Brock Thomas

But I promise you, Dante Moore is not getting benched.

We're not running out there all of a sudden and, you know, Brock Thomas is the starter.

I don't think that's going to happen.

Well,

Very well could be.

I think we all understand Brock Thomas has been in the system a long time as a very capable player for his own you know, physical limitations.

He's just a little undersized and maybe lacks a little bit of the arm power that you have from a Ryola or a Smith.

And we can all assess, like, I think pretty honestly that Ryola and Smith were former four and five star recruits.

And Brock Thomas is a walk on from Sheldon, who, again, I fully believe if he was six foot two, six foot three, would be starting at least at an FCS level right now.

And frankly, maybe he could be doing that currently if he didn't want to be here.

So I'm trying to be really careful because I value what Brock Thomas provides.

But like, would it be surprised that Achilles actually ahead of him as you get further into the season? I don't think so.

Uh, he seems to have taken a big leap.

And the narrative now is kind of the discussion point, at least for me and my eyes, is kind of who fits along the lines at, at the backup? Who's in line? Who's in play? Where is Dillon Raiola, Brock Thomas and, and Achilles Smith Jr.?

Yeah, no, we, we, we are at a point here where the, the starting position at quarterback, and I think most of the offense as we talk through this will, will have kind of the same thing.

We'll, we'll, we'll acknowledge who the, we, the starter is and in most cases it's pretty clear.

I mean, right off the bat, I still expect Dillon Raiola to be the starting quarterback in 2027.

I anticipate he'll get the, the, the lion's share of backup opportunities as we get deeper into the 2026 season.

I also understand that those opportunities are, like, earned and not given, and he's gonna have to outplay Brock Thomas, which means absorbing the offense and getting a level of comfort that, you know, he's gonna have to achieve in, what, eight or nine months as opposed to, I mean, you could argue five years in Brock's case, even though he wasn't here the whole time, because he was local and had a sense of what was going on.

But like, you know, four years at least of being in the program and, and that, I think, is, is, is an undertaking that may require some time to get to, right? And that, that doesn't necessarily mean we don't think Dillon Raiola's gonna play in early opportunities.

Any quarterback on...

You know what? Straight up, Brock Thomas.

That might be the number one guy on the list.

Yeah, he might be because he's, uh, of course with the quarterbacks, but Brock Thomas would be really high on that list.

Hmm.

This is a good question.

You assume Dillon Raiola would be capable of doing that based upon the fact that he had success at Nebraska, and we can talk about some of the stuff we've heard there.

I thought to me, you know, I'll mention Brock Thomas.

I don't want to over, gloss over.

He does get glossed over by the fan base, but most experienced guy, been on the, in the program the longest time.

Yeah.

We, we talked to Kowakai and also Lanning about that process of... 'Cause remember, the last couple years they've kind of had to tow that tightrope of finding.

Last year, uh, it, um, [smacks lips] Austin Novasad and Brock Thomas kind of shared the role until Bro- Brock kind of just won it out right midway through the season.

Um, the year before that, uh, Novasad and, uh, Dante Moore kind of shared it as they were trying to red shirt Dante Moore's eligibility.

We'll get into that in just a minute.

But Brock Thomas is there, got a lot of experience.

There's legacy player Akili Smith Jr. who's just, uh, an athlete, a physical specimen, just ...

He turns heads.

It's gonna ...

Again, it's just gonna be like Christmas morning, just distributing the ball, distributing presents to everybody.

There's Brock Thomas.

He's in his fourth year in this system, so he, he knows how things go, even though the change in offensive coordinators.