Virginia Tech will have something in 2013 that they haven’t had since the 1990’s: a full-time starting fifth-year senior at the quarterback position.  It’s almost hard to believe, but Logan Thomas is Tech’s first full-time r-senior starter since Al Clark back in 1998.

The Beamer Bowl Era was only in its sixth season when Clark was starting as a r-senior.  Tech has had a couple of more chances to start r-seniors since then, but weren’t able to do so for various reasons.  Grant Noel was injured before the 2002 season, and the offensive line couldn’t block well enough to let Sean Glennon  start in 2008 as a r-senior.  Tyrod Taylor couldn’t redshirt because of that same bad offensive line, and that kept him from ever being a r-senior.

In general, r-senior quarterbacks have been through it all.  They’ve blown other teams out, and they’ve been blown out.  They’ve led the teams down the field for game-winning drives, and they’ve been defeated in the final seconds in a heartbreaker or two.  Logan Thomas has been Tech’s starter for the last two seasons, and he’s experienced all of the emotional roller coasters that you can go through as a starting quarterback.

Tech fans are expecting a lot out of Logan Thomas in 2013, and perhaps it is time for him to raise his game to that next level.  This week we’ll run a series of articles that goes over the final season of Tech’s past r-senior quarterbacks.  We’ll use those seasons to try to make a reasonable comparison of what we can expect from Thomas this coming season.

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