When Justin Fuente was hired, he brought in JUCO quarterback Jerod Evans, who was supposed to be his quarterback for the next two years, with Josh Jackson (or someone else) taking over as a redshirt sophomore in 2018.  Things didn’t quite go as planned.

Evans decided to enter the draft after his junior season.  He didn’t get drafted, and as far as I can tell, he is now out of football except for a brief stint as a backup in the Arena League.  Josh Jackson took over a year earlier than planned, and returned as an experienced starter in 2018.  However, he broke his foot in the third game of the season against ODU, and Ryan Willis took over, with Jackson transferring to Maryland after it became apparent that there was going to be a competition in the spring.

Both times Justin Fuente had a starting quarterback returning, things didn’t work out for two very different reasons.  After starting 10 games last year, Ryan Willis is back for his senior season.  Hopefully the third time is a charm and Fuente finally has his veteran quarterback this year.  I still like the ceiling of Hendon Hooker and Quincy Patterson, but I’d prefer to let them marinate for another year if possible.

This won’t be an apples-to-apples comparison, but I wanted to take a look at the improvements made by Fuente’s best quarterbacks of the past, Paxton Lynch at Memphis and Andy Dalton at TCU, and see if we can project some numbers for Willis this season.  Here are Lynch’s last two seasons at Memphis…

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