[Goose]

I don't think so, I think that anything you can come up with boil down to one of those two. I suppose it's possible in theory that Little just exploded in practice over those two weeks, but that strains credulity. Lots of observes (including many on this board) thought he was our most talented OT and should've been LT from the beginning, but the staff didn't roll with him until SDSU. So your options are either:

1) He went from the nth-best option to the best over the course of a couple weeks of practice; or
2) The coaches misevaluated the talent.

Again, the former is possible but strains credulity, players don't suddenly learn how to play their position at a high level over two weeks. An injury is an explanation, except that we have no indication that one happened.

Anyway if you think some other option is more likely, go for it. But if you're going to say that I'm missing a myriad of options, it would be nice if you'd supply more than one that's pretty implausible.

OK, fair enough. First, who is "better" is a some norm of an evaluation vector. As a simplistic case, maybe Little was the best pass blocker but initially not the best run blocker. This vector has threshold effects. It is necessary that you meet a minimum standard in many (maybe not all) components of the vector before you can be the primary choice. Maybe Little was great on most plays but couldn't seal the edge on the sweep. Or maybe he was having trouble remembering his assignments. Or he was jumping offside a lot. It is perfectly possible to believe that after two weeks of "spot" play he corrected some disqualifying defect, and that wouldn't constitute a big jump in capability, just a small but essential one. So there are tons of ways that he may have eliminated a disqualifying defect without real big improvement. The people on this board who thought he was our best choice might have been totally unaware of this issue, if that is what happened.
Second, it may be that the coaches changed their minds about what combination of talents on the OL were required. With the shuffle of positions, a different mix may have been appropriate. So it was not "is player a better than player b?", but rather is combination a better than combination b. The change in alignment may have had to do mostly with guard play, but, as a byproduct, it opened up the possibility of a different option at tackle.
Third, it may be that things were close all along and Little improved just enough to have the coaches make the change. It is possible that not starting him against USC was the correct choice, and starting him now is the correct choice. It appears you reject that option because you think such a change requires a very large improvement. It may be just one thing that improved "enough", or that the other options at tackle regressed slightly, or that it became clear that the other options practiced better than they played. Little went from 2 to 1. It doesn't require an very large change, just a change that tips the balance. I don't see this as implausible at all. I think it is very probable.
Fourth, player evaluation is a value judgement with some error bars attached. It is probably true that the coaches will choose the more experienced player if the competition is within the coach's estimate of the error range. That is at least partly because the error bars on the more experienced player should be smaller. In theory at least, he is more of a known quantity, while the new player is probably less so. That can be good, in that the new player is better than you think, but it can also be bad, that he is worse than you think. You may need to see him in a few real games before you can validate your evaluation. This gets the error bars down and gives more certainty in the evaluation. One may say the coaches should know this from day 1, but if it isn't an overwhelming difference, that is not a realistic expectation. One could say Little obviously had a much higher ceiling, but it is a different question about what is true NOW. One could easily "cherry pick" many possible improvements in Little's game that may have been the "that's what we have been waiting for" moment.
So, it is entirely possible that things changed by only a small amount in two weeks as far as Little improving a bit, or the other options at tackle regressing a bit, or the strategy changing, or some combination of all three. It isn't necessarily true that the current alignment was the best option on day 1 just because it appears to be now, for many possible reasons. It also may be true that the alignment we see today will change again. That doesn't mean it's wrong today.

[Goose]

I don't think so, I think that anything you can come up with boil down to one of those two. I suppose it's possible in theory that Little just exploded in practice over those two weeks, but that strains credulity. Lots of observes (including many on this board) thought he was our most talented OT and should've been LT from the beginning, but the staff didn't roll with him until SDSU. So your options are either:

1) He went from the nth-best option to the best over the course of a couple weeks of practice; or
2) The coaches misevaluated the talent.

Again, the former is possible but strains credulity, players don't suddenly learn how to play their position at a high level over two weeks. An injury is an explanation, except that we have no indication that one happened.

Anyway if you think some other option is more likely, go for it. But if you're going to say that I'm missing a myriad of options, it would be nice if you'd supply more than one that's pretty implausible.

OK, fair enough. First, who is "better" is a some norm of an evaluation vector. As a simplistic case, maybe Little was the best pass blocker but initially not the best run blocker. This vector has threshold effects. It is necessary that you meet a minimum standard in many (maybe not all) components of the vector before you can be the primary choice. Maybe Little was great on most plays but couldn't seal the edge on the sweep. Or maybe he was having trouble remembering his assignments. Or he was jumping offside a lot. It is perfectly possible to believe that after two weeks of "spot" play he corrected some disqualifying defect, and that wouldn't constitute a big jump in capability, just a small but essential one. So there are tons of ways that he may have eliminated a disqualifying defect without real big improvement. The people on this board who thought he was our best choice might have been totally unaware of this issue, if that is what happened.
Second, it may be that the coaches changed their minds about what combination of talents on the OL were required. With the shuffle of positions, a different mix may have been appropriate. So it was not "is player a better than player b?", but rather is combination a better than combination b. The change in alignment may have had to do mostly with guard play, but, as a byproduct, it opened up the possibility of a different option at tackle.
Third, it may be that things were close all along and Little improved just enough to have the coaches make the change. It is possible that not starting him against USC was the correct choice, and starting him now is the correct choice. It appears you reject that option because you think such a change requires a very large improvement. It may be just one thing that improved "enough", or that the other options at tackle regressed slightly, or that it became clear that the other options practiced better than they played. Little went from 2 to 1. It doesn't require an very large change, just a change that tips the balance. I don't see this as implausible at all. I think it is very probable.
Fourth, player evaluation is a value judgement with some error bars attached. It is probably true that the coaches will choose the more experienced player if the competition is within the coach's estimate of the error range. That is at least partly because the error bars on the more experienced player should be smaller. In theory at least, he is more of a known quantity, while the new player is probably less so. That can be good, in that the new player is better than you think, but it can also be bad, that he is worse than you think. You may need to see him in a few real games before you can validate your evaluation. This gets the error bars down and gives more certainty in the evaluation. One may say the coaches should know this from day 1, but if it isn't an overwhelming difference, that is not a realistic expectation. One could say Little obviously had a much higher ceiling, but it is a different question about what is true NOW. One could easily "cherry pick" many possible improvements in Little's game that may have been the "that's what we have been waiting for" moment.
So, it is entirely possible that things changed by only a small amount in two weeks as far as Little improving a bit, or the other options at tackle regressing a bit, or the strategy changing, or some combination of all three. It isn't necessarily true that the current alignment was the best option on day 1 just because it appears to be now, for many possible reasons. It also may be true that the alignment we see today will change again. That doesn't mean it's wrong today.