Interesting. Was Pat Cowan out there taking reps with the first string? Is he back to 100% and ready to play on Saturday?

I know the hit too - the one where he got blasted late and got up cross-eyed.

(deleted) Hopefully McBeth will start this week. He could not possibly be any worse than Olson. What a freaking bust. GO MC BETH!!!!

*This post was edited

At this point, put in Osaar Rashan at QB.

At this point, put in Osaar Rashan at QB.

Mike,

I deleted a part of your post because I believe part of it was classless. If you think Bethel-Thompson should be the QB, that's fine. But to say "Good" about a guy having a concussion is classless, and does not belong on my blog.

Actually it's hard to say whether this is a good or bad thing - probably bad IMO. No matter what you think of Olson, he'll be at home, the coaches have at least indicated they (FINALLY) realize they need to come into the 20th century, and Cowan is gonna be rusty. It's hard to say what would be better.

Brian-
Any idea when in the game Ben was injured? In other words, just how far were we behind when Ben got hurt?

Brian, How serious do you think the concussion is? Who do you think will start at QB on Sat.?

All you half-wits railing on Olson need to open your eyes. Yes, Olson has not played well in this system. This coaching staff should be putting Olson in situations in which he can succeed, however, and it is not doing so.

His footwork, his locking on to a receiver aren't unfixable traits, and for those of you with more than cursory knowledge of football may know, those sorts of easy technical problems are more often the results of uncomfortability in an offense. Olson is making bad reads because he doesn't understand the offense. Give him simple situations - throw the ball downfield, throw a 20 yard post route, and he can do it. Quite well - the Utah game last year and the Stanford game are pretty obvious examples of that. As the offense has gotten more complex and the coaching staff has made more installations each week, he's gotten less effective. That's FACT.

Now, who knows if that's Olson's fault or not - but I can guarantee you the WCO is not playing to his strengths, and the complexity of the playbook is almost assuredly overwhelming him.

His struggles have as much to do with the coaching staff putting him in a position to fail than anything else.

For all you polyannas saying that it's good that Olson has a concussion, shame on you. Ben Olson isn't the problem with this program.

Well said Jason! Olson didn't hype himself up as the answer to all our prayers...the media, the coaches, and the fans did that. He's just a young man with the weight of a school on his shoulders,trying to make everyone in the stands happy. Give the dude a break. Hopefully all will be well with him. One position change is not going to fix things... this is a team effort. Hope to see all you TRUE fans at the game Saturday.

Jason, my understanding is that the entire offense is installed during the pre-season. Each week the coaching staff selects a subset of the offense that will be used to take advantage of the opponent for that week. If my understanding is correct, then you would expect for Olson to look worst during the fall scrimmage and gradually improve week-by-week as the portion of the gameplan for that week that overlaps with previous gameplans grows.

Brian does this sound correct?