Nebraska Football quarterback competition heading into spring

Let’s check out the Nebraska football quarterback competition as we progress through winter and inch closer to spring.

Kudos to Nebraska football head coach Scott Frost for making some splash additions during the offseason. The most notable addition was adding Mark Whipple and Mickey Joseph to the offensive coaching staff, which has proven to be beneficial already with a few key transfer players deciding to come to Lincoln.

In honor of former Nebraska quarterback Zac Taylor heading to the Super Bowl with his Bengals team, along with former receiver Stanley Morgan Jr. and former offensive coordinator Troy Walters, I decided to take a look at the upcoming quarterback competition that will take place in the coming months and possibly carry into the fall.

Here I will give my predictions and reasoning on what the QB depth chart will look like once fall rolls around.  Hopefully, it will be here before we know it.

QB1 – Casey Thompson (Jr.)

Nebraska Football recently added the former Texas quarterback to the ranks and there is certainly a lot of buzz going on about him.

Last year Thompson threw for 2,113 yards 24 touchdowns and nine interceptions with a 63.2% completion percentage. Although Texas was not stellar by any means, the blame shouldn’t necessarily go on Thompson. He had three separate games where he threw for 300+ yards and five or more scores. In those games, Texas went 1-2.

Thompson’s stats tapered off at the end of the year as he dealt with a nasty thumb injury. The decision to transfer seemed to stem from the fact Steve Sarkisian did not originally recruit him and decided to find his own guy in the transfer portal, former 5-star Quinn Ewers from Ohio State.

With only two years of eligibility left, Thompson most likely would not have decided to attend Nebraska unless he was close to guaranteed a starting spot. Expect some hype for the former Longhorns signal-caller.

2A – Logan Smothers (So.)

If there’s one thing we have learned from Scott Frost since his time coaching at Nebraska, it’s that he is faithful to “his” guys (see Adrian Martinez).  Smothers was a highly-touted recruit in his own right and a player that Coach Frost seemed very excited about when he made his commitment to the Cornhuskers.

The bulk of Smothers’ stats came in the season finale where he got the start vs Iowa. While the Huskers ended up losing in the end, as they did so many times in 2021, Smothers posted a solid stat line going 16-22 for 198 yards with one interception and adding a couple of rushing scores on the ground.

If Smothers is the backup, it will be interesting to see if he decides to enter the portal or stick it out in case Thompson goes down with an injury or gets benched, or he wants to take the risk of riding it out and hopefully starting his senior year. That’s a tough ask for a former 4-star.

I could see a situation where Smothers is included in specific packages while Thompson is the starter but I wouldn’t bet on it.