Harvey Specter wrote:Troy Williams. Is a good backup. Dawkins is serviceable.
Troy Williams is a dream backup for teams not named BamaOhioStateetc. Senior leader, proven, etc..
Harvey Specter wrote:RR thought he was a good starter... but corcunstances have forced his hand. To our benefit. And ours.
I doubt that. Anu Solomon was supposed to be the starter. A couple of other QBs who have been in and out of the program were more likely thought of as good backups to possibly start before Dawkins. Anu Solomon a freshman AA that led the team to the Fiesta Bowl was handing off to a Freshman 4 star back in Nick Wilson. QB was in a good place. In Anu's Soph year, we signed a few QBs, including 4 star dual threat QB Brandon Dawkins. But Anu was still young...we were bringing in QBs but they would have to be great to beat Anu out (remember the recruiting was happening when Anu was fine). Don't forget Jerrard Randall, an LSU transfer and elite recruit that could run a little bit of dual threat spread option, too, but wasn't a starter level player for sure. He had some success as a back up, but was just that...a back up. Like Dawkins.
So, with Anu a Junior and Dawkins a Freshman, RichRod also brought in some practice fodder/local help that was worth checking out in Werlinger and the other guy. We were light, though, with high level recruit/transfer Connor Brewer had a cup of coffee and left. So, with Anu, Dawkins, and some practice depth, RichRod ALSO signed this kid named Khalil Tate, a 4 star that he saw as a QB when no one else in the elite ranks did. RichRod saw him as a perfect fit for the offense, much like Braxton Burmeister. So RichRod has this covered...he might not have the D all sorted, but his QB situation was set up to be elite. But Tate was really young...17 as a freshman. He was supposed to redshirt last year. But we, at one point, played our tight end at QB because EVERYONE played QB last year. That means that Tate is now an 18 year old sophomore. It sucks we couldn't get the redshirt on him, but still...RichRod offered this kid as a QB because he saw a perfect QB for his system. We were supposed to be in good shape with Anu, Randall giving way to Brewer giving way to Tate or Dawkins....but still, Dawkins was never a central part of the planning. He is a nice kid, but was NEVER supposed to be the starter here. To add to the depth, we had a verbal from Braxton Burmeister, a high 4 star dual threat QB enrolling early (like Tate) and ready by this year, which we were now starting to find out was a big deal, that ANU was not going to make it. I mean, figure this is 2015/2016 thinking and reacting. In 2015, we thought we had Anu, in 2016 we had whoever could stand on their own two feet without collapsing. An awful season, but coming into 2017, we were going to be young with Anu's collapse. He was reasonable to expect to start for 4 years, but by 2016, we had a crisis with our upperclassman former freshman AA QB..he was mentally gone, then actually transferred. That is going to hurt a program...But still, we were going to have two elite two-way QBs in waiting, both 4-stars out of high school and even higher rated when rated against Dual Threat QBs (Burmeister and Tate, with Dawkins in the mix as well, and Baseball Tate maybe a lucky catch, maybe now).
So we lost our expected 4 year starter, but still recruited behind him enough to not have a disaster in 2017. We were just going to be very young at QB. You just don't expect senior QBs to leave when they started as a Fresh and Soph. But he wasn't able to run this offense any longer. So we had Burmeister, Tate, and Dawkins.
Then we lost Burmeister.
RR played Dawkins in relief of Anu last year, but never thought Dawkins was a good starter, just the best that we had at any given time, which was true through last season (Tate was awful last year when he played) and was true when considering injury this year through Colorado.
Tate came in against Houston. And looked pretty good...then looked AWFUL. But Rich Rod did put him into the game. Rich Rod was going to continue putting a healthy or, as Houston showed, even unhealthy Tate, because he did not, in fact, feel confident about Dawkins at all. But, yes, the injury forced his hand...maybe 7 minutes faster, maybe 70 minutes, maybe a game faster...all dependent on what Dawkins did.
But RichRod has not been shy about pulling Dawkins.
what now? machina is probably another one who thinks Dawkins was doing a "good job"
