It is highly anticipated Chad Morris will announce a starting quarterback in his press conference Monday, but over the weekend a phrase he’s often uttered popped back into my head.
“It’s not a lifetime appointment,” he has said on multiple occasions.
If he says it again Monday it won’t be surprising but it is good to hear him say it and hopefully that’s the way he views it.
Quarterback is the most pressure-packed position in football at any level. It has especially been the case at Arkansas where it gets the second-most blame or credit behind the coach (and slightly above the athletic director, which has always been puzzling).
Of course we’re all assuming this is not Morris playing the media attention angle. That might not be a bad idea, either, come to think of it. After 2-10 it’s one way to keep the interest level peaking.
And it’s been all of that and more, building back in spring to being the primary topic of conversation throughout the summer and fall camp.
Everybody’s got a source and an opinion. I’ve heard from people who get to stay longer at practices than anybody in the media and every one of them has had a differert view, depending on the day they were at practice.
Some say Ben Hicks. The next is convinced it’s Nick Starkel. A couple have said John Stephen Jones.
In case you’re wondering, we’re hearing the same thing about practices. Exactly how anyone can determine anything from practices these days is beyond me.
Everybody wants to believe the worst and hope for the best.
All of this is building to the point that whoever Morris names this week (and the guess is it will be Monday) is not cast in stone for the rest of the season.
The Portland State game may be the final audition.
Nate Olson mentioned the really important question is who will be starting against Ole Miss in the second week, which I agree with.
Let’s be honest here, the Vikings couldn’t play dead in a cowboy movie against an SEC team and basically are treating this like a team outing with a scrimmage. The coach even considered taking a bus and several days for the trip, but it’s cheaper to fly.
If Arkansas isn’t up 30-0 at halftime there’s a problem in this game.
Whether the Monday morning quarterbacks agree or not, it’s going to be a chance to look at several quarterbacks without jeopardizing a win. How much leeway the starter has to screw up is not known.
You get the feeling Morris is going to use The Force to decide, similar to what Tom Landry always went with. Tom usually had disastrous results with that, even going with alternating Craig Morton and Roger Staubach every single play.
It took Staubach going to Landry on the team plane coming back from that game and telling him if he wasn’t going to be the starter, trade him somewhere. He started the next week, finishing the year with a Super Bowl win and the rest is history.
Landry also had problems announcing a starter in the 1980’s, going so far as to step to the podium in the late stages of training camp in 1984 and announcing Pozderac as the starter before catching himself, rolling his eyes, and announcing Steve Pelleur over incumbent Danny White.
The reason the proclamation of Phil Pozderac as the starter was alarming that he was a rather unremarkable career as an offensive tackle and being the tallest player in the league (a half-inch taller than Ed “Too Tall” Jones) and accumulating an impressive number of holding calls at the worst possible times.
Pozderac was so star-crossed that a few weeks after the announcement he stood up in a Dallas nightclub while watching Monday Night Football, slipped and broke his ankle.
Landry’s infamous “feel” for who should be quarterback was a big factor in the collapse of the Cowboys.
Fans are hoping Morris’ decision-making doesn’t collapse the Hogs.
May The Force be with him.
