In Reply to: Re: Would you do a blind trade of our OL for theirs? posted by TheHappyBurgermeister on August 13, 2025 at 08:16:22
on this board. That mistake is just counting bodies and assuming there is quality in numbers.
I remember early in the Neuheisel era we had all kinds of young QB's on the roster: Kevin Prince, Richard Brehaut, Osaar Rasshan, Nick Crissman, Chris Forcier. Brehaut, Forcier and Crissman were 4-star recruits. Brehaut and Crissman were Elite 11 guys. People thought that surely we'd find a QB out of this group.
After all was said and done, not one of them was even an above-average college QB. And of course Neuheisel ended up paying the price.
I think what you're not considering is that the guys you mentioned (Martin, Duncan, Davis) are not just random unknowns on the table, but rather guys who the coaches have seen play in practice, dealt with in meetings, and spent time with.
I think Duncan has a chance to be a player, but he's never even been a backup at the FBS level. You may have liked Martin in his brief action last year, but the coaches apparently did not think highly of him. We will see soon if he turns out to be an FBS starter. Davis is a skinny and raw guy who didn't garner Power 5 interest after leaving UCLA (Hawaii). To assume there is a legit Big 10 (or even starting FBS) QB in this group is akin to basically crossing your fingers.
And your assumption that one of these guys could have built on 2025 and started again in 2026 assumes that they would actually have been a *good* QB rather than just being recruited over next year.
There is no "playing for the future" in college FB anymore, if there ever was to begin with. Coaches have a short window to get their teams on an upward trajectory. The portal and NIL have made roster instability the norm. Thus, there is no next year. There is only this year, and coaches know it. And if you polled Big 10 coaches on who gives UCLA the best chance this year among all the guys mentioned (plus Aguilar), it's Nico. By a mile.