Interesting piece from the Oregonian detailing how Northwestern made it work and how Andersen went to Fitzgerald for advice. There's obviously some parallels between their situation and ours so it'll be interesting to see if we stick with it in the situation that neither guy separates. I know there's some on the board who aren't in favor of this but I am fine with it for a few reasons...
1. If there's no separation between the two in practice, it's not really fair to pick either guy as the starter. Let them continue the competition until one is obviously ahead of the other. Ideally you'd have one guy who is great but at this point both guys seemed to have earned the right to play.
2. People have mentioned "looking over their shoulder" if one of the QBs makes a mistake. I don't think the coaches plan on yanking a kid every time they throw an INT. They know that's not in either guys (or the team's) best interest to have risk-averse QBs.
3. It's unorthodox at the QB position but it's natural at basically every other position in every other sport: ride the hot hand. Get both guys a few drives in the first half and in the second half you go with the guy who played better (with the other sprinkled in if necessary). I don't think they're going to alternate them every drive for the whole game... it's more fluid than that.
4. Fitzgerald talks about "self-scouting" in the article. You can get away with 2 QBs for a few games but everyone falls victim to their own tendencies eventually. You've got to be very self aware and constantly tweaking in order to make it work for a whole season. Will that apply to us? Maybe, maybe not if a guy takes over as the starter. I trust a guy like Baldwin who has a ton of experience to be on top of it.
1. If there's no separation between the two in practice, it's not really fair to pick either guy as the starter. Let them continue the competition until one is obviously ahead of the other. Ideally you'd have one guy who is great but at this point both guys seemed to have earned the right to play.
2. People have mentioned "looking over their shoulder" if one of the QBs makes a mistake. I don't think the coaches plan on yanking a kid every time they throw an INT. They know that's not in either guys (or the team's) best interest to have risk-averse QBs.
3. It's unorthodox at the QB position but it's natural at basically every other position in every other sport: ride the hot hand. Get both guys a few drives in the first half and in the second half you go with the guy who played better (with the other sprinkled in if necessary). I don't think they're going to alternate them every drive for the whole game... it's more fluid than that.
4. Fitzgerald talks about "self-scouting" in the article. You can get away with 2 QBs for a few games but everyone falls victim to their own tendencies eventually. You've got to be very self aware and constantly tweaking in order to make it work for a whole season. Will that apply to us? Maybe, maybe not if a guy takes over as the starter. I trust a guy like Baldwin who has a ton of experience to be on top of it.
