photo by: Nick Krug

Kansas quarterback Montell Cozart calls out a play during practice on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014.

By now, you’ve all surely heard that Kansas University junior Montell Cozart has been named the Jayhawks’ starting quarterback for the 2015 season.

So what does this mean for the team, for Cozart, for first-year coach David Beaty and for the upcoming season, which kicks off 12 days from today at Memorial Stadium?

A lot.

For the team, Cozart stepping under center to start the season provides a veteran presence that comes with eight starts and 14 appearances the past two seasons. A good chunk of that experience might be easy to forget, but it’s still far more experience than anyone else on the roster brings and, at least right now, I think having that sort of steady hand at the game’s most important position can help the rest of these new, unproven guys around him feel a little more comfortable out there.

For Cozart, heading into another season as the Jayhawks’ starter gives him a chance at redemption. Cozart is a great teammate and he’s all about what’s best for the team, but getting benched last season during the fifth game of the year was a blow to his confidence and a blow to his pride. That’s a thing of the past now and, rather than dwelling on it, Cozart is using it as motivation for this season. Having gone through that once, he knows now that he doesn’t want to deal with that feeling again. Everything he’s done this offseason was with that in mind. Whether it’s enough to produce different results remains to be seen, but having that drive him definitely can’t hurt.

For Beaty, the decision to go with Cozart will go down as his first big move as the Jayhawks’ head coach. Granted, it doesn’t take huge stones to pick an experienced veteran over a bunch of guys who have never played a down of Division I football, but given that it’s the quarterback position and that KU fans were so down on Cozart after his performance through five games last season, it would’ve been easy for Beaty, who loves to be liked, to get ahead of himself and try to please people by picking one of the newcomers. He didn’t. And he based the battle on who performed the best and who earned the job. That’s a solid foundation from which a first-year head coach can build. And, whether Cozart at QB works out or not, it gives us a good look at how Beaty thinks.

Finally, as for how the pick of Cozart will impact the 2015 season, it’s probably pretty irrelevant. For all the reasons mentioned above, Cozart seems to be the right choice and gives KU the best chance to have success on offense. But because of a lack of depth and so much unproven talent, it’s harder than ever to say that one player will have a huge role in how many games the Jayhawks win or lose. True, the quarterback often has the biggest impact of any player on any roster. And, true, if you don’t have a quarterback you shouldn’t expect to win much. But this team doesn’t figure to win much anyway, so why not give Cozart one last look to see if the new offense and a little maturity made him a different player. If the answer’s yes, they might have their guy for next season. If the answer’s no, then moving on from there won’t be any harder anyway.

Based on the work he’s put in, his veteran status and the fact that he proved to be the best of the bunch — most notably the most consistent — throughout fall camp, Cozart deserves the chance he’s getting.

Now it’s up to him to prove he’s a different player than the one we’ve seen in the past.