Here’s where KU’s QB competition stands heading into Saturday’s season opener
Les Miles appears content to keep his quarterback a mystery all the way until Saturday’s 11 a.m. opener against Indiana State.
The new Kansas coach, when asked Monday during the Big 12 teleconference, admitted he wasn’t going to announce a starting QB between contenders Thomas MacVittie and Carter Stanley.
“You certainly can go to the game to watch to see how they’re going to be played,” Miles said. “We like our quarterbacks, and we’re going to let it play out.”
Miles anticipated that coaches were going to continue the competition “through the back end of the week.”
“Obviously we’ll know exactly who’s going to start, but it’s going to be late,” Miles said. “It’s good news, because both quarterbacks are talented, and we’re looking for the best.”
Let’s reset here: It’s long been believed that MacVittie — a junior college transfer who signed with Pittsburgh out of high school — would end up as KU’s Week 1 starter, especially with Miles devoting one of his scholarships in the 2019 class to a quarterback who had only two years of eligibility remaining.
The pair have a history. Miles originally recruited MacVittie briefly to LSU when he was coach there. Meanwhile, Miles has said a few times in the last few months that MacVittie had a slight edge over Stanley in the two-man competition.
Stanley, though, appears to have closed the gap in recent weeks. The senior has played in 25 games for KU the last three seasons while serving as the backup for a majority of 2018.
“They’re both phenomenal leaders. I think that’s the biggest thing,” KU captain Bryce Torneden said of MacVittie and Stanley. “They lead a team by example, both on and off the field. They both have their strong qualities, and I think that’s the toughest part in trying to defend both of them.”
Miles said it was also conceivable the team could play more than one quarterback; that possibility was something that KU’s coaches were contemplating in the days before the opener.
Miles believes one advantage, if the team does play two, is the ability to utilize different skillsets at the position.
“You put a guy on the field that can throw it, run it. You put a guy on the field that can throw it, run it faster, and there’s some things you do with those guys that we haven’t done thus far,” Miles said. “So we’re looking at that.”
Miles admits there are downsides to how KU is handling the situation. For one, the arrangement makes it so that the team isn’t giving its full first-team practice time to a single quarterback.
“The good news is we’ve been in this rotation for some time, and it’s allowed us to look at and verify over time who the best quarterback was and/or is,” Miles said. “So you weigh the differences in getting somebody all the reps or really defining who the best quarterback is.”
This follows a recent trend of KU quarterback uncertainty before the opener. In two of the last three seasons, former coach David Beaty did not reveal his starter before the first game while hoping to keep a competitive advantage.
The only exception was last season, when Peyton Bender was named KU’s QB two weeks before the Jayhawks’ first contest.
This story was originally published August 26, 2019 at 6:49 PM with the headline "Here’s where KU’s QB competition stands heading into Saturday’s season opener."
