It wouldn’t really be spring football for Idaho if there wasn’t a quarterback competition. For the third straight spring the Vandals will have two quarterbacks vying for the starting job.
This time it will be between redshirt sophomore Chad Chalich and redshirt freshman Matt Linehan, Idaho coach Paul Petrino said.
Linehan and Chalich will split repetitions, both working equally with the first team and second team offense, Petrino said.
“If Chad wouldn’t have gotten hurt and played the whole year, then he probably would have come back as definitely the starter,” Petrino said. “They both will take exactly the same amount of reps with the ones and the twos and have a great competition and see who the better player is in the spring.”
Chalich started seven games for the Vandals last season, before a shoulder injury Oct. 12 at Arkansas State sidelined him for the rest of the season. Taylor Davis, who started the other five games, has graduated. Linehan spent the 2013 season redshirting and operating the scout team offenses.
Linehan shined in Idaho’s “get better Sunday” scrimmages throughout the year, Petrino said.
“I just think we had those scrimmages every Sunday night and he really understands football and did a good job,” Petrino said. “Really no matter what, they’re the two guys who are going to compete for the job.”
The quarterback competition will headline spring practice for most. But for Petrino, what headlines it is the fact that his team has been together for a year now. He said the offseason has been spent fostering relationships within the team and coming together to squash the talk of “Akey’s guys” and “Petrino’s guys.”
“People say it, I know exactly what you’re saying,” Petrino said. “We just had a team meeting two days ago and I told them, ‘We’re all together, we’re all in this thing together, there’s no other people’s guys, my guys. We’re all in this together.'”
After that, Petrino is most excited about the level of competition he’s built at multiple positions.
Offensive line, linebacker and the secondary are three positions that he said he is excited to have depth for competition.
“There were some positions last year where there was one guy who was a starter and he kind of knew he was the starter and there probably wasn’t anybody with a chance to beat him out,” Petrino said. “Where, you look at the offensive line, there’s competition at every single spot right now between the two people who are fighting for it.”
Idaho’s starting bookend tackles from last season, Jesse Davis and Cody Elenz, will be limited this spring due to recovering from injuries — but Petrino is returning nine players who started on the offensive line at some point last season. That competition only gets stronger with the addition of junior college signees Jeff Travillion and Kato Fawkes.
Petrino also listed linebacker and the secondary as positions where he is looking forward to increased depth and competition, though he said he’ll need those 15 practices to address where the strengths and weaknesses are.
Junior college signees added just in time for those competitions include defensive back Doyin Sule, and linebackers Irving Steele and Daniel Peterson.
Though the competition most will pay attention to will surely come back around to the signal callers, where Idaho technically only has two of in the spring. The third, senior Josh McCain, will be in a transition period from quarterback to wide receiver.
Petrino plans to give McCain some quarterback packages, but he’ll mostly be split out wide.
“He’ll take some snaps but we’re trying really to make him a receiver. We still have to get a package for him at quarterback and he’ll always have a package, similar to when he came in and ran last year,” Petrino said. “But we’re really going to work hard this spring at making him a receiver but he’ll take some reps at quarterback.”
Sean Kramer can be reached at [email protected]