This just hit me, and it may not reflect reality, but here is one possible theory.
It could be that Richt doesn’t like what he has seen from Perry & Weldon and doesn’t want either of them taking over as his long-term entrenched starting QB. Jarren Williams is his hand-picked QB of the future and the guy he wants under center for 3 years. But he hates the idea of throwing a true freshman out there and planned to bring him along slowly.
So, the plan was to let the 5th year senior be the QB this season and hope he can do enough (with a ton of help from the defense) to pull off 10 wins like last season. This would give Williams time to develop behind the scenes and then you roll with him starting in 2019.
Now here we are and the 5th year senior is a disaster riding a 4-game losing streak in which he has been exposed. Richt still feels like Williams isn’t ready and doesn’t want to hand the keys to either of the other two young QBs. If he does, his whole plan with Williams is shot.
So what does he do now? Deep down he still wants his original plan to work, but the fans, the media, and apparently also the receivers on the team have had enough of Rosier. He has a huge decision to make.
If Perry and Weldon really are knuckleheads who can’t be trusted then he just needs to throw Williams out there and play for the future.
I made these observations during the Spring and have been ripped for them ever since.
1. Perry has been inconsistent in practices and live scrimmages, but IMO, what has held him back the most is that CMR is stubborn and will not start a guy who doesn't play the way Richt wants him to play. I got trashed for this by people who thought CMR would adopt Spread-O concepts to fit his offense to Perry's skill set.
2. Weldon, for various reasons, had not been able to stay consistently available enough to merit real consideration. There had been just too many missed practices.
Take 1 and 2 and tie it to Richt saying that he felt like he wanted them to be great more than they wanted themselves to be great, and talking about how Aaron Murray got to UGA and immediately conducted himself as a leader and a professional, in contrast to Perry and Weldon, and the writing was already on the wall that Rosier was his only viable option for week 1. Williams was never going to be thrown out there against LSU even though I think he's got the higher ceiling. To me the risk of doing long term damage to a kid's confidence was just too great.
Turn to ACC Media Day where Richt not only names Rosier the starter, but pretty much word for word said about the younger guys exactly what I had said a few days prior in giving his reason for the decision, and I got a little smug.
I also drank the kool-aid in believing that we were going to be better along the offensive line and in the run game, and that if we could run the ball better, we could limit Rosier's attempts, especially avoid 3rd and longs, we could limit his opportunities to stink it up. Ideally, if you have to roll with Rosier, and I felt like we did against LSU based on the things said above among others, you need to be able to run the ball and limit him to around 20 attempts. We're obviously not to that point yet, and Rosier is not a guy you want out there slinging the ball 35-40 times a game.
Now we have a few games, beginning this weekend, to see if the light comes on for one of the younger guys. Hopefully someone rises to the occasion.
