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Stability at quarterback.
It can be a fleeting commodity. But nothing is more important to bottom-line success in college football today.A quick scan of the updated Big 12 standings drives home that point. With emphasis.As we head into the first full week of conference games, only three league teams remain undefeated: No. 2 Texas (4-0), No. 16 Kansas (4-0) and No. 24 Missouri (4-0). It is no accident that those three schools have used the same starting quarterback in all of their games, and kept him healthy, thus far in 2009.Of the four schools that will carry 3-1 records into this week’s games, all but Baylor have been injury-free at quarterback. Included is Texas A&M, where coach Mike Sherman berated himself after Saturday’s 47-19 loss to Arkansas for letting Jerrod Johnson, the nation’s No. 5 passer (326.5 yards per game), take a big hit on the Aggies’ final drive with the outcome already determined."If he’d gotten hurt there, then I would have been very critical of myself and y’all would have been more critical of me," Sherman said, addressing reporters. "And you would have been right in saying so. I ... should have taken him out. There was nothing to be gained there. It wasn’t the wisest thing I did."But the Aggies (3-1) will have their starting quarterback in the lineup for Saturday’s Big 12 opener against No. 15 Oklahoma State (11:30 a.m., College Station). That is more that three other schools can say.As a result, the jury is out on whether any of the three — No. 19 Oklahoma (2-2), Baylor (3-1) or Texas Tech (3-2) — can meet the pre-season expectations of their fan bases. The answers, in large part, will be determined by how quickly each school can stabilize its current quarterback quandary.Tech officials have offered no medical updates since Taylor Potts, the nation’s No. 2 passer (363.4 per game), departed Saturday’s 48-28 victory over New Mexico with what appeared to be concussion-like symptoms while the game was tied, 7-7, in the second quarter. Potts’ replacement, Steven Sheffield, led the Red Raiders to their final 41 points, throwing for 238 yards and three touchdowns.After the game, Tech coach Mike Leach, who does not discuss injuries, dodged the question of whether he expects Potts to play Saturday against Kansas State."I expect everybody to be back since there hasn’t been an injury around here in five years," Leach said. "I don’t know why this week would be any different. We’ll go out and practice and see what happens."Translation: Expect Potts’ availability to be a game-time decision by Tech coaches, similar to the one Baylor coaches made by starting freshman Nick Florence, rather than senior Blake Szymanski, in Saturday’s 31-15 victory over Kent State.It marked the Bears’ first game without star quarterback Robert Griffin, who will miss the remainder of the season because of a knee injury. With Szymanski nursing a shoulder ailment, coach Art Briles went with Florence, and he delivered. But can the Bears reach the six-win mark, and their much-discussed bowl goal, by playing backups? If so, which backup quarterback is best-suited to lead them in Big 12 play?
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