Week 10: Virginia Tech @ Boston College, Saturday 11/2 12:00pm on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2

[757Hokie83]

I dunno. I still think the "Beams will never bench Logan argument because he came back for a 5th year" argument is ridiculous. Beamer has replaced more than one veteran quarterback with much better options over the last 10-15 years .... not sure why anyone would think he wouldn't play the best option now, especially with an ACC championship and BCS game still on the line. Frankly (no pun intended)...if the coaches saw sooo much in Leal and were ready to move on, they probably would have quietly and nicely told LT to move onto the NFL draft after last season.

As far as the talent around him....look at his sophomore season when he had Wilson, Coale, Boykin, a better O-Line compared to the production (or lack of) he has had with the receivers and running game this year and last .... 180 degree regression?? Coincidence?? I think not. Sure, part of it falls on LT, especially some of the decisions..but not all of it. Dude is just trying to make a play.

If you put a top flight NFL QB on the Jags...does that QB make them Superbowl/AFC Championship contenders?? Prolly not.

People seems to forget that it was just a couple of years ago when Glennon got benched because Tyrod gave us the better opportunity to win games. If Leal gave us a better chance to win, I have no doubt Beamer would have brought him in, if not starting, at least after the turnovers started mounting up in the Duke and BC games. The fact that that did not happen says to me that, yeah Logan was struggling, but all things considered we still had a better chance to get the win with LT3 taking the snaps.

 

[wildturkey]

The 1st year LT played with better talent around him, his numbers were better. That's true. But he was also asked to do a lot less. He had simple reads or hand offs, that's it. In fact, if you remember, he struggled a bit when asked to make more challenging reads of the offense and every fan bitched about it saying he should stay in the hurry up (where the offense is scaled back). We dismissed his struggles (and rightly so) as him being inexperienced. The last two years, more and more of the offense is asked of him (as you would expect of any QB as they move forward). But what happened? His decision making never got any better. He didn't progress as a QB to go along with how the offense was opened up for him to absorb the load. He had loads of potential, great tools, but he remained an average quarterback. If he got better, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

That's my point. He is not a great quarterback. He is not what I would call a good quarterback (some have very liberal definitions of "good"). He's average. The offense should be scaled back because he cannot handle what he is asked to do. But others won't say that. They'll tip toe around it, even say stuff like "that play was inexcusable" or "I'm not making excuses for his decisions" etc but then they'll go on to write long diatribes about what his receivers are, what the running game is, the OL, etc etc etc. What is that if not an excuse? They won't just flat out admit Thomas isn't great. They always have to put some kind of "yeah but" qualifier on it.

And I'm not getting into the Leal thing again. You're either in the camp of giving him a chance in a winnable game when LT is struggling mightily or you're not.

 

[VTscores]

I don't see Logan Thomas as average. He's is both brilliant and mistake-prone. It makes him more like Romo, and you will always be tempted to fix that.

LT has an arm. No two ways about it. If he can learn to cut out the silly mistakes and inaccuracies in the flat, the guy will be a pretty good quarterback. It's clearly harder than it looks, and he makes it look pretty hard sometimes. He'll either work it out or he won't, but he has shown some improvement this year.