QB battles are shrouded in mystery
Comments 
0
By John Helsley
Published: August 21, 2007
Football coaches love keeping secrets.
From the media. From fans. From their own players.
So what a giddy, "you-don't-know-what-I-know” time this has been in the
Big 12. Because inside information never sits so satisfyingly as it does in a quarterback competition. And battles behind center have been raging all August in five league locales.
Here, we've waited, to no avail, for Oklahoma coaches to so much as provide a simple critique to the
Sooners' three-man race. It's been much the same elsewhere, although three starters have finally fallen into place and another might be near.
At
Kansas, coach
Mark Mangino tabbed sophomore
Todd Reesing over incumbent
Kerry Meier.
"We've known for a while, but we decided we'd wait until about two weeks out to make a public comment on it,” Mangino told reporters.
Sly dog.
Colorado is going with
Cody Hawkins, which was no secret at all — he's the coach's son! Not that dad would hold any prejudice.
"(Cody) is a good kid and a good player, and I like all that stuff about him,”
Dan Hawkins told the
Denver Post. "But I'm not out here going: ‘Hey, there's my boy. Look at my boy make plays.'”
Nick Nelson, a junior college transfer, was the odd man out.
"I was jacked up when Nick made some plays,” Dan Hawkins said. "I want to score some points and win some games. I don't care what the (quarterback's) name is. If he's productive and he's good, that's great. I don't look at it much different than that.”
Nebraska's quarterback job, as expected, went to
Arizona State transfer
Sam Keller over
Joe Ganz, although official word didn't come until Monday.
At
Baylor, they're still undecided on a QB, although
Guy Morriss and Co. have whittled the list of contenders to two. Redshirt freshman
Tyler Beatty, a late-charging threat to claim the job, wasn't in on the secret that he was in a two-man battle with sophomore
Blake Szymanski, a fill-in starter a year ago. As recently as two weeks ago, the frontrunners were two others — senior transfer
Michael Machen and junior college transfer
John David Weed.
"I remember waking up at 7:30 in the morning, and I've got the newspaper on the hotel door,” Beatty told the
Waco Tribune. "And when I read it, I was like, ‘Yes!'”
No word on when a decision is due.
Must be a secret.
Comments
