The biggest question on the minds of Husky fans, beat writers, and anyone else paying attention is: Who will be the starting quarterback when the Huskies take the field next weekend against Eastern.
Jacob Eason or Jake Haener?
Before we get too far into this, let me personally lay some ground work: I’ve been covering Washington football for over 20 years and I have plenty of sources. So how many did I use for this article?
Zero. This is just all based on what I know to be true about Chris Petersen and what might go on in his head.
Everyone is head coach, though — and there’s so much talk about Coach Pete runs his program; from the armchair quarterbacks to the Twittersphere to beat writers, pundits, and message board posters. Everyone knows how to do it better than Chris Petersen.
As if…
First off — no one in the world has more first-hand knowledge and inside info on these two quarterbacks than Chris Petersen, and — let’s face it — Petersen has been in the coaching ranks for over three decades. I would assume, by now, he has a pretty firm grasp on all of this.
And it doesn’t just stop at what these quarterbacks (or any of the players) can do on the field, Petersen knows something about these young players in general, he did — after all — earn his bachelor’s degree in psychology and a masters degree in educational psychology from UC Davis.
So having covered all of that, let’s talk about what could be about the play out in the first two games of the season: Eastern, and then the Pac-12 opener against Cal.
Just to be clear, I did talk to one individual (not a “source) who’s covered college and pro football for over 35 years and he had some interesting takes on what could be going on in Petersen’s head where these quarterbacks are concerned.
We discussed this at length over the weekend, and both agreed it would be Eason, without question, but let’s be clear: This is in no way a shot at Jake Haener.
Of course, Haener is a smallish QB at 6-0, 194. He doesn’t wow you with his size, but there have been plenty of QB’s who don’t have a lot of height; Russell Wilson, Doug Flutie, and more recently Kyle Murray come to mind. Granted, those guys had the “it” factor, but you can’t base anything on Haener’s size when talking about who wins the starting job.
What Eason has, however, is something that — maybe — only ten players in the whole country have, and that is a freakish, cannon of an arm. It will open the field for the offense, and defenses have to respect his arm strength, no matter what.
Again, you hear this stuff all the time from fans and writers about how Eason “needs the snaps” in order to get things like timing down, etc. etc. But last year Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence didn’t become the starting QB until week five; replacing starter Kelly Bryant (who then would transfer to Missouri). Bryant had been taking all the first-team snaps before losing his job, however.
Turned out pretty good for Clemson and Trevor Lawrence — don’t ya think? MVP of national title game…not bad for a guy who wasn’t the starter the first five games of the season.
So all that noise about how Eason isn’t getting first-team snaps is just a myth, and just plain…noise.
But back to the opener against Eastern and the Pac-12 opener against Cal — in reality we’re not so much focused on the game against the Eagles as we are on the game against the Golden Bears.
(Petersen would never admit this) Cal has only had film of Eason’s first year at Georgia and I would bet a dollar to a doughnut they have watched that film 200 times.
As far as a scouting report on Eason, that’s it — that’s all they have.
So against Eastern, Eason will be named the starter, or the co-starter with Jake Haener, and it’s clearly an advantage for the Huskies if Petersen goes this route.
In fact, I would bet Eason starts in some capacity and Haener starts the second half against Eastern.
Honestly, if people think Eason is going to come in and sling the ball 47 times against EWU then they’re dreaming. It will be a vanilla offense, a power running game, and just some basic pass plays for both QB’s.
What that does is make Cal have to spend 25% of their practice time worrying about Haener — and they can’t put all their eggs in a basket for Eason.
And the beauty of this is that Cal can’t do anything about it — it’s a double-edged sword. If there were three OOC games in a row, then I would say Eason is going to start those first three games, but with Cal having one of the best defenses in the Pac-12 this year (projected, that is), Coach Petersen is doing his team a favor and giving them a better chance to win.
Why is this all taking so long to straighten out? It might seem that way in the eyes of those who aren’t at practice and out of the proverbial “loop” of game-planning.
I’m thinking that they’re working on Eason’s tendencies because Cal saw some of those tendencies on his film from Georgia, and some change-ups here would necessitate some time. At least for those on the outside looking in.
I’m a member of the media, but I have to chuckle whenever some of my colleagues approach Coach Pete after practice trying to get him to admit who the starting QB will be.
I get it, they want to get that first story and tweet it out as “breaking news” or an “emergency podcast”, but these practices have been closed up tighter than a tick — and there’s so much going on behind the scenes that no one knows about and every one of us will be guessing until that two-deep chart is handed out on Monday.
Everyone has an opinion, and personally I don’t care what anyone thinks about what I’ve said here. It’s just my two-cents, like everyone else’s, but this is what I believe could be happening.
But if I had to trust the opinion of some beat writer, a fan on Twitter, or Chris Petersen — I’d choose Petersen’s opinion every time.
His “opinion” won him two Bear Bryant awards, if you can top that then I might listen.
