Sunday, June 14, 2009

Looking at the Depth Chart: Quarterback

This is the first part of a new series that I am going to do which I call "Looking at the Depth Chart." Where I will take a look at each position on the depth chart one by one giving the position's strength's, weakness and my projected starters. Today, I am going to take a look at the quarterback position, the most unknown position on the team going into the summer.

BC lost 3 of their top 4 quarterbacks on the Depth chart last year (Chris Crane - Graduation, Dominique Davis - Transfer, Chris Johnson - Transfer). The only one who returns, Billy Flutie, is projected to be a wide receiver this year and he has only thrown 3 career passes in college, all of which were on trick plays. There are no other players on the roster who have had any experience at Quarterback in college. The Quarterbacks in the discussion are:
Codi Boek
Justin Tuggle
David Shinskie
Alexander Atiyeh
Mike Marscovetra
Billy Flutie

Strengths: While there are not many strengths for BC at this position, there are a few.

  • The biggest strength for BC at the QB Position is the fact that there is an open competition. While Cody Boek and Justin Tuggle saw the most action in Spring Ball, all six of the QB's I listed will have a legitimate shot to win the starting job which will mean BC will have the best QB on the roster starting for them next fall (not the least bad, like after spring ball).

  • The other strength of the Quarterback position is they have a mixture of young guys and old guys at the position. Shinskie and Boek are both Junior College transfers who have the maturity to play QB at this level while Tuggle, Atiyeh, Marscovetra and Flutie are still very young. Its a good chance for each of these guys to learn from each other and help them become better Quarterbacks.


Weaknesses: There are many more weaknesses at this position than there are strengths.
  • The first weakness the Eagles have here is probably the most important one. The Eagles have no one of the roster who has lined up behind the quarterback and taken snaps and thrown passes in a game in college. Like I said before Flutie has thrown 3 passes on trick plays but that is not that same. The Eagles are going to need someone to step up big time in order to make up for this problem.

  • Another weakness the Eagles have at this position is they have a bunch of young players competing for the job. Mike Marscovetra is a true freshman, Justin Tuggle is a redshirt freshman and Alexander Atiyeh is a sophomore. With all of these young guy you don't know if they have the maturity or the head to play quarterback at this level.

  • The last weakness this team has at the QB position is the fact that a guy who played Fullback last year is currently the favorite to win the starting job and a guy who played baseball for the past six years is another top candidate to win the job. Its never good when you have guys who haven't been playing quarterback steadly vying for the job because you don't know what you are going to get with them. This doesn't mean they can't be good, it is just a big question mark.


Prediction: The Eagles are going to need a bunch of the guys to step up and make the coaches give them the starting job. I do feel that Justin Tuggle will be that guy. Tuggle struggled this spring but watching him at practice you could tell he had the tools of a quarterback but just wan't executing like he should have been. I think Shinskie will also come in and prove that he can still play quarterback and will be ready to pounce if Tuggle or anyone else fails.
Here is how I think the QBs will be ranked going into the Fall:
1. Justin Tuggle
2. David Shinskie
3. Codi Boek
4. Alexander Atiyeh
5. Mike Marscovetra (Will be Redshirted)
6. Billy Flutie

That is it for the Quarterbacks. Tomorrow I will taking a look at the Running Back and Wide Receiver positions in separate posts!

0 Comments:

ESPN College Football Standings

<

ESPN College Football Scoreboard