Some thoughts:

• Another completely made-up position group, which is “change-of-pace” back. There’s no such position, just thought that it would be fun to divide them up a bit this way. I don’t view White and Townsend the same way I view Thompson and Brooks, but maybe that’s just me.
• Am somewhat burying the lede here, although I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that I believe that Shough starts and will be better than expected. My expectations for a starting quarterback are pretty low at this point, but I think that Shough will have a better year than Alan Bowman ever thought about having and am thinking that Shough has a Seth Doege sort of year, but he has a bigger arm than either Doege or Bowman. Being able to make more throws will hopefully make the offense better.
• During the spring I thought that Smith would be your #2 quarterback and my thought is that Smith is more talented, but Colombi is probably more ready to play right now. If Colombi has improved his range just a bit, my guess is that he starts if Shough is injured. If it appears that Colombi can’t push the ball down the field, then Smith will be up pretty quick. Generally speaking, I think that Smith is more talented, but Colombi is more experienced and the staff would likely go with the more experienced quarterback in an injury situation. Smith just needs more reps, which includes practice reps.
• One more item on Colombi, which is that for a long time I spelled it Columbi, sort of like “Columbia” which isn’t correct. There’s no “U” in Colombi. I’m sure that most of you already knew this, but it took me a couple of weeks to notice that. Just like there are still people out there that spell Hocutt as “Holcutt” and have no idea why an additional “L” is added in his name, but it happens.
• I think that Thompson is the clear #1 with Brooks playing extremely well last year as a main-back. Thompson’s spring injury might put him out a bit and I’ve got no issues with Brooks getting those snaps to start the season. Valdez is an obvious unknown at this point, but he was a very talented running back coming out of high school and running back is one of those rare positions where freshmen running backs can play if needed. I thought that Brooks was needed last year.
• White and Townsend are smaller and more I think speedier than Thompson and Brooks, so I thought a new category would be helpful. I think Chux had just a few carries, so it would be rare for him to get a lot of carries here. I’ll be interested to see if White and Townsend will catch more passes out of the backfield in Cumbie’s offense.