QB1 in 2025 You're the one who mentioned "let the subs close out the second quarter" in blowouts. Let's explore that. We had 2 games that were blowouts, like you said. The Illinois St game was a playoff game and also, only 28-10 after 3 quarters. Montana St was up 30-8 on us, we had the ball on our own 19 with 10:42 left and Montana St still had to stop a 2 point conversion to prevent that game from going into OT. So the other two games, you want the reserves to come in and play, what, one or two series in the second quarter? Throw 15-20 passes total between the two games? And you think that will help develop them for next year because they're playing against the starters for two teams who were a combined 4-19? That's not going to do much of anything, especially if you're splitting those throws up among two QBs. And playing them at the end of the game, almost no coach is going to say "hey I know we're up 49-10 or 52-0 entering the fourth quarter, but we're going to continue to run our hurry up offense and throw the ball just so we can get the reserves some experience". I understand the thinking, but it's not going to happen, even with the backups.
As for the two blowouts, the box score tells me Harper was the QB for our only two 4th quarter drives against Cal Poly. And against NCU, Harper came in for the drive that started with 3:58 left in the 3rd quarter. So the backups played nearly a quarter and a half. We actually played 3 backup QBs that day. Only 2 threw passes but I was at that game and remember a fourth QB coming in. So we did insert the reserves in the third quarter, exactly like you wanted.
The only way you're going to develop a QB is by letting them play consistently. Not by playing like 4 drives over the course of a season. And unfortunately, you can really only have 1 QB on the field at a time. This isn't RB where you can split carries or WR where you can spread the ball around. And really, they're probably going to develop better going against our defense in practice than they would going against an awful Poly or Northern Colorado team.