Talked to quarterbacks coach Mike O’Cain after practice to get an update on the Sean Glennon/Tyrod Taylor situation. O’Cain said the coaches will sit down after Friday’s scrimmage and make a decision. The quarterbacks will know by Sunday or Monday, at the latest, he said.

Here’s what else he had to say ...

“We’ve thrown the ball really well all of camp, but particularly well the last couple of weeks. Last Saturday we threw the ball very, very well. I was very pleased with the way they threw the ball. Even if there was one incomplete, they made the right kind of throw, made good decisions. I’ve been very pleased with the way they’ve played thus far.“

“One hasn’t separated himself from the other, and we didn’t think it would happen. We’ve just got to sit down after Friday.“

On whether, if they use a two-quarterback system again, they’ll try to have one specific group of plays for Glennon and another for Taylor—“Yes, no question. Those set plays in this game may be different than the next game so that we don’t have tendencies. We want to go in with a game plan of saying: Tyrod is going to run these plays, and Sean’s going to run these plays. Because if you try to go in a game, trying to think of a play I want to call ... and if I’ve got to think of a play and the quarterback, that’s too much for a guy to do. You’ve got to have an idea of how you want to utilize it.“

On how the rest of the offense will impact the quarterback situation—“This offensive team is still developing, and it will continue to develop. I don’t think we’ve seen nearly what this offense can do to this point. We’re having to kind of read between the lines: How good can we be here? How good can we be there? Obviously, that plays into who plays. Those are the decisions that we’ve got to sit down and make a hard decision on after Friday. How have our receivers come along? How have our running backs come along? And how does it all it fit in?“

On essentially having to predict and project with young skill-position players—“What you’ve got to do is you’ve got to take where they’ve gone from day one to now and then try to predict how much better they may be in a couple more weeks when you begin to narrow things down [and only practice the plays the team is going to use in the game that week]. The other factor you don’t and you won’t know is how they’re going to react in a game situation with 60,000 people. That’s the thing you don’t know until Aug. 30. It is a forecast, a prediction, a guess, however you want to put it.“

On Taylor’s progress—“Much better, which you expect him to be. He has come a tremendous ways from where he was. He has really improved from this spring to right now. He’s got to continue to work on his pocket presence—when things break down or you get a little push, staying in the pocket and making that throw. There’s times when you want to leave, but sometimes you’ve got stand in there and make the throw. He’s better but still needs work there. I’ve been very pleased with the improvement he’s made. Very few poor decisions. Very pleased with the progress he’s made. If he can make that much progress from now until next year at this time, he could be a really good one.“

On whether Taylor left the pocket too early at points last year—“No question about it. As a quarterback, it’s a fine line of ‘how long can I stay there?‘ and ‘when do I need to leave?‘ It’s impossible to coach. It’s a feel. It’s a lot of trust [of] linemen. Sometimes it looks like a guy is coming free, but I know that I’ve got a lineman there to pick him up. Trusting that that’s going to happen. Just understanding everything around you and how it works and knowing that you’ve got somebody to pick that guy up. Those are the things that you develop over time. That’s one reason that I had them scrimmaging today. Sean and Tyrod needed to throw with people in their face. Pass skeleton is one thing. But you need to have offensive linemen, defensive linemen, rushing, all that stuff going on, so you can, to a degree, shut that out and see what’s happening beyond that. So that’s why I wanted them to go in there today.“

On Glennon’s progress—“Obviously, Sean had less to work on because of just experience. Being a fifth-year senior, he’s seen about all of it. The thing that you continue to work with Sean [are] just movement and throwing the ball, which I think he made a tremendous improvement last year. Coming out of his sophomore year, his first year, the major concern was making things happen out of the pocket. I think he answered those questions last year, particularly down the stretch. He made a tremendous number of plays. I don’t think he made any bad plays out of the pocket. He made several good plays. Obviously, he knows our stuff backward and forward. Where a young guy like Tyrod is still, to a degree, learning our offense, Sean knows that. Now he can take all of that and put all of his focus on what’s happening across the other side of the line.“

Posted by Darryl Slater in • College Sports • Virginia Tech
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