The Shirreffs Switches Positions

The first rumblings of this appeared this morning on Twitter, when some observant media members noticed that freshman quarterback Bryant Shirreffs' official position had been switched to LB on the GoPack website. Given past typos and editing errors that have appeared on the GoPack site, I was a bit skeptical of the news, but now confirmation from the Doeren himself indicates that the change is correct. Shirreffs is apparently trying out at fullback as well as linebacker in an effort to see playing time sooner/at all in his Wolfpack career.

Initially I didn't like the news. Are we really so desperate for talent that we took an athletic freshman quarterback and pressed him into service at one of our other, more defficient positions? But the longer I think about this the more sense it makes. We currently have four realistic options at quarterback above Shirreffs (Brandon Mitchell, Pete Thomas, Manny Stocker, Jacoby Brissett) and Brian Taylor as a freshman also at the position. With Mitchell or Thomas likely handling duties this year and Brissett in line for the next year or two (at which point four star recruit Jalan Mclendon will have been in the system long enough to probably win duties) Shirreffs probably saw the writing on the wall. The impressive thing to me is that rather than cutting and running for a lesser program (looking at you, Mr. Hooker) Shirreffs has decided to work hard and try and contribute at another position. For the sake of the awesome names division, and all the wonderful sheriff puns that go with it, I hope it works out for him.