Tuesday, October 31, 2017

So, You've Lost Your QB 50 Days before NSD

Hi, Everyone! Y'all have a good night?

I was in training and mostly away from the 'tronz between six and nine last night and emerged to hear the Gopher program had imploded and we were selling off the stadium for scrap to Chadian brick dealers. After looking into it a bit, I learned that was because we lost a dude who wasn't even on the team yet. That's kind of odd, isn't it?

Yes, losing your quarterback 50-some days before National Signing Day isn't ideal. Some might even say that it's a bit of a Royale Poop with Cheese. But, Jesus in mango habenero sauce, people, it's not the damned end of the world.

I, like most knobs, was pretty much penciling in Brennan Armstrong as our starter for next season. Rhoda is gone, Croft has been...yeah... and, while Tanner Morgan might be amazing, Armstrong has put up some pretty spectacular numbers this year, despite missing some time due to, uh, one of my vices. He seemed like he fit the offense like stink to a Wisconsinite, so I was ready to go pantsless for the 2018 season as we finally got good QB play (more on that in a coming article).

Alas, it was not meant to be. I don't know the reasons why he opened up his recruitment, but since it's my blog and no one can tell me not to speculate, I'll speculate: it was painfully evident we needed to bring in a JUCO or graduate transfer quarterback this class and Armstrong was not comfortable with that. Armstrong was a talented dude, but you can't torpedo the program by not giving yourself an older option at the most important position on the field to assuage a 17-year old's ego. 

For the old dog lovers who are using this as fodder for THE BOAT BE SINKIN' narrative, just remember that if Snorlax weren't asleep at the helm last season we could have had this guy under center right now. Dude was ready to pull the trigger and come here and we slow played him. As bad as the QB situation is this year - and it is awful - it might have somehow been worse if the old staff were retained. If you want to blame anyone for the predicament with respect to passing the ball through the air, go ahead and look at the Claeysface tattoo you got on your wrist.

So where do we go from here? The dynamics of recruiting are a little different this year with the December signing period. Elite programs have already begun to snipe each other's prospects, which usually leads to some dominoes falling as we move down a few tiers in team quality - the Elite steal from the Elite, those Elite steal from the Good, those Good steal from the Meh. Notwithstanding our current record, Fleck gives us enough cache to qualify as "Good" so it wouldn't shock me to see us raid a non-P5 team of their commit and grab a JUCO or a grad transfer to supplement. 

Again, this isn't ideal. I'm sure the staff is as frustrated as we fans are at the timing of this. But there's plenty of calendar to get a couple of good dudes in here to put us in a better position than where we were coming into this season.

Plus it'll be 2019 soon. And our savior Hank will come. And Hell is coming with him.

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