With Terrel Hunt out for the foreseeable future and Florida State rolling into the Carrier Dome this weekend, Syracuse head coach Scott Shafer said Thursday morning that he wouldn’t mind a definitive starter at the quarterback.

But that’s not in the cards in the Orange’s hand.

“In an ideal world I’d like to know who my Tom Brady is right now, you know what I mean?” Shafer said at his weekly press conference. “That would be an ideal world. The reality is let’s see what these different kids can do at the quarterback position.”

Those kids are most likely sophomore Austin Wilson and freshman AJ Long, and potentially sophomore Mitch Kimble. Wilson is the only one of the three who’s thrown a collegiate pass, having taken over for Hunt when he was ejected before the second half against Villanova on Aug. 29, and playing in two series when Hunt left with an injury against Louisville last week.

SU’s approach is to not put too much on one quarterback’s plate, partly because Shafer doesn’t feel like one is ready for that load and  because it will allow the Orange to use the best skill sets in certain situations. Whatever the rotation of snaps looks like, the quarterbacks will face no small task when the Orange (2-3, 0-1 Atlantic Coast) hosts the No. 1 Seminoles (5-0, 3-0) at noon in the Carrier Dome on Saturday.

“If you were to say, ‘Give me three things that so and so at this position can do well,’ you start there and say hey, ‘You can do this, hey he does this well,’ and then you say ‘What in our scheme fits. If it’s not in our scheme, how do we create a scheme that fits to that kid’s ability levels?’” Shafer said of the offensive thought process.

“Because now when you get in position when you’re dealing with that, whether it’s offense or defense, then you make the decisions that fit the who’s … I’ve always had a ton of respect for high school coaches because they don’t get to pick who is coming into the program.”

That’s the kind of situation that Shafer, newly minted offensive coordinator Tim Lester and the whole Syracuse offense is in — with the starting quarterback out for 4–6 weeks and three inexperienced signal-callers funneling into the picture. Shafer didn’t say much about any individual player — aside from touching on Long’s development and competitive fire — and gave no indication of whether one quarterback will see a primary role.

Wilson’s more of a pocket passer and has been praised for his strong arm while Long hasn’t taken a snap but has been pegged as a make-something-out-of-nothing signal-caller who creates plays with his legs. And putting inexperience aside, Shafer said that their varying abilities will have them sharing the load.

“It’s ability to adjust to who you have and what they’re ready to do,” Shafer said. “… But I think you have to be careful to not put too much on your plate. What we’re trying to do is put together a recipe for each kid to go in there and say here’s the six, seven things that we really want you to work hard and get good at. And by the way, we probably won’t ask you to do these six or seven things.

“We’ll let this guy do ’em.”

Published on October 9, 2014 at 12:01 pm

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