As some filler before todays practice, let’s look at what PITT has going on in the most important position on the field.  Obviously we’ll see numerous position battles at other spots, maybe even most of them on offense and defense before the dust settles – but QB is always the position which holds the fan’s interest the most.  Here at PITT we hold one past player up as The Benchmark for the position; Dan Marino.  Understandable as he did great things for us and led us to what was the most recent run of success we have had since cars have been built with automatic transmissions. Ever since then we PITT fans have wanted a kid under center who can thread the needle with power on his throws and make quick-trigger decisions that always turn out well… at least that is our memories of Marino, right?

Well, the truth is that Dan Marino’s college reputation was built largely on the backs of one of the most talented teams, top to bottom and year in and year out over his four years at PITT,  that college football has seen.  This is almost always how legends are made.  Not to take away from Dan the Man – he was a great QB, but he also had a ton of help.

Too bad we don’t have that now.  What we have now is the great unknown as a team due to pretty drastic changes from one head coach to another.  If we could point to, let’s say, 17 of 22 positions and say we have solid returning kids there then it would be easier for us to accept that our returning QB would also hold onto the starter’s job.  That may not be the case in 2011.

As mentioned before, our HC has made it pretty clear that he believes not only in finding a QB who can run his system but also ensuring that there is open and heated competition to determine who that is.  This is as it should be and accomplishes two things: gets us the best QB we have on roster handling the ball 84 time a game and it makes every QB better players in the long run as they are engaged and can learn what is required of them if they have to step into the role.  When every other player on the roster is told that if they work hard they have a shot at playing time, save for the open starting position at QB, it sends a contrasting message from the top.

That was then, this is now.

The first mention in this race has to be our incumbent starter Tino Sunseri.  If you look at Sunseri’s statistics of 2010 you’d raise an eyebrow and think “Not too shabby for a first year starter”. But that doesn’t tell the whole story and PITT fans are pretty damned astute when it comes to nuances of QB play.  There was a feeling at the end of 2010 that we didn’t necessarily get what our old coach not only promised from Sunseri but based his personnel decision on even before spring camp.

Aside from an almost wishful thinking second half in the opening game at Utah where Sunseri actually completed passes and looked like he wasn’t going to be a total failure (always a concern in someone’s first ever start), we never got the feeling that Sunseri could take over and control the outcome of the game by best utilizing his offensive talent.  Maybe that was part of the Grand Plan from Wannstedt as he did like Game Managers, but we expected more I think and never really got it.  This is an exercise in theory play – but take away Sunseri’s two mid-season games, in which he did play well, against Syracuse and Rutgers – two rather poor BE teams where he threw seven TDs – and his remaining efforts in our other ten games was pedestrian in producing 188 yards passing per game with 8 TDs and  8 INTs.  Very 2008 Bill Stull-like in fact.

Now, he didn’t stink out the joint, did some things well for a first year starter and he went through some stretches were we saw some very solid play from him as referenced above giving us fans hope that he found his stride. But it was spotty QB play over the course of the season.

He certainly may be able to mount a Stull-like progression from Year 1 to Year 2. However, nothing we saw out of Tino Sunseri in 2010 should make him a lock, or even a solid front runner, for the starting position. This especially holds true in that one of the main positive attributes he brings into 2011, his starting experience, is somewhat negated by the complete changeover in the offensive system.  Still, he is the returning starting QB and as such he’ll get first chance to hold onto the job.

Our other three contenders are interesting with diverse playing styles in Mark Myers, Anthony Gonzales and Kolby Gray.

On one hand we have Mark Myers, a big, 4 star, strong armed and accurate passer who was an All-Ohio Player in 2009 and ranked 11^th nationally by the scouting services.  His reputation is that of a drop back Pro-style player but that may be a bit of a mistake to try to lock him into that box.  He actually played a bit of both types of offenses in high school and also ran the 110 hurdles.  That means the kid can move on his feet and well.  But if Graham is going to have the deep ball be as large a part of his arsenal as he has stated – Myers may be hard to sit down… and the reports out of the camps both last year and this year are that Myers throw a beautiful one.

Anthony Gonzales may, at first glance, be best suited for this new offense.  He was a very successful QB of the PA state champs, is a dual-threat QB and can run like the wind.  How he can actually pass at this level is a question mark though.  But since he’s not a prototypical drop-back QB his mobility may cover for any other adequacies he has throwing.  I do think that if you listen to how Graham describes what he wants for his QB and how he envisions racking up rushing yardage at that position – he has to be chomping at the bit to see what Gonzales can do under game conditions.

Which leads us to the wildcard in Kolby Gray.  Apparently a lot of PITT fans look at Gray as a bit of an afterthought in the QB race and he may well be.  But to discount him completely, especially at this early stage, is a mistake.  He has the exact HS background that Graham wants his QBs to have, was recruited by Graham and Coach Dodd two years ago and probably understands this particular system better than our other QBs.  We saw flashes of Gray’s play at Safety last year; he is quick and fast and has a nose for the ball.  It appears that he’s got good football instincts.  Gray is coming off shoulder surgery in 2009 and is rusty throwing the ball, but it is early days yet.  If the coaching staff puts a lot of weight in ‘intangibles’ then Gray may have a decent shot.

If Coach Graham holds true to form in his continually stating that “The System is the Thing”,  then this QB competition may be more open than it looks given one player’s incumbency.  Graham doesn’t project as the type of coach who will select his starters by default and each one of our QBs has certain positive, and negative, attributes for him to consider.  An overriding factor that will be hidden to us fans is how well these four players fully grasp the intricate details of the new offense.  The HC may sacrifice physical talent for that solid understanding of how to run his system.

This will be a very interesting development to watch throughout the spring and we may well see someone play himself into the starting position that we hadn’t considered at this point last year.  It may not the QB who has the best singular attributes, but the best QB who fits into the offense given the talent and style of play of the other 10 starters.  This isn’t going to be a team where the QB is the ‘end all be all’.  Marino became a legend using his firm grasp of the QB position to allow the best of the other offensive player’s talents to shine, 2011 may see a starting PITT QB who can do the same.