When a coach is mum on the starting quarterback just days before a football game it generally comes off as hiding the cards until it’s time to show their hand. The idea of course is to keep the opposing team guessing, and perhaps spend less time preparing for any particular quarterback and the offensive plays that they tend to run. Coming off an embarrassing debut at South Florida, Willie Taggart has nothing to hide.
South Florida visits Michigan State this weekend and has yet to announce a starting quarterback. The depth chart for the Bulls lists sophomore Matt Floyd on top of the depth chart, with sophomore Steven Bench and senior Bobby Eveld listed behind him with that popular conjunction “or” in the middle. Floyd threw two interceptions last week against McNeese State and Eveld completed half of his attempts for 137 yards. Bench transferred to South Florida in the off-season from Penn State in hopes of competing for a starting job. On Thursday, Joey Johnston of The Tampa Tribune reported via Twitter Taggart has not made a decision on who will start under center for the Bulls in East Lansing, and that the lack of a decision is not being used to keep Michigan State guessing.
When the decision is made, Taggart does not care if the Spartans have the information.
“I don’t care who knows,” Taggart said, according to Johnston.
After the mess of a loss to McNeese State, Taggart has plenty of thinking to do before taking his program in to Big Ten territory this weekend. Last weekend Michigan State allowed Western Michigan to complete 18 of 48 pass attempts and intercepted three passes. Kurtis Drummond returned one of those interceptions for a touchdown. The quarterback position is critical in football, so Taggart needs to make sure he has confidence in his decision going up against a defense that could cause problems like Michigan State could.
For what it’s worth, Floyd was named a captain for South Florida this week.