Mike Leach Decides Gabe Marks Will Use A Redshirt Year

It was something that most people saw coming but it was announced earlier this week that Mike Leach and the Cougars are going to try to use a redshirt season on Gabe Marks.

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Marks was last seasons leading receiver with 807 yards on 64 receptions and 7 touchdowns and was in line for another great year with Connor Halliday returning.

There was a lot of hope for Marks this season but that took a little bit of a hit when he tweeted out about a surgery that he had, the tweet has since been deleted. Since the coaching staff doesn’t release information about injuries it was no surprise that this was kept under tight security and there has since been no information released about the injury.

Marks has yet to travel to either the Seattle game or to Reno last weekend and it was widely expected to see him use a redshirt year but there was still a little bit of hope when Marks has still been on the depth chart in both games. There has been plenty of speculation that he is yet to return to his full health but there was a little bit of hope after he was scout team quarterback last week doing his best impression of Nevada QB, Cody Fajardo.

This is not necessarily a bad thing for the Cougars as they are loaded at the receivers position and Halliday has not had any kind of trouble finding a receiver to throw to. There have been 11 different receivers who have caught the ball multiple times with Drew Loftus being the only one without multiple catches.

In the long run this is actually a good thing being that the Cougars are going to lose at least 4 receivers next year to graduation which would allow the Cougars to have some more experience at the position for the new quarterback that we will also see next year after Halliday graduates.

There are some things that could change, if there are any injuries and the coaching staff decides that they need to use Marks he will be able to play and he will lose his redshirt. I don’t see Marks coming into the game in the last few games of the season but if something happens here in the next few games we could see Marks this season.

Marks will have two more years of eligibility following this redshirt year.