Tajh Boyd (orangeandwhite.com)
That’s the good news. The bad news is that there continues to be little to zero depth behind Boyd. While Cole Stoudt was steady, if unspectacular, against Boston College in his only appearance of any consequence as a true freshman, Boyd has taken 93.5% of the snaps of all quarterbacks on the roster.
Despite the Tigers win in that Boston College game, Clemson fans should beware. It’s one thing to enter a game at home with a comfortable lead against a struggling Boston College team with the game in hand and another to lead the team to victory from start to finish, perhaps even on the road. A twisted ankle, helmet to helmet hit or bad lasagna at Schilletter could put a youngster with 71 snaps of experience in control of the season.
Still, Stoudt has two springs and a complete season under his belt and should be comfortably be second teamer despite Chad Kelly’s stated twitter intention to take that job. If that happens, it says more about Stoudt than it does about Kelly.
Kelly however, was probably the biggest winner of a spring game he didn’t even play in. The injury to Tony McNeal leads the 3rd team spot wide open. Morgan Roberts showed some things in that spring game, but there are nagging questions about his arm strength. Heart and desire mean a lot. They mean more when they merge with talent and arm strength.
I can see Roberts being named the third string quarterback for depth chart purposes, but if push comes to shove and the 3rd QB needs to play, I can also see the coaching staff pulling Kelly’s redshirt (depending on the timing and situation) and playing Kelly in front of Roberts.
I don’t like assumptions in this type of analysis because you really never know what can happen from one week to the next, much less over the next year. However, assuming status quo and no further injuries, this situation will look rosier next year when Boyd will be a senior with 2,000 plus snaps, Stoudt will be in his third year in the program and Kelly will theoretically be a redshirt freshman.
