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Boston College football practice opened up today and we learned today that the Eagles will be short one quarterback going into the season. As reported by Austin Tedesco via Twitter:
Redshirt freshman quarterback James Walsh has left the BC football team, BC confirms. Murphy, Wade, and Flutie only QBs on roster now.
— Austin Tedesco (@Tedescau) August 4, 2014
You may remember that James Walsh as the quarterback that Steve Addazio grabbed last minute in the 2013 recruiting class after losing Tim Boyle to UConn. Walsh is the second QB to leave the program from the 2013 class, following Mackay Lowrie's decision to transfer to Rhode Island earlier this offseason. Walsh was a three star dual threat QB from Ohio that had many offers from other MAC programs. Going into this season James Walsh was projected to possibly be the backup, battling for reps with true freshmen Darius Wade.
Walsh did get some reps during the spring game, though as I mentioned in the recap post, he struggled with the option and was a bit slow on his release. Best of luck to James wherever he ends up next.
Walsh's departure raises an interesting dilemma for the Eagles. Josh Bordner is not going to be a quarterback because he clearly is getting reps at wide receiver; another position of need for the Eagles. That leaves only Wade and Flutie to spell Tyler Murphy. Tedesco also mentions in his post on Eagle Action:
Freshman quarterback Darius Wade ran the second team offense, with fellow freshman Troy Flutie seeing some reps. It doesn't look like there's any chance Wade gets redshirted. If the staff sees a chance to get him on the field-either because of a Murphy injury or a blowout - they'll likely take it.
So moving forward it looks like QB2 is going to be Wade almost out of necessity. It would have been nice to allow the kid to have some time and learn the speed of college football on the practice field before he goes live in 2015. Unfortunately necessity is going to rush his development. Let's hope that Wade will be put in a position to progress naturally and not be thrown to the wolves like Chase Rettig was in 2010.