm missing a few. The one great one, Cato, was recruited by Shuler and he blackmailed Doc into taking him.
Before that we had a string of championship winning QBs going back almost 20 years. Somewhere we lost the ability to find those guys that had all the tools. From Snyder on we didn't prioritize a field general that could carry the team through a game they had no business winning.