It’s become pretty clear this week we really don’t have a clue what Chad Morris and Joe Craddock intend on doing Saturday with the quarterback situation.
In what has become the most important position on the field for a championship college football team, we don’t know what we don’t know about the position with the Razorbacks.
You know that at some point this year we’re going to see freshmen Connor Noland and John Stephen Jones. We haven’t, yet.
In fact, neither of them have even shown up on the depth chart for either of the first two games. Neither Morris or Craddock gave any clue Monday that they HAVE a clue as to how things are going to emerge at the position.
“Playing two quarterbacks is really not something I want to do, but it’s something right now, until we can get that guy who can get this team moving and getting us on schedule and creating the momentum and the spark it’s going to take, it’ll be a week-to-week process right now,” Morris said in a terribly convoluted manner. “I hope to settle in and get a guy going.”
There is no indication, either, that they are looking at anyone but Ty Storey and Cole Kelley, who have only shown a consistent ability to be completely inconsistent.
At this point, nobody believes either is the long-range answer at quarterback.
Now, having said all of that I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if Morris steps to the microphone this afternoon before practice and tells us Noland will be the starter Saturday against North Texas.
At this point, most are asking if not now, why not?
At Tuesday’s practice, all three quarterbacks looked as sharp as we’ve seen in a practice, particularly Noland. Many of the players have said privately they think he runs the offense better than anyone else.
Are the players seeing something the coaches don’t?
Or do the coaches see something in the practice film the players don’t?
Quite frankly, if Morris and Craddock are not wanting to throw Noland into a no-win situation, well, this might be the last week to do that for awhile. With a killer stretch of Auburn, Texas A&M and Alabama, the Hogs won’t have a better chance than this weekend against North Texas.
By all accounts from folks in Greenwood who have been around Noland more than me, he’s basically been running Morris’ offense under Rick Jones for the last several years. That might be why he runs it better than anyone else.
In his past Morris hasn’t exactly been reluctant to play freshmen quarterbacks. Shoot, he had Deshaun Watson taking snaps from the first game he was at Clemson.
Now, nobody has attempted to compare Noland with Watson. Let’s not get carried away here.
But Noland was a four-star quarterback recruit who won a state title at Greenwood. Then he was MVP in leading the Bulldogs to a state title in baseball.
The kid showed he was a winner in high school.
He might be in college, too, but we don’t know that.
What we do know is Storey and Kelley don’t appear to be the answer to anything except a possible trivia question a few years from now.
The only way we’ll know is if he gets in a game.
And I’m pretty certain that’s the only way Morris and Craddock will know, too.
