Monday, August 14, 2006

The oblong ball

Yesterday, while eating at a mexican restaurant on Kingston Pike next to Macaroni Grill that shall remain nameless, :) , the fearless leader of the UT offense walked in for lunch. For those that are lost, I'm refering to Eric Ainge. After a long conversation that was quite hilarious about what would happen if Brad were to tackle Eric in the middle of the restaurant, I thought I might post some of my thoughts on the current QB competition right now.

Basically, the competition consists of Ainge, a junior, versus Jonathan Crompton, a redshirt Freshman. Everyone knows about Ainge and his struggles last year. Many were hoping that under Cutcliffe that he would improve. After the first scrimmage this past Saturday, which I did not see but only heard about, it appears that he is still struggling with the same demons he dealt with last year. Crompton came to UT last year as the "savior" at quaterback. After being an All-American in high school, everyone expected him to challenge for the job, but a shoulder injury sidelined him for the season last year. He seems to be doing fairly well in practice, but is still making freshman mistakes. He did well, according to Fulmer, in practice, except for his tw0 fumbled snaps. That in my opinion is the only opinion that should count. From my experience with basketball, there are usually only a few people that know when someone does something wrong on the field or court, and that usually is the coaches. Lots of times QB's will get blames for bad throws, when in fact it could have been the receiver's fault. Only the coaches and players will know that. For example, Ainge was blasted by some when he called a timeout on the first play of the scrimmage Saturday. Come to find out, the coaches called the "timeout" because they weren't prepared to start the scrimmage just yet. Others blasted the receivers because they didn't appear to do too well. Fulmer said yesterday that he thought the receivers did an excellent job and that the QB's just needed to catch up to them. Just goes to show that people don't know as much as they think they do.

Anyways, here is my question to think about. Crompton has been getting mainly 2nd team reps. When is the time to start getting him more 1st team reps to see if he can respond to what appears to be a very solid defense on our team? Or do you stick with Ainge, a guy with a fragile mind that tends to make bad decisions (see 2 INT's in scrimmage)? When do you get to the point where you turn the team over to a freshman, and live with his mistakes, or stay with unproven veteran?

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