No seriously. How has your face not completely melted off after the Chernobyl-like explosion that occurred in Baton Rouge just a few hours ago. Surely the football team, nay the entire university has completely evaporated in lieu of Zach Lee signing a MLB contract with everyone's favorite team with a dysfunctional owner, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Wait what? So LSU still has a football team? They will return to practice tomorrow? No shit? I thought for sure this was the very end of LSU football. The world is surely collapsing, right? This is the part when Bruce Willis steals your oxygen supply and goes on a suicide mission to detonate a bomb that will surely obliterate the entire planet. Baton Rouge is a modern-day Megiddo, and all you mortals are damned for all eternity for your many, many sins.
Or, maybe everything will be... alright? Or maybe not. Somehow, all at once, this is some fucked up repugnant shit and we're here to do two things...Really, I'm just like Mel Brooks. "I don't know what to say, so I'll just say what's on my heart...Baboom! Baboom! Baboom!"
Okay, enough nonsense. Let's just try to sort this out:
1) This completely fucking sucks.
2) This does not mean the end of LSU.
3) This makes LSU extremely thin at QB.
4) This doesn't mean a young QB will suck in 2012.
5) Who the hell is Barrett Bailey?
Now, in detail:
1) This completely fucking sucks.
LSU (Les Miles) put all their eggs in the Zach Lee basket and it didn't pay off. I suppose the rationale to not finding another QB last class was the presence of Barrett Bailey, but that's not exactly thrilling to anyone. Allowing (more like instructing) Chris Garrett to walk, puts the team woefully thin at QB. Heaven forbid Jordan Jefferson and Jarrett Lee go down with injury this year (I just ran and knocked on every piece of wood in my apartment).
2) This does not mean the end of LSU
No, I think LSU will be okay.
3) This makes LSU extremely thin at QB.
There's little confidence in the QB situation to begin with, and losing the future hope at the position only acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now, beyond Jefferson and Lee, our third option is a walk-on with an outside chance that one of our many talented athletes can take snaps and run around like crazy and maybe throw it once our twice.
Miles mucked this up. No two ways about it. I don't think Chris Garrett was the option, and despite complaints from people saying, "Why didn't we wait to split with Garrett?", I don't think that's a plausible question. We couldn't string Garrett along for weeks based on the decision of another player. Regardless, I don't think Chris is a D1 type of player either way, so if he would have been our starting QB in 2012, we'd have been in trouble (my opinion).
4) This doesn't mean a young QB will suck in 2012.
As of right now, we'd enter the 2012 season with a competition between Barrett Bailey and Stephen Rivers for the starting QB. Bailey would be a Junior and Rivers a redshirt Freshman or true Sophomore. Yikes. We will get another QB in the fold this season, and perhaps even a third, JUCO guy, to re-establish depth at the position.
When you talk about young QBs, people will automatically default to the struggles of Lee and Jefferson, but the truth is, no two situations are ever alike. Just because we have to start a young QB doesn't mean we are destined for failure. Sometimes a player is truly unique and special. Sam Bradford was about as highly regarded as Stephen Rivers coming out of HS. I think that turned out OKAY. And don't take this as me saying Rivers is the next coming of Tebow who was the first coming of Jesus. I'm just saying that things can change in our favor fast.
5) Who the hell is Barrett Bailey?
He's your third-string QB who passed some decent D1 offers to walk-on to LSU. Due to developments, you will be seeing a "Better know a Freshman" Barrett Bailey piece later today. Then we can talk about Barrett Bailey.
Ultimately though, relax. For some reason, everyone had convinced themselves that Lee would be at LSU (despite the fact that signing with the Dodgers loomed as a very real possibility). Does it suck? Hell yes. Am I worried? Sure. But it could be worse. Check out Florida's QB situation right now. If Brantley goes down, they are on to a true freshman project. Ick. These things happen. Was it mishandled? I think so. But what can you do...?