[SamuelMcF]

McKee is coming off a two-year mission, so it would be difficult for him to start.  Before McKee, the most recent QB comparable in ranking was Mills, who was coming off an injury.  Before that, it was probably Luck who was pre-Shaw. 

Before Mills it was KJ Costello, the #3 pro-style QB, then Keller Chryst, the #3 pro-style QB (woof), then Andrew Luck, the #3 pro-style QB.

We haven't had a highly heralded QB since the new rules allowing players to play in up to five games without losing their redshirt.

In light of the new rule, I could see Mills being the starter and McKee getting in on garbage time for up to five games, or coming in if Mills becomes injured, unless he is clearly not  ready.

The rule is maximum 4 games, not 5.

Obviously it's yet to be seen how this affects a whale freshman QB for us since McKee is indeed the first since the rule change, but staff walked the 4-game line pretty well with a bunch of freshmen last season (to the extent that the catastrophic injury situation allowed). Notably, non-whale true freshman QB Jack West did play in garbage time against UC Davis and Oregon State, so there is precedent there. However we have no idea how "in football shape" McKee will or won't be, especially since W&M is the first game of the season. It looks like our post-redshirt-rule LDS frosh usually need most of that first season to really get back into it: Loa Kaufusi played in 2 of the final 3 games, Simi Fehoko played the final 4 games, Levani Damuni played in the final game. That said, walk-on Spencer Jorgensen played every single game on STs and that blew my mind.

All that said about McKee:

Knowing Shaw's preference for the more experienced QB (though never even attempting to turn to senior Richardson, the spring ball hero, over West vs UCLA was admittedly curious), I think West will be QB2 and Sanders will have his own set of triple option/wildcat/gadget packages. This is not what I want, but it is what I predict. Sanders looked pretty good to me and I see him being more of a weapon than just a "gadget package" guy. At the very least I would much rather see how we could adapt around his run-threat skill set at QB2 if Mills gets hurt.

[SamuelMcF]

McKee is coming off a two-year mission, so it would be difficult for him to start.  Before McKee, the most recent QB comparable in ranking was Mills, who was coming off an injury.  Before that, it was probably Luck who was pre-Shaw. 

Before Mills it was KJ Costello, the #3 pro-style QB, then Keller Chryst, the #3 pro-style QB (woof), then Andrew Luck, the #3 pro-style QB.

We haven't had a highly heralded QB since the new rules allowing players to play in up to five games without losing their redshirt.

In light of the new rule, I could see Mills being the starter and McKee getting in on garbage time for up to five games, or coming in if Mills becomes injured, unless he is clearly not  ready.

The rule is maximum 4 games, not 5.

Obviously it's yet to be seen how this affects a whale freshman QB for us since McKee is indeed the first since the rule change, but staff walked the 4-game line pretty well with a bunch of freshmen last season (to the extent that the catastrophic injury situation allowed). Notably, non-whale true freshman QB Jack West did play in garbage time against UC Davis and Oregon State, so there is precedent there. However we have no idea how "in football shape" McKee will or won't be, especially since W&M is the first game of the season. It looks like our post-redshirt-rule LDS frosh usually need most of that first season to really get back into it: Loa Kaufusi played in 2 of the final 3 games, Simi Fehoko played the final 4 games, Levani Damuni played in the final game. That said, walk-on Spencer Jorgensen played every single game on STs and that blew my mind.

All that said about McKee:

Knowing Shaw's preference for the more experienced QB (though never even attempting to turn to senior Richardson, the spring ball hero, over West vs UCLA was admittedly curious), I think West will be QB2 and Sanders will have his own set of triple option/wildcat/gadget packages. This is not what I want, but it is what I predict. Sanders looked pretty good to me and I see him being more of a weapon than just a "gadget package" guy. At the very least I would much rather see how we could adapt around his run-threat skill set at QB2 if Mills gets hurt.