Brad Kaaya's a good quarterback.
At Miami, the standard is that you're judged by your performances in big games - and especially in big moments. He's struggled there, and so fans are hypercritical of him. That's part of the deal when you sign up to play for Miami, fair or not. There's time to change the perception, but it needs to happen fast.
Agree with this. I think many of us have put very high expectations on Kaaya because of how well he played from the beginning, his combination of mental and physical abilities that had him considered a first round draft pick by some NFL scouts and executives, and the hope that we'd found the next great Miami quarterback.
After Torretta graduated, we went through somewhat of a drought at QB, which was not normal for the school that had become "Quarterback U." When Dorsey came along, we finally had the next great Miami QB. But, even then, I remember that while many people were nervous about losing a guy who should have been 39-1 as a starter with 2 championships, there were many who thought we may be even better with a more highly touted, more physically talented QB in Brock. Obviously, Berlin was not Dorsey, but looking back, even though Berlin improved in his 2nd season, many fans were happy to see him leave because we had KW2M, and he was the perfect combination of physical and mental ability....until he clearly was not. But, no problem, we had another highly touted QB from Texas....until he melted down. But we knew that we were going to be fine without Kirnobyl or KW because we had Robert Marve, and he was a winner, broke all Tebow's Florida state records, and he was going to be the man....until he flopped. But, again, no problem, because we had Miami's own Jacory Harris, a champion QB from a champion program, and he was going to come in with his 3 favorite high school WRs and he was going to be the man....until he couldn't stop throwing INTs in crucial times. No worries though, because we had the strong-armed Stephen Morris, and with his physical abilities, under Jedd Fisch, we were going to do big things...Which brings us to Brad Kaaya.
There is no doubt that Kaaya has been disappointing this year. I'm truly shocked at how uncomfortable he has looked, as I thought that with Richt's coaching, which has helped so many QBs improve, that we would see an even better QB. I don't think there's any doubt that we need him to play much better if we are going to make anything out of the rest of the season. I don't think it's unfair to expect him to play better, or criticize him for not making some of the plays he's missed. No doubt that the playcalling has not helped, and his OL has left him uncomfortable, and his receivers have dropped too many passes. But, that doesn't excuse some of the throws he's made this season. Still, with that being said, I think that we all probably need to put aside the playing like a 1st rounder expectations and the next great Miami QB expectations for him at this point, and instead just expect him to make the plays and throws that we've seen him make in his first 2 years here, because if he does that, our offense should be good enough to win our remaining games.