I’ve always felt there should just be one quarterback playing four quarters in a football game — that’s the conventional wisdom of most football fans.

The “guy”, the “main cheese” — and there’s a lot of pros to this traditional way of doing things in big-time college ball.

Most coaches would rather have one guy who is that field general; the guy leading the offense.

But this is not a “traditional” season, and it’s especially not conventional — in fact — it’s not even been a conventional  year.

No spring ball, no real fall camp (prior to September), and aside from trying to decide which mask we want to wear on any given day, Jimmy Lake and John Donovan have to decide on who “that guy” will be.

You have Dylan Morris, Jacob Sirmon, Kevin Thomson, and newcomer, Ethan Garbers.

Best case scenario would be that one of those four is head and shoulder above everyone else — a guy you have to play because he elevates the team more than the other three.

But after no spring football and a late start, it’s hard to believe that will happen between now and November 7th.

The pros for having one guy be “the guy” is that the offensive line and the continuity of the offense is like a well-oiled machine; everyone knows what the other is going to do.

Whether it’s the snap inflections of the quarterback to how hard he throws the ball, or how he hands off to the running back and commands the huddle — this is where having “the guy” is huge.

Recently, Jimmy Lake was on KJR and the suggestion of a two-quarterback system came up. Lake with a coy tone to his voice said, “You never know…you just never know.”

That could just be Lake trolling Cal, or it’s a possibility this is what we could expect to see.

So when we’re talking about a two-quarterback system, we’re not saying that one guy plays three quarters and the other plays just one — we’re talking about the main starter, and during that 60-minute game the second quarterback would get two (and possibly three) series throughout the game.

It could be two series in the first quarter, or one in the second, or two in the first half and one in the second half, just to put a little secret sauce into the mix in order to change up the game in certain areas.

Also, every opponent would have to prepare for a second quarterback — and remember — there’s no byes and there’s been limited practice times.

Coach Lake said that whoever is the most prepared, despite COVID and every restrictions it’s thrown at the Pac-12 in the past 8 months — that will be the team to win the conference.

Going back to what I wrote earlier — I have always believed in the conventional, one-quarterback system and never thought I’d be considering a two-quarterback system at Washington.

But I also never thought I’d see the Huskies start their season in November either.

The Apple Cup won’t be the last game of the regular season, and right now we don’t even know if there will be any fans in Pac-12 stadiums.

Whoever has the creativity during this thinking-out-of-the-box crazy train called 2020, that will be the team that wins this conference.

And yes, there will always be someone thinking one of the two quarterbacks will be looking over his shoulder, worried he’ll be replaced — but if it’s so close it will be that way anyway this season. The competition this creates only makes guys get better.

Indeed, this has been a completely crazy year — and I expect this to be an even crazier season of Pac-12 football.