Lots of talent on that list. Finn, I’ll bet you a brew at Plainfield that its Harper.

I think Harper for a season is what we are likely to see, but one of the younger guys winning the job would certainly be exciting. I just liked seeing the mobility that Harper and Rasor showed in back up time.

Hopefully at this point the coaches have an open mind. Plough has started a true freshman while OC at NAU. Give everyone a shot at the job.

Started a true Freshman in Randy Wright when Dwight and I were Seniors too

You guys know better than me but I thought Moroski was OC in 2010, and Randy redshirted in 2009.

it’s all blurry at this stage lol. Randy started in 10’ against Cal. He was probably a redshirt. On another note, crazy to watch the CIF State Championship and note that Randy is now the OC at Mater Dei!

Sr. Grant Harper
RSo. David Rasor

RFr. Damon Wrighster
RFr. Caden Pinnick

Harper and Rasor saw the field, though that was minimal.

From my understanding of our new recruits, one is going on a Mormon mission, a second was recruited as an 'athlete', and Eason had minimal reps his senior year (injury?). So it's a longshot any true freshman starts. The guy is likely somebody on the current roster, or a transfer. They all appear mobile, and Wrighster is 6'3".

Wow, good for him.
Randy is from my hometown and my daughter attended the Catholic girls school that shared campuses with Cardinal Newman so I was always rooting for Randy. I thought he would be a good coach as he played under different systems at Davis
According to ucdavisaggies.com Randy redshirted in 2009

Case Cookus was a true freshman for Plough at NAU.

Transfer

Randy was a rs freshman that first start at Cal. Denham really stiffed Biggs on that one.

Couldn't the Lord have waited a year?

Maybe need to be careful with Wrighster. Seems like he's a guy who could bolt and play somewhere right away.
I'm with Riveraggie at this point. Open up the competition.

Still just learning the position. Left Sierra Canyon because Becker (Utah) won the job.

We've evolved into a program where one QB dominates the reps, but that's not condusive to roster development. These were a few late-night stats I dug up, the math could be off.

2024 - MH throws 98.5% of QB pass attempts
2023 - MH throws 97% of QB pass attempts
2019 - JM throws 97.5% of QB pass attempts
2018 - JM throws 97% of QB pass attempts

This season we had blowouts of 46 points (Cal Poly), 52 (Northern CO), and 32 (Illinois State), and in those games our reserve QBs threw a total of 7 passes. In our opener last year, one of our few blowouts, a reserve threw 2 passes.

I understand we want a high ranking and LL to be drafted, but we also need to consider the future. Let the subs close out the second quarter, and play the whole 4th stanza in non-competitive games. Let them sling it. A monopoly isn't competition.

We now head into 2025 with four green QBs. They haven't been tested or had to overcome adversity.

Good for him!

I think that we'll see a true QB battle this offseason. It made sense that the QB room didn't see much of a shake up with a new HC coming in, but there shouldn't be a sense of loyalty to the established starter at this point. Wrighster looks like quite the athlete and I heard through the grapevine that Plough compared him to Eric Barriere.

Wrighster is 4 inches taller as well, better thrower in my opinion...Barriere was much better in space...case in point 4th quarter UC Davis @ EWU 2018 quarterfinals with 1:13 to play, 1st and 10 -- we miss him 5 times, EB runs for 45 yards and sets the stage for the game winning TD.

2:32:20

Any team with a good QB is going to have those kind of numbers. Even in blowouts, most coaches are just going to run the ball to keep the clock moving and won't be having their backup QB's throw the ball all over the place. We can debate whether that's right or wrong, but throwing the ball all over the place, even with the backup, will be seen as running up the score.

And even if we did have the backups throw the ball a bunch in blowouts, while it gives them reps, in no way will it help them learn to overcome adversity because the stakes are low.

Actually, some use two QBs.

If you use 2 QBs with any consistency, you either don't have a #1 QB or it's a situation where the second guy is coming in to run specialized packages like the Wildcat.

Montana St's QB threw 259 of 289 passes. The main backup had 1 game where he threw more than 4 passes and he threw 8.
South Dakota's QB threw 283 of 295 passes.
South Dakota St's QB threw 312 of 356 passes. One backup threw 25 (one game with 16, then never more than 4 in a game) and another 14 (never more than 4 in a game).
North Dakota St's QB threw 310 of 348. One backup threw 19 (one game with 15) and the other 16 (never more than 5 in a game).

How about the more prolific passing teams? Surely they'd want to develop a backup.

SE Missouri St's QB had the second most passing yards in FCS. He threw 618 of the 635 passes.
Monmouth's QB was third. He threw 435 of their 440 passes.
Abilene Christian's QB was fourth. His backup only played when he got hurt and threw 1 pass outside of those two games.
Incarnate Word's QB was fifth. He threw 528 of the 540 passes.

We saw what happened when we relied on one RB, and he got hurt.

Ok? I thought we were talking about QB's.

Lot's of teams give more carries/targets to star players and if they get hurt, well, that sucks. Not much you can do about it. Taking 5 carries and 3 targets per game away from Lan and giving them to someone else isn't all of a sudden going to make our offense look no different if Lan gets hurt.

It's also much easier to give multiple running backs carries than to give multiple QBs reps. For one, the RB's get tired and need a break.

It is a matter of balance. Playing two QBs can work or it can blow up in your face. We saw it work a few years at Sac, Montana, Idaho State, and we saw it blow up at Sac causing a couple of their QBs to quit.

Davis a few years ago stood out for playing a lot of people and winning the fourth quarter This year they played fewer people even with probably more experienced team, and sometimes held on desperately for a win . Starters even made up much of the special teams. In the Idaho game Davis played less than 40 players.

Our depth at WR helped when Hutton was hurt, but one promising non-playing WR hit the portal.

The 2 QB system is rare and now days is realized only with a second QB who is a runner and is used in wildcat. QB is the one position in which reps and development is required. Messing with a QB rotation normally benefits no one - look at Montana for instance. That was a disaster.

Re: Lan, he was exceptional and you get him the ball as much as possible. He won multiple games for the Ags. You could argue that he could have used a few more breaks. He was durable, and it was an unfortunate break when he went done in the quarterfinal game.

Ironically I think playing more skill position players is more logical when you have a .500 team and are not going to make playoffs. Then you have the opportunity to evaluate game time performance and develop others. But when you are in a great run and headed to the playoffs, you go with the best unless they need breathers or are injured.

An exception on the other end may have been Montana State as they had 3 very good runners of similar performance, and had put most games away so early they could pull starters. However, when they needed the starters in in the fourth quarter in Davis, they were gassed which could be attained to not being in a lot of fourth quarters.

Two playing QBs is not rare, and can be successful. Examples: Neither Dunniway, nor O’Hara were just wildcat QBs, yet Sac in its best year used them often on the same drives. Neither Mellott nor Chambers were just wildcat QBs. Chambers was arguably the better of the two but playing both left them with an established QB when Chambers graduated. It obviously can be a problem with some personalities.

As you say, playing more players when winning is not critical is easier. If a team isn’t a contender and has a bunch of new players they need to play more of them to see and develop what they have. That might be Davis’ situation next year.

So we should used Larison less? Not buying that

Lan covering kicks in September games up by 30 wasn’t great. And Fisher definitely should have taken many of Perez’ reps.

O'Hara had almost twice as many rushing attempts as he did passing attempts and rushed for more yards than he threw for in 2022. He might not have been a true wildcat QB (I'll take your word on this as I didn't watch any Sac games that year so I can't speak on how they ran their offense) but he certainly wasn't a passing QB. So they used Dunniway when they wanted to throw and O'Hara when they wanted to run what I assume was the read option or some variant and have the QB either run the ball or hand it to Skattebo. That's what I meant by specialized packages. Those two QB's had vastly different skill sets.

But it would have been crazy this year to take Hastings out for a couple series in the second quarter of a bunch of games to develop your next QB, which you would have to do if you actually wanted that QB to develop. Because throwing the backup out there once to throw 12 passes won't do anything.

Since Harper and Rasor only got token appearances, some might assume they don't have an inside track. Or the young HC didn't appreciate or see the need to give any backup QB development time in blowout victories. Not to mention what happens if MH goes down w an injury in the 4th quarter of a blowout game. (I liked the mobility I saw in both.)

Since Harper and Rasor didn't see real PT, why didn't either redshirt Frosh QB get PT?

Nobody suggested taking MH out in the 2nd quarter for a "bunch of games". But when you're up over 4 touchdowns in Q2 vs a doormat, why not put in a reserve QB with our 1s against the opponents 1s? And when we're pushing a 50-point spread in Q3 vs No CO, why not insert a reserve?

Beyond stats, playing time provides motivation, competition, lessons and confidence.