Year 1 was rough, but PJ picked Rhoda to start the season. After the first three games, Rhoda went to shit, but Fleck rode him for another nearly 3 games of putrid big ten play before putting in Croft in the MSU game. He then did not take Croft out of the starting role, even though he should have due to injury in multiple games. Rhoda would not have been much worse, if not an improvement.
Year 2 Annexstad won the QB1 role and PJ stayed with it, even when he was so injured he could barely play, until he finally HAD to pull him and made Morgan QB1.
Annextad got hurt before the 2019 season and Morgan kept the starting job through the offseason. 2019 marked the first season PJ actually trusted QB1 and the play calling (after the first three games). We were a dynamic office. There were times in 2019 that a backup could have gotten time in spot duty at the end of games, Illinois, Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland games, all not close in the 4th quarter showed only a handful of minutes and 4 passes attempted by Kramer and Clark when some garbage time could have helped the team (fortunately Morgan stayed relatively healthy the whole season). If Morgan had gotten hurt in the fourth quarter of a Maryland game that was over at the end of the 3 Quarter (halftime really), the last four games would have been worse than they were. Why not but the back up QB in at a time where it makes sense for the back up QB to come in. That has rarely happened under Fleck, including when Croft and Annextad were clearly injured.
Morgan digressed from 2019 - 2023, and PJ lost trust in him (as evidenced by the play calling), but never gave anyone else a serious chance until.....Morgan got hurt enough that he couldn't play, and Kaliakmanis was forced into action. There's a theme here.
Then Kaliakmanis was given the reins in 2023. Despite PJ's pre-season hype, he clearly was not good and got worse as the season progressed...so true to form, PJ never gave another quarterback a chance, even in the face of poor performance after poor performance. At some point, to quote the old guy who said this piece of fish was good enough for Jehovah himself in Life of Brian "How could it get any worse?" Maybe under a different set of circumstances, we would have been better prepared for 2024, or maybe even kept one backup QB on the roster?
In 2024, Fleck caught lightning in a bottle with Brosmer, who won over the staff in a shockingly short period of time. He gained the trust of the OCs relatively early, and our offense was watchable, for the first time since 2019. Still, in a few games we could have/should have gotten some reps for Lindsay late in games, we did not, leaving Brosmer in. Those Q4 snaps against Rhode Island and Nevada were crucial for....absolutely nothing for Brosmer. The Maryland Game was another game where you might find a way to work your backup QB, projected starter for next year, into the game. Did we? Why would we do that? PJ has his guy and consistently sticks with him regardless of the situation. Including at the end of a horrible bowl game against what amounted to a very solid High School football team. Why not give Lindsay a chance to play? The game was close enough that it could have been at least a little meaningful for Lindsay and a way to whet the fans appetite for 2025, since it has been clear all along that Lindsay was his guy for 2025.
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