Who said teams can't handle a quarterback carousel halfway through the year?
First St. Charles North's Sean McGushin started taking a majority of the snaps from fellow senior Nick Neari in Week 3. Then Larkin and Burlington Central followed suit last week.
The Royals handed signal calling duties to senior Justin Kalusa for last week's game against Neuqua Valley. The move appears permanent as senior Jeff Saurbaugh moves from quarterback to tailback alongside Kalusa in Larkin's new-look shotgun formation.
Meanwhile, junior Tim Botsford and sophomore Tim Maroder split snaps in Central's win against North Boone last week as the Rockets notched their first win of the year. Maroder took the majority of the snaps in the first few weeks of the season while Botsford spent most of his time on defense.
In all three cases, Neari, Saurbaugh and Maroder weren't so much removed from the quarterback role as they were moved to positions where they can more effectively help the team. Those three players all have considerable talents and can be asked to step back in at quarterback in a moment's notice.
Central coach Aaron Wichman echoes the sentiments of North coach Mark Gould and Larkin coach Matt Gehrig when he explains his team's switch.
"We had talked all year how we thought we had two good quarterbacks," Central coach Aaron Wichman said. "(Botsford) took some snaps and played pretty well."
Gould even went so far as to liken his team's situation to the one playing out at Virginia Tech, where the Hokies are relying on Tyrod Taylor and Sean Glennon to share the load at quarterback. That seems to be working out well for Tech, which is 4-1 after beating Nebraska on Saturday.
Notice at the beginning of this entry that I said nothing about quarterback controversies. The bottom line is that all three teams weren't afraid to change horses in midstream because Neari, Saurbaugh and Maroder are team players willing to do what it takes to help their teams win.
Some might look at this as a win-at-all-cost mentality on the part of the coaches at these three schools. The urge to say "stick with the guy who got you here" is palpable. Instead, I say these coaches simply knew which players they could count on to play out of position and carry the load while their successors were being groomed.
We'll still have to see how these changes play out in the long run, but all three teams deserve credit for not letting the friction these transitions can sometimes cause become a distraction.
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