Harasymiak Talks UMass QB Battle
UMass head coach Joe Harasymiak won't be a timeframe on the Minutemen's quarterback competition.
They say if you have two quarterbacks, you have none.
Well, UMass enters fall camp with three quarterbacks.
A clear starting quarterback isn’t the only thing the Minutemen lack a month before the season-opener against Temple, they also don’t have a timeline for naming one.
“When it happens, it happens,” head coach Joe Harasymiak said on Wednesday after the first day of practice. “When it happens, I'll know. I've been through it before, did it at Maine. As an assistant, we had several at Minnesota and Rutgers. When it happens, it happens.
“Not sure if that'll be after a scrimmage or so, or if someone plays lights out first five days, here we go. But we're going to handle that the right way, make sure we're responsible for what we're evaluating. And I'm confident.”
Harasymiak said the plan is to have Brandon Rose, AJ Hairston and Grant Jordan split reps.
“We're just rotating who's with the ones, who's with the twos, who's with the threes,” Harasymiak said. “It just rotates by period, by team, like seven-on-seven. I'm proud of those guys. Those guys are fighting through it.”
Harasymiak said he’ll lean on veteran offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian to help choose a starter, but said he himself has a couple things that are crucial as he evaluates the trio.
“I look at the operation, but most importantly, taking care of the football,” he said. “That's number one to me. The ball's the heartbeat. It's outside this wall. If we take care of the ball.
“If you end up with a turnover margin since 2017 of just even, it's an average of six wins. So the ball is the number one thing here that we talk about. It's the heartbeat of the program and if we take care of that, we'll be alright. That's the number one thing I look at.
“The ins and outs of the reads and stuff like that, that's why you hire great people. But that's what I'll be looking for is kind of that operation, the body language around the quarterbacks from the other teammates when they get in a huddle. And certainly number one is taking care of the football.”
Hairston and Jordan competed during spring practice while Rose officially entered the competition this week.
“It's great to have him back,” Harasymiak said of Rose, who was held out of spring practice after a foot injury back in November, when he was playing for Utah.
“He was really ready to go at the end of spring. We had to hold him back, which he was angry, which is what you want.
“Certainly a guy that's been around, experienced. I think he's very comfortable around the pocket. I think he handles the operation extremely well and it was great.”
Harasymiak called the three-man dynamic “interesting.”
“They all have different things,” he continued. “They have strengths and weaknesses and it kind of brings out the best in all of them.
“I think the one thing I noticed (Wednesday), it was intense. It's a little bit of a different feel with (Rose) in there because now instead of just going really through two, now there's three of them really fighting it out.”
Your one-stop-shop for all your sports marketing needs… Owned and Operated by UMASS Grads.
We specialize in providing top-quality marketing & printing services for coaches, athletic directors, and sports marketing professionals.
Get Fan Ready!