Murmurings of this slipped through the crack late last week, but I waited to see if an official LSU affiliate would confirm before bringing it here. Tigerbait.com is reporting that Les Miles has officially extended an offer to former UGA, current Butler C.C. QB Zach Mettenberger.
Mettenberger was a 2009 Georgia signee who ranked as the No. 11 Pro Style QB in a class that featured Garrett Gilbert, Matt Barkley, and Aaron Murray amongst others. Mettenberger is currently a Sophomore. It seems if he takes the offer, he could be redshirted and still be eligible to play the next two seasons, which would provide an immediate stop gap to the QB problems which arose with the departure of Zach Lee.
As a player, Mettenberger is a big kid (6'5, 224) with decent mobility (very similar to JJ in that regard). He's got a nice, classic delivery, with a good over the top release point and he gets the ball out quickly. His arm strength doesn't wow me, but he places a nice touch on the ball. If I'm not mistaken, Mettenberger was leading Aaron Murray heading into the summer for the starting QB job at UGA. That speaks to his ability (Murray was ranked 8 spots higher than him in the same recruiting class).
Mettenberger has a field of offers, but I imagine he would love to get back to the SEC, so having no knowledge of the situation, I would figure LSU would be an early favorite based on favorable playing opportunity as well as location.
A lot of attention will surely be paid to his being booted from UGA. There was an incident involving alcohol and girls and fake ids. Does that mean he's a bad apple? Or was it just a stupid mistake by a young kid? Hard to say, but to be landing interest from D1 schools that tells me schools are either impressed with his talent enough to overlook it or not worried about it.
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