My take:
1. I didn't think Tevin was an all-world QB, but I didn't think he was the biggest problem in 2011 and 2012. He was making his reads decently and threw the ball decently. He seemed to suffer from a lot of dropped passes and the slightly more than occasional what the what pass. I thought those calling for the back-up to play were over-reacting.
2. In 2012, I liked what I saw from Vad, but I also saw that he wasn't asked to run a lot of true triple. I wasn't calling for him to replace TW, but I was optimistic about 2013.
3. In 2013, I agree that Vad had a decent year for a first-year starter. However, I was really disappointed in how he ran the base offense. It's one thing if you don't pick-up line stunts etc, but there were times when the read looked like a flashing light, and he missed it.
4. Vad spent his off-season with the QB coach who worked with some of the top QBs in the nation. There's no doubt that he heard a lot of grief about the offense, and took it to heart.
5. During the season, I did say that it didn't look like Vad was trusting the system. I said that based on how quickly he seemed to bail from the "play" and try to create something with his feet and athleticism. Obviously, there are times when a QB must do that, but it seemed to me that he was doing it too quickly and too often.
6. Still, I never called for JT to start, and I don't remember anyone else calling for JT to start over Vad. The idea that people who are saying that our QB play was not great last year are also saying that his play was awful for a first year starter is some weird George Orwell rewriting history stuff. Vad in 2013 was not as good a QB as TW in 2011, but TW had more time in the system.
7. When leaving, Vad said, "the triple option was just not my thing" or something like that. He also said that he thought he was going to be passing more, as if the passing more was ever going to be from something other than the triple-option base. To me, those words support the notion that he didn't buy in to the offense.
8. That doesn't mean he wasn't trying or wasn't our best QB last year, but it does mean, to me, that he wasn't as good as he could have been. It also means there's a limit to what a coach can accomplish with him. It is true for everybody: if you don't want to do what you are doing, you're going to struggle doing it to your best ability.