Across week one in college football, a trend on offense quickly became apparent: a two-quarterback system.
Texas pulled off an upset over Notre Dame, using Shane Buechele’s arm and Tyrone Swoopes’ legs to score 50 points against the Fighting Irish.
Alabama’s dominating win over USC featured two different QBs passing for 100 or more yards. Georgia also found success rotating their quarterbacks on their way to a victory over North Carolina.
After Tyrrell Pigrome’s appearance against Howard — where he averaged 7.6 yards per carry along with one of the nicest jukes you’ll ever see — it was fair to wonder if Maryland offensive coordinator Walt Bell would use a two-quarterback system against Florida International to combine Perry Hills’ passing ability with Pigrome’s superior running ability.
When Bell was asked about the idea, he made it abundantly clear he had no such plans to do so.
“No. Absolutely not,” Bell said. “Perry Hills is the starter. And he will be the starter until he renders himself not the starter.”
Bell cited an old football adage to further explain why he doesn’t plan to use two QBs.
“I am a firm believer that if you have two quarterbacks, you have zero quarterbacks.”
Additionally, Bell noted that he does not plan on using a two-quarterback system because he believes true freshman Pigrome still has more room to develop his game.
“He’s got plenty of things we have to fix. There’s a couple mistakes and third down issues he had.”
While Bell does not plan to use Pigrome along with Hills, he still had praise for his freshman QB’s performance.
“He can do some very unique things with his feet,” Bell said.
Bell also described Pigrome as an “explosive” player.
As for Hills, the idea of sharing playing time with Pigrome simply was not on his mind.
“I wasn’t even thinking about that,” Hills said nonchalantly. While using two quarterbacks was successful for several major programs last week, it is not something that appears to be in Walt Bell’s plans any time soon.
