QB situation remains unclear

As the football team prepared to take the field against Lehigh for last year’s season opener, the number of people who knew who would start under center for Princeton was so small that, well, everyone who knew was preparing to take the field. Head coach Bob Surace ’90 decided the Monday before the game that then-sophomore Connor Michelsen would start, but the general public did not find out until Michelsen came out for the first series.

What a difference a year makes! The Tigers improved drastically last year, going 5-5 after consecutive 1-9 seasons. They stunned the league with their upset of defending champion Harvard and — oh, wait, we still don’t know who our quarterback is.

“We’ll have somebody in there,” Surace said, jokingly, when asked point-blank who would start. That was all he was willing to give away.

Michelsen will probably be starting Saturday, but it is highly likely that he will not be the only player to take snaps. Though he started every game but one last year, he is only one of four players who could emerge as the leader of the offense.

Junior Quinn Epperly, who secured his place in Princeton history when senior receiver Roman Wilson came down with his miraculous lob toward the end zone to defeat Harvard, was used last year as the Tebow to Michelsen’s Sanchez (pretend, for the sake of the metaphor, that Sanchez and Tebow formed a functional unit), with Michelsen being relied on to throw more and Epperly being brought in to boost the ground game. Epperly had a fraction of the throwing attempts Michelsen had but threw for six touchdowns and ran for six more, accumulating the second-most rushing yards on last year’s team.

The Michelsen-Epperly combo worked well when it was firing on all cylinders, as in the Yale game when Michelsen was 12-18 for 126 yards, and Epperly had 91 yards and a touchdown on the ground with another score through the air. But there were plenty of times when it seemed to confuse the Tigers more than their opponent — the loss to Lehigh and the fact that Wilson’s legendary go-ahead touchdown was necessary in the first place can both be blamed on offensive discombobulation.

But wait, there’s more! Sophomore Kendric Bostic took snaps against Dartmouth — as much as Michelsen did at the end of 2011 — in the last game of 2012. He went 5-8, appearing sporadically and throwing for 56 yards while rushing for 21 more and a touchdown. This was by no means a powerful statement, but he showed his ability to run the offense, something Surace says he has continued to do during the preseason.

“He was responsible for a lot of explosive plays,” Surace said. “We saw a lot of growth from him in a lot of different ways.”

Finally, we have freshman Chad Kanoff, who you may know as the guy who decommitted from Vanderbilt to join the Princeton team. While we shouldn’t expect to see him right away — Surace expects him to cut his teeth in a few JV games — it seems inevitable that Kanoff will, one day, be Princeton’s starter. Rated a four-star recruit by ESPN.com, Kanoff was a steal for the Tigers and appears to be the quintessential dual threat.

While not going as far as saying that it would be doing the same thing in 2013, Surace says his quarterback duo “executed well” last season, pointing to last year’s 26.6 points per game average as opposed to 2011’s 17.4. There’s no doubt that last year’s offense far exceeded expectations, as talented wide receivers and reliable running backs allowed the Tigers to find a number of ways to move the ball down the field.

Still, there were bumps in the road last season, moments that had those of us in the press box asking, “Why did they take out Michelsen?” or “Isn’t this when you use Epperly?” That’s fine, that happens, but many, including Surace, seem to think that three or even four quarterbacks splitting time is a viable option for this year’s offense. One can spin this as a dynamic, multifaceted attack that keeps the defense off balance, but one could also say it would be done purely out of necessity — no player has distinguished himself enough to earn the starting job outright. Again, that’s fine when it’s between Michelsen and Epperly, but it’s hard to split time among four different guys without the offense getting a little disjointed — consider last year’s Dartmouth game, when three quarterbacks saw action, but Princeton failed to score a single point from the early second quarter until late in the fourth.

The bottom line is that, while he doesn’t need to name a full-time starter, Surace is going to have to pick two, maybe three QBs to go with. Last year, he avoided making a tough decision between Michelsen and Epperly to the benefit of the team, but given the talented young guys and Surace’s desire to baffle his opponents, that seems likely to change. This could mean Bostic or Kanoff splitting time with one (or two) of the current starters, but there’s a sense among some fans that there might be a simpler solution: Kanoff calling the shots by the end of his freshman season.

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Or maybe Surace will throw us all for a loop and start senior wideout Roman Wilson under center. There’s no way of knowing. For now, let’s sit back and enjoy another year of the two- or three- (or four-) ring circus that is Princeton’s offensive backfield.