re: Here's why I honestly think Hubanek starts

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I agree with you. I think he is a little banged up, but he can't let go of the wheel because Kyler might take it and never give it back. Thanks to NCAA transfer rules that maybe ends Kyle's career at a Power 5 level program.

Really when you get down to it we NEVER should have had a QB competition this offseason. We had a five star QB coming back who was MVP of our bowl. At almost any other program he is the starter no question, and the coaches spend the entire offseason talking about how confident they are that he would do well.

But thanks to promises made to Kyler that didn't happen, and those promises maybe prematurely ended Kyle's career at A&M. The way I see it though, Sumlin was caught between a rock and a hard place. Here were his choices:

1. Not give into Kyler's demands for a competition and playing time. Kyle is now our confident starter, but quite possibly guys like Daylon Mack and Damarkus Lodge are suiting up in burnt orange this weekend. Oh and Charlie has the QB he desperately needs to keep up with the Baylors of the world. Sumlin's margin for error is gone, and if Kyle doesn't produce the program he built is toast.

2. Promise Kyler he gets what he wants, then backtrack as soon as the LOI is signed. Kyle is our confident starter in this scenario, but Kyler is for sure transferring and his dad is all over the radio telling future recruits that Sumlin is a liar. Negative recruiting goes to highs not seen since Venables was at OU and we lose out on needed future recruits.

3. What he did do- make promises to Kyler, keep them, and hope that Kyle has enough mental fortitude to produce despite his coaches not giving him a vote of confidence. In hindsight we can see that Kyle doesn't have that fortitude, but also in hindsight I don't see that either option 1 or 2 was a better choice.

It is pretty frustrating

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All of this.

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Kyler was told he would have a chance to earn the job

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Which is more than he should have been promised. We had a returning five star QB who was MVP of our bowl. Outside of JFF winning a Heisman that is about as solid of a grasp on the QB position of any starting QB we have had at Texas A&M in years. And yet Sumlin HAD TO promise Kyler a chance to earn the job.

Plus we also know for a fact that Sumlin promised to not redshirt Kyler, from which we can imply he was promised some game time. What we should have promised Kyler was:

1. You get to redshirt just like JFF to develop your body more and give you time to grasp the playbook.

2. You get to compete for the job AFTER Kyle either gets drafted or graduates. Yes that might mean just two years as a starter, too bad so sad.

And if this was still 1990 when kids played for the schools they grew up rooting for without such negotiations then that is exactly what we would have promised Kyler. But we live in 2015 when each one of these kids can make or break a coach/program, and so Kyler was handed promises (like getting to compete with our bowl MVP) before they were earned.

It really really sucks. The whole situation sucks. Makes me almost jealous of an LSU that doesn't really need elite QB play to complete. Or I think back to those Leach QBs who waited YEARS just to get to play one season and it seems as dated to me as wearing leather helmets.

Oh well it is what it is. Going forward Kyler probably not only gives us a better chance to compete, but it gives us the only chance to capitalize on all the risks we took to promise Kyler more than he deserved.

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This is ridiculous. Kyle has never asserted himself as a "no questions asked, #1 starter". He had a good 1H against a bad Auburn defense, and a good - but not great - game against WVU. Outside of that, he was very underwhelming against ULM, Mizzou and LSU.

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First of all you are underselling the Auburn win. Maybe we now know they are smoke and mirrors now, but at the time they were a top 5 team. To your second point:

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that's not nearly enough to just hand him the starting job over other QBs with similar (or better) potential

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Kyle had a full year of experience in the program at that point, knew the playbook, and played well in the bowl.

Now let's compare that to Kyler: no years of experience in our program, undersized for the position or at the very least could benefit from a year of college-level conditioning, never played in a bowl or in a SEC game.

If we actually had a QB with "with similar (or better) potential" and with experience IN OUR SYSTEM then I would agree. If Kyler was a redshirt freshman then I have no complaints about him getting a shot at the job.

But we didn't have that. We had two men who at the time weren't associated with the program negotiating Kyler's position before he took a single snap in a single practice. We didn't make promises to Kyler because of his potential- hell Kyle had just as much potential and we didn't promise him nearly as much. We made promises to Kyler because the guy down the road was desperate for a recruiting win over us. This gave Kyler and his dad a ton of leverage and it was this leverage- not what Kyler showed in practice or what he earned in a redshirt year of working hard- that gave Kyler a shot at the job.

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With Kyle though from the first game Sumlin set the expectation that if he couldn't deliver then Kyler would steal at least a series or two from him. That created a situation where Kyle's enemy was the bench/clipboard and not the other team. He became desperate to make plays because if he didn't he would lose his job for a series or two. This all culminated in a game when he makes really bad decisions and throws three pick sixes. 

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Kyle started every game, and was given every chance to succeed (or whatever you want to call it when you play in Spav's offense)

He struggled against ASU, struggled against Arkansas. So Kyler got some run.

Kyle then got the entire MSU game and looked good, but struggled in the 2H. But no snaps for Kyler.

Kyle then got all the snaps against Bama until his 2nd pick--6. And I'm not sure how you blame the 2 INTs on him feeling pressure from the backup. It just looked like a struggling QB making bad throws.

At that point, Kyler got snaps again. If Kyle is playing like he's capable of, Kyler isn't even in the picture, outside of some token drives. Maybe not the 100% best way to handle the QB situation, but Kyle's play is what's bringing about the QB drama, not a "promise" made to Kyler.

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I can 100% guarantee you that if the OUTCOME was the same but the way we got there was different than three straight 0-yard runs between the tackles, no one would even remember it.

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Well you don't remember it as it is b/c Carson got to the 2 yard line on second down.

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Kyle's poor play is in part brought about by the specter of The Promise to Kyler hanging over him and the fact that we awkwardly forced Kyler into games he had no business being in while our idiot fans went wild with cheering. He's clearly not very mentally tough and the whole Kyler circus was detrimental to his confidence.

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you guys have no way of knowing this and are straight up making it out of thin air to suit your narrative

The TexAgs "ish" blind speculation is making me as well

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Kyle started every game, and was given every chance to succeed

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You must be joking me.

Tell me, in the last ten years at Texas A&M when have we had our "starting" QB get replaced in the FIRST GAME when the game was still in doubt? Reggie McNeal didn't come in until the third to last game of the year. In 2010 when an obviously hurt JJ was throwing ducks it took three loses in a row for us to change QBs. Kyle was given the shortest rope in modern A&M history, maybe ever.

Most coaches don't switch starters midgame the first game for a reason. Most coaches know that when do you that kind of shite it wrecks the confidence of the starter and they start to think of how not to lose their jobs instead of play to not lose the game (exhibit A: The Bama Game).

I am not saying Sumlin shouldn't have done what he did, he is the QB guru not me. Maybe he feels he can recruit a new top tier QB every year so he can't afford to wait for one to develop, or be patent with a QB that doesn't play every snap at an elite level. The problem is that usually elite QB play in college football is rare, and when you build your ENTIRE program around it you are Oregon 2015 when that guy leaves. But that is the $5 million dollar man's problem, not mine. Maybe that is the plan, burn through elite QBs as fast as possible to find the next JFF. I mean they normally show a spark they can compete at that level given as much time as Kyle has had, I can give you that.

All I am saying is that we have NEVER promised any recent A&M QB what we promised Kyler and that is obviously coming back to bite us some. I think at this point we need to push forward rather than look backwards, and we will know soon enough if the coaches agree with me.

PUNT
PUNT
PUNT
TD
Sack-fumble
PUNT
PUNT

That's your unquestionable, unbenchable QB starting the ASU game.

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What exactly was promised to Kyler?

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Good question. In Sumlin's words:

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"There were three schools telling him that he was going to come in there and start," Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said. "To pair that with the No. 1 dropback passer in the country and starting the last five games, and him being the bowl-game MVP ... after all that, it bugs you. It starts worrying you. It becomes worth looking around, if you keep listening to that. It was just something we had to overcome."

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So obviously other programs promised Kyler the starting job. Whatever we promised him "overcame" those promises. I will let you deduce what kind of promises we had to make to do that.

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What exactly was promised to Kyle?

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Part of what was promised is what we offered Kyler. From Spav himself:

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"The opportunity to come in and compete is still wide-open. I always give that incoming freshman an opportunity."

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So he was promised to come in and compete at the very least. But Kyler was promised more. Here is what Kyler was promised (again from the mouth of Sumlin):

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. You're going to practice. You're going to play. There's not going to be a redshirt for you

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Kyler was promised playing time. "You are going to play." Plain as day, he was promised to play. Which makes sense when you connect the dot that other programs were outright offering that he could be the starter day 1.

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Kyle may know the playbook, but is it really transferring to on-the-field performance?

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We honestly never got to know. Back in the ASU game when Kyle was struggling he wasn't required to pull himself out of it. Instead we put in Kyler, got a spark, and then let Kyle come back in for cleanup.

Beyond that we don't know much. I mean Kyle isn't perfect. Last October he was chatting up pussy when his head should have been in the game. What we don't know is more than we know.