Since 2011, Logan Thomas has been a staple of the Hokie's offense. While we all knew that he would have to leave eventually, we never wanted to believe that he would get injured in any way. Football is a dangerous sport, made only for those who can endure pain and play through injury.

Thomas played through several injuries this past season, including a sprained foot and strained abdominal muscles. Dual-threat quarterbacks like Logan have to take more of a beating than their pocket-passing counterparts, but none of us ever saw him stay down for more than a second after getting hit. That was, until the Sun Bowl game against UCLA.

It was bad. It was 12:13 left in the second quarter, third down. UCLA's Jordan Zumwalt hit Thomas after he had thrown a 3-yard pass to Stanford. Thomas was down for several minutes. Everyone in the Hokie Nation held their breath while the medical team attended to him on the field. He was able to walk on his own, but Logan was out for the rest of the game. For someone who has given so much to his school and his team, it was a disappointing end to his career at Virginia Tech. 

After Thomas was out for the rest of the game, backup quarterback Mark Leal went in for the Hokies. There have been many fans who have said that Leal would be a superior quarterback to Thomas after Thomas's lackluster performance  in 2012 and his lukewarm performance in 2013. Shall we compare numbers?

Logan Thomas was the first player under Coach Beamer to throw for over 300 yards for back-to-back games. While his games could be hot or cold, Logan was dependable. He became the all-time leader at Tech for QB rushing touchdowns. His best game was against Miami, where he went 25 for 31 with 366 yards. His overall record for 2013 was 227 of 402 with 2,907 yards.

Mark Leal completed 12 of 25 passes with two interceptions in the Sun Bowl. That's 48% completions. While Logan did have some games where he dipped below 50%, his overall percentage for the season was around 56%. In Leal's defense, he's played very few games, and 12 for 25 for the first time you ever play a significant number of snaps is not anything to scoff at.

As far as his potential for starting next season, I think it's iffy. Leal has a lot of potential, but he's not much of a dual-threat, and an exclusively passing quarterback is falling out of style. If we want to stay in the game, Leal either needs to learn how to run more effectively or we need to look at our other options. 

Would Leal have been a better choice for the starting position this season? I don't think so. I think he needs more time to think of himself in the starting position and deal with that responsibility. You'll hear more about Leal and the upcoming quarterback candidates in next week's article. For now, have a happy spring semester and happy spring recruitment. Go Greek and Go Hokies!