Khadrice Rollins
krollins@ajc.com
When you have two quarterbacks, it usually means you have no quarterback.
Kennesaw State has three quarterbacks, and coach Brian Bohannon said that means he has three quarterbacks.
After last season’s starter Trey White went down with an injury at the start of the season, Chandler Burks was handed the reigns to the offense and has led the Owls (6-2, 2-1 Big South) through an impressive season. Early on though, Burks also was forced to the sideline when KSU faced Duquesne in the third game. On that day, freshman Daniel David was left in charge, and he earned the conference Freshman of the Week award for his 172 passing yards and two touchdowns in the win.
So with three quarterbacks who have all shown some ability to produce wins, Bohannon has decided to do what he thinks is best: find a way to utilize all three.
“At any given time you know you got guys you can turn to, somebody gets hurt or something happens,” Bohannon said last week. “It’s tough practicing all of them, so we’re taking it day-by-day to kind of see what we can do to try to use them as best we can. But there’s a flow to a game, so it’s kind of a thing we’re feeling our way through. We don’t have an exact plan, but we’re going to try to use them as best we can.”
Burks has remained the starter, but Bohannon has found ways to get David and White in when he thinks necessary. Against Liberty (5-3, 3-0) Bohannon looked to use David to speed up the pace at times, and also for deep passes because he has the strongest arm of the trio.
In that same game, the Owls struggled at the goal line, and since then, Bohannon has decided that inside the 5-yard line, White would be the man behind center.
“We get down there, we put him in. He’s really good at that. He’s tough. He finds a way to get it in,” Bohannon said. “It’s something he’s good at. It’s something we haven’t been good at, so it’s really helped us. It’s an area we need some work on, and so far it’s worked out pretty good, and we’ll see how it goes.”
That strategy paid off against Monmouth (4-5, 0-4) last week as White had four rushing touchdowns on six carries.
Bohannon and the quarterbacks did say that managing the practice time for all three was a struggle at first, but that seems to be the only issue with the system.
The other offensive players said they don’t notice any issues when they put in a different signal-caller because although the guys bring slightly different skill sets, the offense is still running the same plays even if the quarterback switches, so their jobs are not changed at all.
And for the three quarterbacks, they said there is no issue with splitting time. As long as the wins keep coming and the offense is able to put points on the board, they are fine with it and having fun along the way.
“It’s a good feeling to know … that we’re able to have three guys that are can go in and are ready to play at all times,” Burks said. “I believe that as players our job is to go make the plays, coaches their job is to put the guys out there that’s going to put us in the best position of winning and getting the job done.”
