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I think that had he played his full junior and senior years, he would have been a much better quarterback in college.

It takes real time experience to be able to read receiver routes, receivers breaking open, etc., on the fly, and also to be able to make pass protection audibles. When you're still in high school, that junior year is critical in terms of development, so that you can really shine as a senior.

When you have 2 years of inactivity, your brain is going to need a lot of time to catch up, and trying to grasp the overly complex Brian Kelly offensive playbook in its entirety is too much.

That's like taking some kid who had Algebra I, didn't take any more math classes, and then got dumped into an AP Calculus class. He may be able to handle some of the basic work in Calc, but there's no way he's going to be able to do trig or differentials on the fly until he learns a lot more.

That's why he rarely threw the ball in 2021, despite playing significant minutes as a true freshman. There's no way he could handle a quick strike, multiple read passing play that was the bread and butter of the offense that year. If Jack Coan had gone down, we wouldn't have broken double digits when it came to wins.

He still wasn't ready in 2022, and losing almost all of that year set him back again. The Gator Bowl should have been a blowout win for us, but all of those pick 6's kept SC in the game.

It didn't help that Tommy Rees was his QB coach and OC as well throughout 2021-2023. If Rees were a competent QB coach, then why didn't the Browns at least let him be a helper to Bill Musgrave?

I like and respect the man (Mr. Buchner). He's a tough, unselfish guy who came back to ND on his own volition, even though he could have stayed at Alabama, and he's willing to do whatever he can to help the team.

I'm proud to call him a fellow Golden Domer.

At the same time, though, it's pretty easy to see that due to the bad circumstances surrounding his high school and college careers, he will never be a top notch QB at this level.