USF Football: Who steps up at quarterback in 2018?

Ah, we’ve arrived at the elephant in the room.

In what came as a bit of a shock, given how much Strong and the coaching staff had sworn by their confidence in Kean and Oladokun, the Bulls brought in former blue-chip recruit and Arizona State and Alabama quarterback Blake Barnett to compete for the job as a graduate transfer.

Former five-star recruits don’t land on USF’s doorstep very often, so the addition of Barnett, who was ranked as the second-best quarterback behind Josh Rosen in the class of 2015, certainly made some waves in Tampa. But his resume since then offers ample reason for caution – after starting the season opener for the Crimson Tide in 2016 as a redshirt freshman, he was replaced by Jalen Hurts and promptly found himself on the bench. Reasonably thirsty for an opportunity to start, he enrolled at junior college that very season and thus was immediately eligible to play for Arizona State in 2017. He couldn’t unseat the incumbent starter there, junior Manny Wilkins, and again set off in search of a new home this summer after graduating. He’ll be immediately eligible for the Bulls, and have two seasons to play.

Barnett looks the part, and earning a starting spot from Nick Saban as a redshirt freshman is quite the endorsement. Still, his overall record is spotty, and he’ll only have this summer and fall practices to familiarize himself with offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert’s playbook. Gilbert and Strong are quick to preach the importance of time in their system, so it seems unlikely that they expect Barnett to take the job and run with it over the coming months.

Which begs the question – why bring in Barnett in the first place? Is it because the staff isn’t as confident as they seem in Kean and Oladokun? That would certainly give him a shot to win the job. Are they perhaps expecting him to compete for the spot not this season, but in the future? That might be even stranger, given that both Kean and Oladokun have eligibility beyond 2018. Maybe it’s just a flier on a talented player — a low-risk, high-reward scholarship?

This final scenario seems the most plausible, but question marks abound here. Until they can be answered, you’ve got to account for every possibility, including the possibility that Barnett could win the job. It seems unlikely, though.

Chances of being named the starter: 14 percent