The Case for Emmett Morehead

With Hafley indicating that he intends to pick one quarterback and stick with them Friday night against Virginia Tech, it is time for us to weight our options or pick the proverbial poison. Before we do so let me make one thing clear: a QB change is not going to cure all of BC’s ails. The O-line has not lived up to the BC standard and the defense seems to either make big plays or give them up.

That said, with Grosel’s struggles and one 44 yard pass to Zay Flowers, freshman Emmett Morehead has inserted himself and to the discussion and seems to be the popular favorite to start Friday. I think going with Morehead is the right move, even if I think it is for the wrong reasons.

If Jeff Hafley and Frank Cignetti start Morehead at QB Friday, it will be in large part because they do not want to alter their game-plan to suit Dennis Grosel. To this point in the season both coaches have seemed resistant to do and continue to behave as if Dennis Grosel is going to grow a few inches, gain a few pounds, and become Phil Jurkovec. Somehow that hasn’t worked out for the Eagles, as they are scoring about 10 points per game in their last 4 ACC games.

Morehead is much more of a parallel to Phil Jurkovec, 6’5”, 229 lbs, has a much stronger arm than Grosel. While he’s not as quick as Grosel, Morehead did show he is willing to tuck the ball and run it when he needs to. However, before Saturday, Morehead had not played a meaningful snap since 2019, his junior year in high school as Virginia cancelled the high school season in 2020 due to the pandemic. So it is not going to be a smooth ride by any means. Morehead is going to make a lot of mistakes that Grosel would not and he may make more of those than big downfield completions. Yet, at this point if you’re not going to put Dennis Grosel in a position to succeed than find somebody who fits what you want to do better. I think Morehead fits that role better. If we want to be optimistic and look at the upside, being able to stretch the field would open up a lot of things for the BC offense and take some pressure off the defense. Perhaps to Hafley, just the chance to open up the playbook is enough to take the risk of starting such an inexperienced QB.

There is another factor to consider here which is Phil Jurkovec will only be at BC for at most one more season so why not see what you have in the Freshman. Plus with four games left, you can still choose to sit him in one of those games and keep his redshirt. Seems a bit late for that but you could still do it. The freshman is going to need to get game experience at some point so why not do it when he some considerable talent around him? I don’t know if the result is going to be better or worse than what we’ve been seeing but this team needs some juice, it needs a spark. The play-calling hasn’t sparked anything which has prevented Grosel from really making much of an impact so why not try new blood so to speak.