Appleby Out, Blough In For Saturday

Austin Appleby has lost his starting job after a 2-8 career as a starter in college. As noted earlier today, Appleby has one win against FBS competition and it was in his first start, last year vs Illinois. He's had leads several other times but has failed to close the games out. Is it fair to put it all on him? Absolutely not. But just like coaches, QBs take the biggest hits in terms of blame. Is this a scramble by a coach who is getting a bit nervous for his long-term job security? It's possible. However, if you're going to make a QB change, it's best to do it before the teeth of the season are gnawing on them. Bowling Green is a terrifically weak defense and so what better time to give redshirt freshman David Blough the chance?

A tough, but accurate, quote from Hazell was the following:

"This is not a panic move, this is a move based on taking care of the ball, which we haven't done," Hazell said.

Blough made his first career appearance last Saturday against VTech. He went 3/8 for 11 yards but looked... athletic while doing so. So we'll see. Changing QBs midseason is never ideal, but perhaps the coaches saw the writing on the wall -- and Austin's completely dejected demeanor afterwards -- and decided it's time. Appleby began to truly look lost as things fell apart versus the Hokies and while coaches in theory don't think about how an ugly loss at home might color the whole season, losing by 40 to a 1-2 MAC squad would definitely be worse than the loss we just witnessed.

We wish David good luck and also hope Austin keeps his head in the game. It's reasonable to think we haven't seen the last of him.