You made the comment that there are a lot more questions about how Sanchez will do as a starter than there were with Leinart (agree) or Booty.  My question is this, if memory serves me well, I remember watching Booty during the 2005 season when he got mop up time against opponents as our 2nd string QB(of which there was a decent amount since SC had a lot of blow-outs that year).  As I recall, I remember that he looked downright awful in most appearences.  At no time was I impressed with anything he did. I remember repeatedly cringing in fact at the thought of this guy being the QB the following year.  As I recall, he had something like 3 TDs and 2 INT that year.  Certainly nothing to brag about.  Then the following spring he sits out due to back surgery, then in the fall, as I recall, (and please correct me if I'm wrong because I didn't look it up) but didn't Sanchez have superior stats to Booty in Fall camp?  And despite all that, Booty was still named the starter.  My only point in saying all this is that I had a shit load of questions about Booty going into the 2006 season.  And although he might not have had the pantheon career at SC that most unrealistic fans expect, he still had a pretty superb career.

     I agree that Sanchez is still very much a work in progress and he obviously will need to improve his split second decision making skills if he plans to take SC to the promised land, but for me personally, I am far more confident in Sanchez going into the 2008 season than I was with Booty going into 2006.

     For one, Sanchez played in an absolute pressure cooker of a game in Oregon last year and I think that experience will serve him well.  Booty did not have that kind of experience going into his starting year.  Secondly although Sanchez certainly has been erratic at times, he has also showed definite flashes of brilliance.  Everyone likes to harp on Sanchez for that INT he forced at the end of the Oregon game, but everyone seems to also forget the SC drive before that one where Sanchez absolutely stormed down the field with precison strike after precision strike, and connected with Ausberry with one of the most beautiful TD passes I have ever seen.

     Maybe I'm being a little too optimistic about this, but I think as long as Sanchez can put everything together, we'll be okay.  I DO have concerns like everyone else, but I'm feeling a lot better about this than I did with Booty and we certainly came out okay the last time around.  

Go Trojans!  

This kid Mustain started 8 games for Arkansas, won the 8 games playing against some of the toughest schools in Div-lA.

He doesn't have the system down good enough we're told, yet he has more game experience than Sanchez, but has to play back up to Sanchez. So tell me, just how complicated is SC's offensive scheme, more so than Florida, Auburn,Texas,Georgia or Arkansas, I don't think so.

There's more to this than meets the eye. This kid is getting blind sided by a false sense of seniority. Sanchez got most of the first team snaps, how is that fair?

Mitch is a redshirt sophomore, if he plays behind Sanchez for two years he will have one year to play, not to mention Matt Barkley arriving next year. With that, he may never play.

He needs to finish the semester, pack his stuff and find a college that wants a quality quarterback.

My real point in bringing up this conjecture is simply that while Carrol prides himself on the notion that his program is an athletic meritocracy where players EARN their playing time and seniority has no bearing, I really don't think that same philosophy applies to the quarterback situation.  For whatever reason it seems like Carrol as it concerns the quarterback, has a slightly tilted playing field that prefers the incumbent player who has been in the program longer.  I mean how else do you explain Booty getting the starting job in '06 when he had just come off surgery and from all reports was outplayed by a fair margin in fall camp?

Believe me, I'm with you Paragon in that I too would like Mustain to get a more balanced look in the evaluation process.  Let the best man win regardless of age. Unfortunately it doesn't look like it's going to play out that way. (With that said, I do think that Mustain's 8-0 record as a starter is a little inflated.  The competition in those games were against some definite cream puffs and Mustain's numbers were quite mediocre, something like 10 TDs versus 8 INTs.  I remember watching a couple of those games and it seems most of the playcalls were of the "Drop back, hand off to Mcfadden/Felix.  Repeat" variety. Not terribly complicated.  Still, I do think Mustain has a ton of potential and I'd hate to see him lost in the shuffle.)