Another year, another quarterback controversy

Having trouble deciding on starting quarterback is nothing new for Bill Snyder.

Unfortunately in his past three seasons coaching the Wildcats, the indecision and/or inability to find the right signal caller has hurt the program.

A year after winning the Big 12 Championship, the team went 4-7 in 2004 while the offensive unit relied on both Dylan Meier and Allen Webb calling plays.

The next season the Wildcats threw Allan Evridge into the mix; a season in which K-State went 5-6 and missed a bowl for the second straight year.

After a three year break, Snyder returned to the helm and faced the same problem he had in his last two seasons coaching.

Ultimately it came down to a sixth-year player who had never started a game, and the son of a former K-Stater who spent the previous three seasons watching from the sidelines as Josh Freeman anchored the offense.

Carson Coffman got the first crack at it in 2009, going a lackluster 2-2 in four starts, which included a road loss to Louisiana.

In the fifth game of the season, Snyder elected to go with Grant Gregory to lead the team down the stretch. Gregory went 4-4 in his short tenure and put the Wildcats within reach of a North Division title.

K-State faltered in their final two games though, losing to Missouri and Nebraska, and missed out on a bowl for the fifth time in six years after finishing 6-6.

More shocking though is the way Gregory muscled his way through the season. He played with multitude of injuries which included a “torn rotator cuff and torn labrum in his right shoulder, a slightly torn meniscus in his right knee (suffered in the season opener) along with playing his final 7 1/2 games with a dislocated left shoulder,” according to report in fanhouse.com.

And he did all this while junior Carson Coffman watched from the sideline.

So what does this say about Coffman? How bad must he have been last year if he wasn’t better than a guy with two dead arms and bum leg?

This year several indications point towards Coffman as being the starter. That won’t be without controversy though as sophomore Collin Klein is sure to be in the mix. Other options range from junior Sammuel Lamur to freshman Billy Cosh who both participated in this year’s spring game. Cosh though remains a likely candidate to redshirt.

However it plays out, it doesn’t seem likely that just one quarterback will lead the team this year.

If Coffman does indeed get the start in the season opener, he will need a strong showing against UCLA to quiet several of the skeptics.

Of course, this could all be made a lot simpler if K-State just put All-American candidate Daniel Thomas in charge of the offense…just a thought.