Florida now has its ninth starting quarterback since the departure of Tim Tebow on New Year’s Day 2010.
Jim McElwain has named Will Grier as the starter for the Gators’ second game of the season against East Carolina. Ironically, ECU is where his dad, Chad Grier, went to school and played quarterback in 1989 and 1990.
Grier will again split reps with Treon Harris, the way they did in the opener against New Mexico State. The rotating style will be similar: Grier will get the first few series, McElwain will gauge how the game is going and insert Harris when he feels the time is right to.
McElwain had said earlier in the week that he would consider starting Grier over Harris depending on how the rest of the week’s practices went, and now that’s come to fruition. That’s not to say either quarterback was perfect this week in practice; 247’s Thomas Goldkamp noted yesterday that McElwain was livid with mistakes both quarterbacks made in practice earlier that day. Or in Mac’s words: “If you want me to call it out, we had two late throws in the red area today. It can’t happen. We had one late over the middle that’s going to get intercepted. That’s unacceptable. And those are things that kill you, is the unacceptable behavior, when you know better.”
It wasn’t an easy decision for McElwain by all accounts to go with Grier, but that’s the decision he went with and I like it. The difference in this week’s game, though, is that East Carolina is significantly better than New Mexico State, and while they aren’t exactly a New Year’s Six Bowl candidate, the Pirates could cause more miscues than New Mexico State did. So here’s hoping Grier learns from his mistakes in practice this week and goes off on his dad’s old team.
