Texas vs. Notre Dame: Two perspectives on a two-QB system

Charlie Strong indicated he has picked a starting quarterback on Monday, but declined to say who it was. How does his strategy compare to Brian Kelly’s 2-QB system?

Much like Notre Dame’s endlessly fascinating quarterback situation, Week One opponent Texas and head coach Charlie Strong has been struggling to choose between a pair of QBs for the past few months.

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On one hand, there’s Tyrone Swoopes, a senior who started last season under center but struggled mightily. On the other, there’s Shane Buechele, a true freshman who enrolled early and impressed in the spring game. Then, yesterday, Strong said both would play against the Irish this upcoming Sunday. Sound familiar?

That means that come Sept. 4, we’ll see at least four quarterbacks on the field. It’s a brave new world in college football we’ve entered.

But before we go equating the situations at Texas and Notre Dame, it’s worth noting that for every similarity between the two systems, there’s just as significant a difference. Let’s break it down.

Similarities

• Moving past the obviousness of the fact that both teams are playing two QBs, the situations are similar in that these are both competitions that extend back to the spring, and both coaches essentially threw up their hands and went with both.
• Just because both teams will play both quarterbacks doesn’t mean that’s going to be the way it is all season. Both Strong and Kelly have seemingly indicated that they are going to ride the hot hand and will pick whoever plays better. They just want some in-game action to really separate between the two.
• There’s legitimate arguments to be made on both sides for either player. Swoopes is experienced and has a lot of playmakers around him that fit with his abilities as a dual-threat. Buechele is young, exciting and played circles around Swoopes during the spring game. As for Notre Dame, well, if you’re on this site, you’ve heard plenty for both Zaire and Kizer.
• That being said, there were clear favorites to start. For Notre Dame, it was Kizer, the guy with more eligibility and more starts to his name.

• For Texas, it was Buechele, even more so.

Differences

• Strong seems to envision a system that doesn’t split touches evenly, but instead favors one QB over the other. As he said, “whoever the stater is, is going to be the starter.” That’s hardly crystal clear, but it does indicate that there is definitely a 1A and a 1B. Kelly, on the other hand, has had Zaire and Kizer split reps 50/50 in fall camp and will likely do the same, at least early on, against Texas.
• Notre Dame could get creative with how it deploys its two-QB system. As Kelly said in a press conference, he would “definitely consider” putting both Kizer and Zaire on the field at the same time. Strong has given no such indication.
• While the Irish coaching staff is in the enviable situation of having two top-flight QBs who could start for just about any team in the country, Texas seems to be choosing the lesser of two evils, or at the very least, the best of a bad situation. Whereas Kizer and Zaire have both had on-field success, Buechele is completely unproven and Swoopes has been a punching bag throughout his career.

Advantage

Ultimately, it seems as though Texas is dealing with a situation more similar to Notre Dame circa 2012 than the present day. Back then, Kelly was trying to decide between the veteran Tommy Rees and the raw, unproven sophomore Everett Golson. I think Strong’s eventual strategy will more closely resemble what Kelly did then: Start the young guy, but keep the upperclassman as an option to insert in high-pressure situations, especially in the first few games of the season.

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Kelly, meanwhile, has an entirely different problem: How do you keep two elite quarterbacks happy, and how do you effectively use both of them? As many people have already noted, it’s a higher risk, higher reward situation. If he can pull it off, and that’s a big if, Notre Dame would be an offensive juggernaut this season.