Quinton Flowers Will Start at Quarterback vs. SMU

Willie Taggart announced this morning on WDAE 620-AM that true freshman Quinton Flowers will be making his first ever start at quarterback for the Bulls this weekend against SMU. The announcement ends a week-long open quarterback competition after Mike White and Steven Bench put together back-to-back underwhelming performances against Cincinnati and Houston.

Flowers has appeared in three games this season, but we haven't seen him throw the ball much apart from some garbage time passes against NC State. It's easy to forget, but Flowers was labelled a four-star athlete out of high school and was described by SB Nation's own recruiting analyst Bud Elliott as B.J. Daniels with a better arm.

This is exciting news, certainly, and it gives us fans a reason to watch the awful terribleness that will be USF-SMU, but it raises some questions about Taggart's handling of the quarterback job. If Flowers is good enough to start, why didn't he get the nod against Houston? If Flowers isn't the answer-- and it's likely that a game against SMU will not  give us any insight there-- can Taggart possibly call upon White or Bench again after benching them both multiple times? This smells like an all-in move, so here's hoping that it pays off and we're witnessing the beginning of the Quinton Flowers Era at USF.

Here's what Taggart said about Flowers to the Tampa Bay Times:

"He can run with the football but he can also throw the football. He does it very smoothly. Tremendous athlete. I think he's gonna give our team a boost and hopefully give us some more offense than what we've been producing."

We'll likely get more on the decision at Taggart's noon presser.