Pitt Football: Chad Voytik appears resigned to backup role behind Tom Savage

With training camp ready to kick off this week, expect football talk to ramp up. The Trib's Jerry DiPaola had a quality article over the weekend about everyone's favorite topic - the quarterback competition.

Most of us believe that Tom Savage will be the starter this fall. The interesting thing is that even redshirt freshman Chad Voytik seems to indicate that he's resigned to that fact:

“We are in competition, of course, but he is four years older than me, and I'm learning a lot from him,” Voytik said. “It's not like mano-a-mano. It's a give-and-take kind of thing, a healthy relationship. If Tom is chosen as the starter, that's what's best for the team. I have a lot of time. It's not the end of the world.”

It kind of reminded me of Tra'Von Chapman's statements earlier before his, well, troubles, when he sounded like he wasn't going to be winning the job, either.

Back to Voytik, though. You can read that quote a million different ways. Me? It sounds as if even Voytik believes the job will be difficult to win. Is there an open competition? Define open.

We get that a starter hasn't been named, but does that necessarily mean the competition is truly an open one? I'd be surprised if it were. Look, if Savage goes into camp, completely lays an egg and proves he can't play at all, I'd fully expect Voytik to win the job. Similarly, if Savage wins the job but struggles during the season, I don't think it will be hard for Chryst to go to Voytik.

However, if Savage is even remotely competent, I think it's his job to lose.

I've made the point several times ever since he transferred to Pitt, but what sense would it make for him to transfer here without any ties when he could have gone a million different places at a lower level and been handed the job from Day 1? My theory remains that Savage had a pretty good indication he could win the job here. After all, with only one year left, why risk riding on the bench instead of going the Joe Flacco route and being guaranteed to win a starting job?

The competition may be open but ...

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