Sitting Figaro a bad move for Nicholls football program

I’ve never played a competitive snap of organized, 11-on-11 football in my life. My shoulder pads and cleats were hung up for good when the words “two-hand touch” stopped being a predominant part of the sport’s vocabulary.

Likewise, I’ve obviously never coached the game. I’ve never had the joy of leading 90 men out of the locker room, into the tunnel and onto the playing field.

So for those reasons, I may not be the person best qualified to make the comments that I’m about to make. But I’ve seen this go on for two seasons now, and I think that enough is enough, so here goes.

Nicholls is making a big mistake trying to redshirt junior quarterback Tuskani Figaro.

If the Colonels’ coaching staff can’t find a place to fit the school’s all-time single-season leading rusher into its strategy for 2014, then it’s probably a good idea to change the strategy instead of sitting/preserving the talented quarterback who is one of the most feared players in the entire Southland Conference.

Tuskani Figaro is an elite football player. Notice how I worded that last sentence. I said he’s an elite football player – not yet an elite quarterback. This is something that both the Colonels staff and the young man need to pay attention to.

As a runner, Figaro is top-notch. The proof is in the pudding. He’s rewriting the school’s record books – the only player on Nicholls’ roster that is lightning-like enough to take a busted play 60 yards and into the end zone for a touchdown.

There were countless plays last season where the young man was bottled up and should have only gotten a handful of yards on a given play. But thanks to his God-given elusive ability, he was able to wiggle free, juke through the defense and get 20, 30 or sometimes 50 or 60 yards on a given run.

When scheming for the Colonels, there is absolutely no doubt who opposing coordinators feared most. It was Figaro. You’d have gotten that response from 100 percent of the coaches in the Southland Conference.

As a passer, there is still a lot of work to do, and there’s no doubt that Figaro could use some polish. But even with opponents knowing that he was a run-first threat, Figaro was able to accumulate 1,103 rushing yards with seven touchdowns, while not even playing the full season in 2013.

It’s not like he was Tanner McEvoy-bad as a passer, either. He completed 83-of-157 passes for eight touchdowns and six interceptions.

With opponents keeping their eyes on the slippery quarterback at all times, things opened up in the passing game where big plays were able to be made.

But because the Colonels prefer a more traditional quarterback under center, the more-polished Kalen Henderson won the job in summer camp and he has opened the season with reigns of Nicholls’ offense.

This means that for the second-straight season, Nicholls is opening the year with ambition to redshirt its best and most explosive offensive player – something the team says will not change unless injuries occur.

Of course, it’s only fair to point out that the reason why Nicholls is doing this is an attempt to have their cake and eat it, too. They hope to keep senior starter Kalen Henderson upright for the duration of the season and get quality production from the position.

While doing that, they are also saving Figaro for the future, knowing that if he can redshirt, he’ll turnaround and have two seasons to be Nicholls’ quarterback of the future.

And that may well be what happens at the end of the day, because Henderson is a quality player that we expect to have success in the Southland Conference.

But when a program is in the midst of six-straight losing seasons, the time to move forward is now, and there’s no objective mind that can make the argument that Nicholls is better in 2014 if Figaro is on the sidelines with a clipboard in hand.

He’s too talented a player. If having a 1,000-yard rusher doesn’t fit your X’s and O’s, then it’s time to change the gameplan, not the players playing within it. Why can’t Henderson and Figaro both be on the field at the same time? Why can’t a 1,000-yard rusher become a slot receiver or a halfback in given packages to make Nicholls’ offense more potent? If Figaro doesn’t want to adjust his position, then why can’t Nicholls utilize a two-quarterback system where Figaro has a few packages to showcase his talents and gash opponents with his running ability? If Figaro is the Colonels’ best playmaker and Henderson is the team’s best pure quarterback, why wouldn’t the team want to see them both in the gameplan? Why does it have to be one or the other?

Failure to budge from the current plan is a mistake. Why play for 2016 when 2014 is right in your grasp, and you have the players capable of winning games in what looks like a wide-open Southland Conference race?

Why intentionally make your team weaker when you’ve struggled as a program to compete for six or so years? When will it be time to quit the rebuilding?

The fans deserve a quality product, and they deserve it now.

So scrap this whole redshirt idea and put Figaro on the field before Southland Conference play revs into high gear.

Let’s worry about what might happen two seasons from now when we cross that bridge.

If the Colonels don’t start to win now, it may be a whole new staff on the sidelines by then, anyway.