Update on QB Tyler Phommachanh's status
After a new quarterback is added to the roster, Jim Mora has clarified where the other signal callers stand.
(photo credit: Ian Bethune)
It’s been an unfortunate start to the season for UConn from an injury perspective. At quarterback, true freshman Zion Turner stepped in and performed alright in his first two games, but less good in his second two. We may start to see some new names taking more snaps.
Since Ta’Quan Roberson went down with an injury in the Utah State game, Cale Millen has been the only other player besides Turner to take snaps under center, but he’s only got a combined 16 pass attempts and carries.
At the end of last season, most assumed Tyler Phommachanh would be UConn’s starting QB for 2022. Roberson transferring in from Penn State changed that, but so did the likely reality that Phommachanh was not fully recovered from last year’s injury in time for fall camp in August.
According to Jim Mora, Phommachanh is “available” and both he and Millen are going to spend more time practicing with the offense instead of working with the scout team. The recent addition of Brayden Zermeno is to take scout team duties off their hands, Mora said.
One wonders how long Phommachanh has been available, but if he has indeed been fully healthy, it would be nice to have seen him on the field already. He could have gotten some reps late in the blowouts against Syracuse and Michigan. Someone needs to give Zion Turner a breather.
The freshman’s stat line against Michigan might not have been pretty, but he arguably shouldn’t be in this position in the first place. He’s been thrown into the fire, going up against the no. 4 team in the country, on the road, less than six months after his high school graduation, with an injury-depleted offensive roster.
As a true freshman sharing the room with a 4-star transfer in Roberson and last year’s starter in Phommachanh, Turner wasn’t supposed to receive this much playing time this soon. Many forces beyond his own individual performance have contributed to the Huskies’ offensive struggles.
Crippling injuries at the skill positions have left Kevens Clercius and former walk-on Jacob Flynn as the No. 1 and 2 receivers. Getting the passing game to work is going to be a challenge for any quarterback.
So far, converted running back Aaron Turner leads the team in targets, mostly on screen passes and short structured routes. The Huskies have only attempted eight passes longer than 20 yards down the field the entire season, and a quarter of those attempts have had receiver drops. Sixty of Zion Turner’s 86 dropbacks have seen either passes behind the line of scrimmage or short of the first down sticks, and many have been screens or one-read passes. Charlton’s vertical play-action passing offense has been missing the verticality, and Turner has shown pretty decent arm strength in the limited sample size of deep balls we’ve seen him throw.
UConn simply can’t execute offensively well enough, especially not when the team is missing multiple top talents. With Nate Carter about to sit for multiple weeks and Brian Brewton out for the season, the playmaking deficit is dire.
These factors would handicap any quarterback, but the time for new guys may be now. Turner has played his fourth game of the season; if he steps on the field against NC State on Saturday, he loses his redshirt status going forward. UConn is well within its rights to experiment at quarterback with Phommachanh returning healthy and a new guy added to the roster, but playcalling and receiver talent will remain an issue.