I’d imagine there’d have been concern about his youth and the fact that the offensive plan was to be more of a read-option offense. When Schakel came against Sac State, he was a mess. They reconfigured the offense quickly and look far better in the new wide sets. Our receivers look about a thousand times more gifted than they did two weeks ago. You can see there is a lot more confidence from the rest of the team with Schakel throwing the ball than there was with Bell and Taylor.You're still thinking Best chooses starters based on ability and not seniority. I get why. The thought that he or any coach would do that is just so stupid it's hard to conceive. I actually asked my co worker who played for Eastern today and he confirmed as much. He actually found it interesting that someone from outside the program noticed it.
Both Bell and Taylor are good enough to play, clearly both good athletes. But they aren’t anywhere near the QB that Schakel is.