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A couple of weeks back I wrote a fairly controversial post in regards to the strong family athletic bloodlines I observed from UNT QB Andrew McNulty. Since the QB competition at UNT appears to be a two-player race at this particular time, I decided to do some research on the other UNT QB candidate, Josh Greer. At the same time I was doing some research on UT's starting QB David Ash and I noticed a fair amount of similarities between the two and decided to move my post in that direction. First some background on the both of them. If you are a UNT fan like me, you probably have heard David Ash's name quite a bit. Ash replaced perhaps the top QB recruit in the entire nation Garrett Gilbert. Ash's tenure at UT has been in a down cycle for the Longhorns. As other QB's and players who are recruited to UT you go under the assumption that they basically could have attended any school in the country. I was surprised to see that according to Rivals, Ash was only a 3-star recruit who reported offers from TCU and Houston. He committed very early, in February of 2010 before his senior year and was just the 4th player that committed to the 2011 UT class. Ash started at QB and punter for Belton High School for three years and received all state accolades his senior season both as a QB and punter. His time at UT after a brilliant start has been plagued with injury and adversity. Despite all this, most prognosticators are saying the Longhorns best change to have a turnaround season may well be on the shoulders of this young man. Greer's high school path took a little different path. Greer played QB for Arlington High school. He was behind 2 outstanding high school QB's/ATH one was Miles Onyegbule who signed with Texas. The next one in line was Matt Joeckel, who was a year ahead of him. Joeckel signed with Texas A$M out of high school and has since transferred to TCU. Greer was injured right before spring of his senior season at Arlington. This kept him out of a lot of the 7 on 7 and other showcase events. So while I am not clear on exactly what transpired in terms of Josh's playing time at Arlington, he clearly had a lot of good competition that probably hurt him in terms of the early recruiting process that the major programs use. But make no mistake, when Josh Greer was heading into his junior season he had the attention of EVERY major program in the country, from the SEC to the Big Ten and the Big 12. OK so what happened? I think everyone in the world wanted this kid heading into his junior year, but he was injured at a critical time in the recruiting process and the interest cooled off. Despite this, Greer caught the attention of then Arkansas Offensive Coordinator Garrick McGee who was recruiting him at QB. McGee was named as head coach for UAB in December 2011 and named Greer one of his first commitments in his first class of 2012. Greer then transferred into UAB the spring of his senior year in high school and participated in spring drills. Things sort of got out of whack at UAB from that point on. McGee lost his offensive coordinator Jeff Brohm who left to rejoin Bobby Petrino at Western Kentucky. Brohm had said nice things about Greer up to that point. Whatever happened, Josh was unhappy decided to transfer out and chose to attend Navarro junior college. Greer had a terrific season going at Navarro and probably would have gotten right back on the bigger school radar screen had he not again suffered another injury 4 games into the season... despite his injury, Greer returned to participate and win the SWJCFC championship game, passing for 254 yards and two touchdowns and then started against Hinds (Miss.) CC in the Brazos Valley Bowl. Through all of this, UNT Coach Chico Canales kept in touch with Josh, encouraged him and ultimately offered him a scholarship to attend UNT. I say this because I think sometime we take for granted how good of a coach, recruiter and person Mike Canales is. His ability to stick with Josh through all the ups and downs of his career is a testament to his work ethic and why he is such an asset to this program. This effort could pay huge dividends for the Mean Green program. The other thing that stands out to me, is through all of the turmoil and adversity Josh faced through the logjam at Arlington, the injuries, the craziness of the UAB regime he never quit, he maintained an extremely positive attitude ending his junior college experience on a very high note. He stepped onto the North Texas campus as a humble, hard working teammate and has already earned the respect of his coaches and teammates. He has made many friends on the team. He put his all into his spring/summer workouts and right now has a legitimate shot to be the starter against UT in Austin. But back to my original point, if you look back to where David Ash and Josh Greer started, you find there is not a whole lot of difference between them. Both were fairly highly rated QB's coming out of high school but not national 4-5 star recruits. Both had to overcome injuries, and adversity through their respective careers. Their physical attributes are similar, as both are 6-4, 6-5 and 220 pound drop back QB's with big arms. If Ash lost out on his most important spring before his senior year in high school as did Greer he may have well been at UNT and Greer would have been at Texas. I leave you with this video of a young Josh from his junior year at Arlington. Look at the arm, the footwork and the touch he possessed at that time. He's lean but now up to 220 he will look the part of a legitimate D-I QB if he gets the start in Austin. You can see why he had such a bright future at this particular time and place. As a UNT fan you hope that he can reach his full potential and it is exciting to know he has three years to do so here. GMG