Some Big 12 quarterback races remain a mystery
Some Big 12 coaches have announced their starting quarterbacks. Some don’t need to. But some are keeping it a mystery.
Kansas State, Baylor and Texas Tech open their seasons Saturday, with no determination in quarterback derbies. K-State has veterans Alex Delton and Skylar Thompson competing for the job. Baylor has incumbent
Charlie Brewer, but graduate transfer Jalan McClendon is making a push. Texas Tech is expected to start veteran
McLane Carter, but coach
Kliff Kingsbury hasn’t made it official.
“I probably won’t name a starter until Friday night,” Baylor coach Matt Rhule said Monday on the season’s first Big 12 coaches teleconference. The Bears host Abilene Christian on Saturday. “Both guys have been awesome. They’ve pushed each other.”
Rhule said he would alternate quarterback snap by snap, if need be.
“I think that position’s competition has been one of the best things about our camp, the way those guys have embraced the challenge of being your best every day,” Rhule said.
Meanwhile, KSU coach Bill Snyder said he has “a pretty good idea where we’re going to go. But not 100 percent sure yet.”
Both Delton and Thompson have played and won for the Wildcats in the past.
“We do know a great deal about each one of them,” Snyder said. “It’s just that it’s been unbelievably even. Both of them have done extremely well. Both are extremely competitive. Both are team-oriented guys. But if you begin to think one is rising above the other, wait a day and that’ll change. Both of ‘em are going to play. Both of ‘em deserve the opportunity.”
OU (Kyler Murray), Texas (Sam Ehlinger), TCU (Shawn Robinson) and Kansas (Peyton Bender) have announced starting quarterbacks this month. West Virginia (Will Grier), Iowa State (Kyle Kempt) and OSU (Taylor Cornelius) went into August camps with the job settled.
Herman doesn’t run from hype
The Texas Longhorns are ranked 23rd in the AP poll. They are 21st in the coaches poll. UT was voted fourth in the Big 12 preseason poll, a spot above Oklahoma State, which has finished behind Texas just once in the eight years of this decade.
Optimism and hype are Longhorn constants. And that’s OK, Texas coach Tom Herman said Monday .
“There’s nobody that’s going to put higher expectations on this program than myself, our coaching staff or the players,” said Herman, whose first Longhorn team went 7-6 last season. “The expectations outside the program, quite frankly, are irrelevant. It’s just noise. The only people that matter are the people in our locker room and in our building. We’re not out to prove anybody wrong. That would lead credence to the idea that we care what people think.”
Texas opens the season Saturday against Maryland in Baltimore, and this lost Longhorn decade remains difficult to grasp. Texas in the ‘10s is 35-36 in conference play, the seventh-best Big 12 record, and 53-48 overall.
Herman pointed to instability as a cause for the slippage in a proud program. In a four-year stretch, Texas had three head coaches, four athletic directors and two presidents.
“Anytime you have that much instability in such a short amount of time, that’s usually not a recipe for success,” Herman said.
Herman fed the hype Monday, saying he’s seen progress on the practice field. “Unbelievable practices,” Herman said. “We’re bigger, faster, stronger. Our guys are playing at a level now we haven’t seen since we’ve been here.”
Of course, Texas was ranked 23rd in the AP preseason poll last season. Then UT lost the season opener to Maryland and never saw the top 25 again.
Kempt’s return bolsters Cyclones
Kempt was a Cinderella story for Iowa State last season. The fifth-year senior had bounced around three schools and virtually never played. But he got his chance last October when Jacob Park was sidelined with off-the-field issues. Kempt made his debut in Norman and engineered a 38-31 upset of Oklahoma and went on to lead the Cyclones to an 8-5 season. Kempt threw 15 touchdown passes and only three interceptions.