Now that we’ve had a day or two to digest the announcement of the quarterback depth chart, things are starting to calm down a bit. After all, isn’t this more or less the depth chart from the end of last season? There were reports last year that Joe Cox would have played ahead of Barnes had Cox not redshirted. So insert Stafford in there somewhere, but the rest is more or less unchanged. If there was a suprise to most people, it was that Cox was #2. He threw several picks at G-Day, but he also moved the offense more consistently than any other quarterback.

Coach Richt left the question open-ended and the depth chart is subject to change during or after the first game. That’s given people occasion to read the tea leaves and latch on to any scenario that puts their favorite under center for the South Carolina game. Every word Richt says is parsed…"well, he said JT3 deserves to start this game." It’s much more simple than that – until someone proves they are better, Tereshinski will keep the job. Will the Western Kentucky game be a test to see how each performs in a live game? With the starter named, how much time will the others really get in practice or even in games to show that they deserve the job?

I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t disappointed that someone couldn’t shake up the depth chart. After four or five years of high-level quarterback play and some recent quality recruits, I can’t grasp that the best we can hope for is what we saw in Jacksonville last year. I would like to see progress at the quarterback position – even Greene and Shockley were far from efficient – but I’m not so sure we’ll see it this year. Of course we expect people to improve from year-to-year, but I didn’t see much evidence of progress at G-Day.

Unless Tereshinski’s abilities are quite different this year, the offense will be somewhat limited. Shorter passes will allow secondaries to play closer. Georgia’s running game will be stuffed until the offense shows some ability to stretch the field – something they couldn’t do at all in Jacksonville last year. Games will be closer with increased pressure on the defense to keep scores down. That should result in a defense that takes fewer risks and avoids situations where it might give up the big play. This decision and the ability of the quarterback to move the offense and put points on the board has implications across the board for the team.

Sorry if I seem a bit pessimistic. Though we knew that the new quarterback would be relatively inexperienced, we talked about it for so long as a position of strength. Now it seems as if we’re more concerned that it’s not a weakness. That’s something I’m not used to from the Georgia quarterback position, and I’m hoping that a different picture will emerge over the next two to three weeks.