Eason is the starter.

[Michael K.]

I think it was an open competition, but not just to give Haener a shot, but to show this team that even a guy like Eason, as decorated as he was as a recruit, can't just walk in here and be handed a job.

[Sibelius Hindemith]

http://sportspressnw.com/2243936/2019/t ... r-petersen

This part makes me wonder...

His father, Ryan, told The Athletic that his son is taking the high road.

“He was extremely emotional about it, because he felt like he had won the job,” Ryan said.

Sounds to me like he felt wronged.

[Michael K.]

Which is garbage. Eason has been mocked some for the Numbers he put up as a true Freshman in the Mighty SEC. His numbers look All American like next to Haener's numbers against weaker Pac 12 teams. Negative yards passing and the game losing pick six?

Sorry dude, have confidence in your abilities, move on to play elsewhere....fine. But, IMO, he got more of a shot than his talent level warrants.

Any doubts. Go watch the Cal game. Not just the crippling pick six, but how about the wide open out route he spiked in the turf like five yards short the play before? The kid made Browning's arm look NFL ready in that game!

[Sibelius Hindemith]

So what then does it say if it's true that Eason couldn't separate himself from Haener during practices? And if Haener was considered to be well ahead of Sirmon, what does that say about him?

I'm not feeling too good right now about the Huskies' QB sitch.

[57reasons]

So what then does it say if it's true that Eason couldn't separate himself from Haener during practices? And if Haener was considered to be well ahead of Sirmon, what does that say about him?

I'm not feeling too good right now about the Huskies' QB sitch.

it says that Petersen was biased by the anomalous success of weak-armed Kellen Moore, and to a lesser extent, Jake Browning. neither of whom could propel their team to a victory over the likes of Alabama, Penn State with, or Ohio State on New Year's Day.

[D-train]

Stone:

The word coach Chris Petersen used to describe the timing of the Jake Haener drama was “awkward.”

Sometimes, awkward situations are temporary annoyances with no lingering aftereffects. They happen, everyone cringes, and then, poof, it’s forgotten.

But sometimes they fester, grow and quickly manifest beyond awkward to something truly problematic.

There are many ways to look at Haener’s decision Saturday to transfer out of the Husky football program, just two days after losing the starting-quarterback battle to Jacob Eason, and exactly one week before Washington’s season opener against Eastern Washington.

Whether this will be a short-lived, uncomfortable episode or one that could haunt the Huskies long term depends largely on one thing: the performance of Eason as the now-undisputed and un-challenged QB of a team hoping to reach new heights in 2019.

Petersen on Monday expressed the belief that Eason could benefit from the sudden clarity at quarterback. The original plan he announced Friday was that Haener had performed well enough in the competition to earn playing time against Eastern. And it wasn’t to have been a token series, apparently. Speaking to Dave Mahler on KJR-AM on Monday, Haener said he was to have received “a quarter or two” of action.

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That could have been enough, hypothetically, to conjure up every coach’s worst nightmare, a quarterback controversy. Imagine if Eason had struggled, thrown a pick or two, and Haener had emulated his performance last year against North Dakota – 7 for 7 for 110 yards with a picture-perfect 12-yard fade to Ty Jones for a touchdown.

Petersen indicated last week that he wasn’t going to re-open the competition no matter what happened against Eastern. But that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t have been murmurs and speculation every time Eason faltered.

“We’ve got our guy,” Petersen had said Friday. “We’re not going to have anybody look over their shoulder, but we’ve got a plan on how we’re going to do this. It’s important to have a good plan. You over-plan, you adapt and adjust as the seasons go.”

This is a whopping re-adjustment on the fly that UW is now being forced to make. But with Petersen indicating that the new backup, redshirt freshman Jacob Sirmon, is not scheduled for a cameo Saturday, it’s a new dynamic for Eason – one without potential footsteps for him to hear.

“I think it certainly can help the whole dynamics,” Petersen said. “Things are a little bit more clear-cut, in terms of you’ve got a pecking order going forward.”

On the flip side, the Huskies’ safety net at quarterback has been trimmed substantially. It’s Eason’s job unequivocally – but if he struggles or gets hurt, the options are now two players who weren’t serious competitors for the job – Sirmon and freshman Dylan Morris. More than ever, the Huskies need Eason to soar.

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In Haener, they had a player with two years in the program who presumably took Eason to the very limit in a competition that lasted the entire breadth of spring ball and preseason camp. He was beaten out solely on the basis of a “gut decision” by Petersen, who might have been swayed by nothing more than Eason’s as-yet untapped potential.

That said, I don’t begrudge Haener one second for his decision to leave. As I’ve said before, the relatively recent trend in college football of facilitating transfers via the “portal,” and the frequency with which it is being utilized, particularly by quarterbacks, is not a bad thing.

In a world where players are the unpaid labor in a billion-dollar business, and coaches can and do leave players high and dry on a whim, they deserve some freedom of choice. Particularly when programs tend to stack their depth chart with blue-chip quarterbacks and let them fight it out. If you want to play, sometimes leaving is the only option.

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Yes, Haener could have stuck it out this year on the hope that something would have happened to elevate him to the starting job – the proverbial “one hit away” theory.

But the clock is always ticking on a finite college career; having lost the competition, Haener wanted to assure that he would get two years of playing time. The Huskies didn’t offer that assurance, but it looks like Fresno State might.

By all accounts, it was an amicable departure from Montlake with Haener taking the high road out of town. He and Petersen hugged after an hourlong meeting Saturday to hash things out, according to Haener’s father (as reported by Christian Caple in The Athletic). And Haener was classy in his KJR comments, expressing the belief that the quarterback competition was a fair one. He didn’t bad-mouth anyone involved.

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Petersen, in his sixth year at Washington, has now had four quarterbacks transfer out – Troy Williams, K.J. Carta-Samuels, Colson Yankoff and Haener (with Sirmon backtracking on his decision to transfer after a couple of days in the portal in early May).

The coach said he would re-examine his strategy of stocking the quarterback position, but added, “You can’t have one guy. That’s not going to work for us. So there’s always going to be a handful of guys competing for that position. So what the best order is and how that works, that’s never going to be scripted out like that. That’s just not how it works. Do we need to pay attention to it and have a strategy and help the whole situation? Absolutely. What that looks like is to be determined, and we’ll obviously keep paying attention to it.”

For now, it’s Eason’s job to run with. You can make the case that he will be better for being pushed to the brink by Haener. Petersen said he was “not at all” concerned that the abrupt departure of the backup quarterback would have an adverse effect on the team so close to the opener.

[D-train]

This will be all forgotten if Eason puts up 300+ yards and 3+ TDs Saturday.

[Captain 97]

Doubt we will be throwing that much against Eastern. It will probably be pretty vanilla with a ton of Ahmed and McGrew.

[DavidGee24]

I'm happy Haener and his low low ceiling is gone, but what a shameful sight looking at all the reader comments on the story in the Times - a bunch of misguided provincialists judging Haener for leaving the program so late before the season, when it was Petersen who didnt make the call until the day before. like he was supposed to transfer out while still in the running for the starting job? or like he is supposed to give up his dream of a career by holding a clipboard just to make some alumni less nervous about the readiness of the backup QB for one season, as if he somehow owes that to the fan base because he took a football scholarship? get a life people, and climb out of the 20th century.

Isn't that actually more of a 21st century thing?

I think the biggest thing we're hoping for out of Eason is that should the Huskies make it to the Pac-12 Championship Game and a major bowl game or the Final Four, he doesn't go seven quarters without leading a touchdown drive.

[D-train]

Browning got a lot worse after John Ross left and Chico got hurt.