I've been sitting here all week trying to figure out Mullen's take on the QB situation and if he's screwed it up this QB situation of if it's a no-win situation and the recruiting is to blame.
Going into the Spring and Fall we had 4 options. We split reps evenly in the spring, let the QB's take hits in the spring game and then work all the way into summer. The fact that it was still a battle deep into Aug was making it clear that either they were (a) all good (b) all terrible (c) a new mixed bag every day or (d) Mullen's love for upperclassmen was getting in the way.
The rumor mill consensus was that D. Williams had no chance being the least physcially talented of the bunch. Fitz was probably the favorite as the No. 2 last year and was the best physically for the run option, however there is concern he's a prick and nobody likes him. Staley was lauded as the best arm talent but injuries and lack of focus put him behind. Meanwhile we kept hearing Tiano was a coaching staff favorite but the concern was he had no college game experience. Players had commented on his arm strength in the past and he ran well enough in the spring game.
Staley eventually decides to move on. We knew someone (or two) would. Everybody liked him and wished him well. Time well tell if that's a colossal mistake in hindsight but to a large degree he dug his own grave at MSU.
We all assume (correctly) that there is no way Mullen starts Tiano based soley on lack of experience. Consenus says Fitz and that's what we get although we know we'll see D-will as well.
The main question on this end is did losing additional reps hurt development of the guy you want to be the starter? We'll never know.
Saturday comes and Fitz gets some bad play calls but also misreads a few plays and is very slow through progressions and decision making. Williams comes in and is much quicker with decisions and leads a couple of nice drives before the clock hit midnight and we completely lost the ability to move the ball through the air.
So we learned that Williams is going to be extremely sporadic throwing the ball and Fitz is likely too slow through his progressions although we did have a small sample size. However that's how he looked like year on all the short and intermediate routes. Plus if the team doesn't like him, is he ever going to be able to inspire a team to play above themselves?
Neither one gives you much faith against a real SEC defense.
My question is how did Tiano look in practice against the others and what does the team think of him. If he was at worst equal and he's the guy as a coaching staff you love, why not try him against USA and let him grow there. Yeah, you're sure to piss off the others and maybe you lose them in the locker room. But your job is the to win games and as long as the rest of the team has confidence in him you can't worry too much about what the backup QBs think.
What do ya'll think - Mullen just trying to deal with a bad hand or did he make mistakes in how he handled the competition?
