on MarQueis Gray. Before I start, let me make it clear he’s my favorite Gopher and my wife loves him because she met him at the Gopher Womens’ Clinic and the picture is her work computer wallpaper.

First off, he won the QB job as a sophomore in HS and threw for about 900 yards. As a junior, he threw the ball 140 times completing about 50% of his passes. As a senior, he missed all but 5 games due to injury, and went 19/32 for the season. Yes, Gray threw the ball 32 times as a senior.

As everyone knows, Gray did not play football, anywhere, from November 2007 until January 2009. Why? Bad ACT scores. What do bad ACT scores mean? Figure it out.

Is this a good enough apprenticeship for Gray to take over a pro-style, multiple scheme offense (which NFL QBs sometimes need years to master) as essentially a true freshman, with 9 months’ experience in college? Honestly?

Because here’s what we’ve got. A new offensive coordinator who requires his QBs to know 500 different hieroglyphics and decipher them, then make pre-snap reads, maybe audible, and then run the plays. Let’s not forget as well that by, say, week 4, Big Ten coaches know what’s coming, so you need to start self-scouting and adding to the playbook to counterscheme. With that in mind, the QB options are: (1) a fourth – year junior who is a two-year returning starter and was Second Team All-Big Ten, as well as an Academic All Big Ten performer in 2008; OR (2) a redshirt freshman who couldn’t qualify academically and who ran the spread as a HS quarterback for the equivalent of 2 years.

If the coaches are only sending Gray in with one play to run and then are yanking him out of the game, doesn’t that give you all a pretty clear indication as to the coaches’ confidence in his ability to understand the playbook and lead the team?

Don’t you all think that if Gray were better than Weber, that he’d be playing, especially after Weber lost his gravy train for the season?

Let’s not forget that most of the best QBs who were dual threat, such as Vince Young and Pat White, were given the luxury of a redshirt year to learn an offense and prepare for the job. Gray is essentially going through his true freshman season now, on the field.

If you all think he has the talents of, say, Terrelle Pryor in 2008, and are willing to watch Gray struggle a la Pryor in the passing game, well, then let’s throw him in. However, Gray does not have Beanie Wells in the backfield, he doesn’t have a dominant defense with Laurenaitis, Coleman, Jenkins, Heyward, Gibson and the others that gave Pryor such great field position and held the opposition to 10 ppg, and he doesn’t have the offensive line the Buckeyes had last year.

The Gophers would have lost to Michigan State had Gray been the starter, and that would have ensured, ironically, that Gray and the offense did not get the extra 15 practices that could help Gray in fact be the starter next year.

Bottom line: Gray’s not ready now. If he were, he’d be the starter. However, there’s many reasons why he’s not, and he’d only be set up for failure if he were.

My question is, while there be a legit open QB competition come Spring 2010? I simply want the best player under center starting next Fall. That said, I agree with PJS, let’s get the kid out there now and see what he’s got. At a minimum he should be splitting snaps with Weber 40-60.

We all realize that Gray is our future for this program, and the best way for Brewster to make a mark on this program is to have MarQueis succeed. If he gives us a better chance to win than Weber next year, then let’s be glad we have an experienced vet QB waiting in the wings, should Gray get injured.

Weber has received more votes than Goldy so far.

And I dont see any Weber supporters bitching about the fact that Weber took a job from someone on the team that knew the playbook as well as he did if not better. Maybe Gray has a football intelligence beyond what we know. By the standards that GN has set you never play Kirby Puckett because he was young and didnt know the MLB game. You dont play Peterson because he was a young NFL RB…..Great players know how to play…bottom line and if Gray is as good as we hope that will show rather quickly….you can always go back to Weber if the wheels fall off in any of the games and you silence the rumblings to play Gray….we really have nothing to lose….all has already been lost by shitty coaching decisions to play Weber. And if anyone thinks some BS bowl game is really something to lose then you are short sighted. Playing Gray will put us in a cyrstal clear picture for next year. We either play him as a Soph or we Play weber as a senior. If Gray is not that good we have a year to develop the other QBs and recruit some more. By not playing gray we wasted a year of his talent with a we will never know just how good he is until we have some more meaningful games. I would rather know now what we are getting until after next season.

look at Juice Williams (much more highly touted than Gray). The kid played immediately and has been more up and down than Weber. Think maybe sitting and learning might have helped him to be a quarterback rather than an athlete? Look at all talent around him and as a senior he is one of the major reasons the Illini struggled so much this year. I don’t want a running back playing QB who can’t actually play QB, let the kid learn, throwing into the fire doesn’t always mean he’ll be better for it in the end.