Horns247 Board

I will jump in here although I am not an authority or know the answer to what you are asking.

Personally, Brewer has shown (the Orange and White Game) that he is more than capable of taking the reins to the offense in a year or two.

Swoops gets lots of press, but I have not seen him in person perform. He may be good, but like Brewer, he has not hit a lick as far as knowing what it will be like in College Ball.

Take everything with a grain of salt. For me, I'll take Brewer right now!

Fans think Swoops is VY part II is the main reason Brewer gets little attention

Yeah, sort of the story with recruiting. It's all about who's next. If Brewer is forced to play soon, he will be more than competent. Give him a year or two to get comfortable, and taking the job from him won't be easy.

Study this, my grasshopper,... and perceive...

Would Mack give Brewer a shot at unseating Ash barring a NC after Brewer's Soph yr?

Ash showed almost no signs that he is the answer at QB in the spring game even against the second team defense playing vanilla formations. At best he appears like a serviceable game manager who will not lose games with turnovers except against excellent defenses but not win them either. Another bust in a long line of busts at QB since McCoy 1 was recruited in 2004. He does not seem like he grasps reading defenses well just like Gilbert and he does not have a great arm or accuracy either as offsets but may make better decisions than McCoy 2 or Gilbert. Brewer showed some promise in the spring. Brewer will likely be getting meaningful minutes by mid season 2012 if likely WVU and OU losses occur and may be starting in 2013 if Ash stays on his current path. Swoopes is a project with upside who might contribute in 2014 at the earliest so UT fans better hope that Brewer is the real deal or several championships will be missed unless the RBs and OL super perform/stay healthy and the defense throws near shut outs against the top teams.

Insight, I think Ash has more upside than that. But I agree with the general tenant of your post.

I think Texas needs Ash to continue to develop. At some point, he has to become a weapon and not just a guy who keeps the offense on the straight and narrow.

Brewer needs to redshirt just like Ash did. Ash was not afforded the luxury and had to grow up real fast. Let's not be pulling for another true freshman to be starting by mid season. I'ld rather see Overstreet this year running the wildcat than to burn Brewer's shirt.

You have to admit that she definitely knows what it takes to find fresh beef!

I look at Ash physically and I really like what I see...the coaches do too obviously. He's not a super freak by any means, but he's got good size, good arm strength, solid mechanics, nice speed...there's a lot there to work with for Bryan Harsin. If I discovered a time machine and was able to teleport myself to 2014 and then found out David Ash was considered one of the better QB's in the country I wouldn't be surprised.

That said, what concerns me most about him as the long term QB of the future is the lack of evidence from him this past season for instinctive play making. As DKR liked to say, "if a dog is going to bite it bites as a pup". Well, David didn't bite much last year. Almost all of his big plays were scripted play calls designed by Harsin to create big plays. There were precious few examples of him "manufacturing" a play on his own....especially when it was needed by the team. He had a few, I can think of one big scramble against Tech that he had that was all him. However, those plays came when they came...not so much when they were needed. I really want to see significant progress from him in that regard this season. I want to see him make more plays on his own and I want to see him make plays when the team needs him to make a play.

Bobby, I hear ya and agree. Ash was put in an almost impossible situation last season. That's exactly why I want to see real evidence of progress in the playmaking department this season. If he does not look markedly better as a playmaker this year after getting all the 1st team snaps during the offseason versus last year where he got less legitimate preparation than any starter in Texas football history that I can remember then I will be seriously concerned. As you said, his head was swimming last season with information overload and his decision making was consistently one to two beats late in almost every situation. It's hard to look good under those circumstances.

If he's going to be an above average QB during his career then he should make a big leap forward this season. If he doesn't show marked improvement then I would be hesitant to think he's ever going to be the QB to lead us back into serious national championship contention.

Agree with every word there.

The more I go back an watch tape the more I see signs that he has everything we need, but just needed more time in the oven instead of a flash frying.

Actually, the more tape I watch of our the offense, the more giddy I get about where it could go over the next two years. Just well conceived and versatile overall, and has tons of imagination liberally sprinkled in with our base plays. We could be a handful by the end of the year, and no one's defensive meeting room will be excited to see Texas on the schedule in two years.