HOT TAKE THURSDAY: Jake Hubenak is Underappreciated

I'm being kind when I say that Kevin Sumlin's tenure at Texas A&M has been primarily marked by inconsistency and drama at the QB position. Seems like every year (save for last) we've enter the fall without a clear cut starter and with the possibility or fear of one of the young QBs being unhappy and leaving if/when they dont get the starting nod.

Trevor Knight was a fantastic respite from the hellish drama that had plagued the program, and (despite injury) provided us some predictability and stability after the kyle/kyle/kenny revolving door. But I kinda feel like Jake doesnt get nearly enough mention as a stabilizing factor for your Fightin Texas Aggies.

Jake was 19-1 as a starter at Georgetown HS, and walked on at Oklahoma State before transferring to Blinn Junior College. Jake committed to A&M in May of 2015. At that point in time Kyle Allen had already performed at a fairly high level, leading us to wins over Auburn and West Virginia (remember too he was named MVP of the liberty bowl). Also at that time, Kyler Murray had made the decision to commit to football over baseball after toying our emotions and almost flipping to Charlie Strong's longhorns. Despite having two 5 star QBs in the fold, Jake still committed to A&M over a late push from the Florida gators.

We dont need to rehash history, but Jake has put up with some crap in his time here. Think back on that 2015 Ole Miss game, where Kyle Allen was clearly injured, and Kyler was in the doghouse. Jake came in during mop up duty and showed that he probably could have led us to more than the 3 points that we ended up putting up on Kyle's 12/34 for 88 yards showing. Jake finished that season with a pretty solid showing against Lamar Jackson's Louisville team, going 28/38 for 307 yards with 2 TDs and 1 INT in a 6 point loss.

I also still maintain that Jake could have and perhaps should have led us back to a win over Mississippi State in 2016. He took over a team down 21-7 and at least got us back in the game with two touchdown passes, all while (in my opinion) running a watered down version of our offense designed to make sure he didn't lose the game instead of setting him up to win the game.

I dont know enough about the skill sets of Nick Starkel and Kellen Mond to say that Jake should be the starter over them. I think it's probably fair to say that Jake doesn't have the arm strength of Nick or the overall upside of Mond. And obviously the starting QB gig should be given to the guy who's gives us the best chance to win--so dont take this article as propaganda supporting Jake's efforts to get that starting QB gig.

But the bottom line is that in an era of uncertainty in the QB position and 5 star drama, Jake has quietly come in and done his job...and done it well enough to keep us in games and at least provide us with some sort of stability and maturity at the QB position. We can point to stars like Christian Kirk and Kingsley Keke as the prizes in that 2015 recruiting class, but Jake deserves some mention as the most important recruit we've had in the past couple of years.