WALES – A week into the football season, Oak Hill head coach Bruce Nicholas had a question for his assistants.

“Why do you only have to play one quarterback?” he asked. “I mean, I know it’s not normal to do that, but you play two tailbacks. You play two halfbacks. We’ve got three fullbacks.”

And thus was born a time-sharing arrangement at Oak Hill that has worked well enough to help secure a spot in the Pine Tree Conference playoffs for the Raiders.

Neither junior Josh Sirois nor sophomore Brett Turcotte had distinguished themselves during the preseason. Both had played well enough to win the job, and the offense reacted to both the same when they were running the plays.

“Their cadences are pretty similar,” Nicholas said. “They’re both kind of soft-spoken guys. They’re both the same size. They both spend the same time in the weight room. Everything has been so darn equal that I can’t say this one or that one. So we said the heck with it, we’ll just go with two quarterbacks. I don’t think it’s affected our line or cadence or caused us to jump off sides or (hurt) our timing.”

Neither quarterback has to worry much about having his timing disrupted in the passing game. Oak Hill lives by its power running game led by Nick Brown and throws the least of any team in the Pine Tree Conference. In fact, a third quarterback, senior Bronson Drewry, has the most pass attempts on the team. The Raiders have been using Drewry, who has the strongest arm of the three, for situations when they need to throw the ball downfield, such as the two-minute drill.

But it’s Sirois and Turcotte who split the overwhelming majority of the snaps and alternate series during games. One might think taking less snaps puts more pressure on each player to make something happen when he is on the field. If anything, Nicholas thinks it’s taken some of the pressure off each signal-caller. Both understand that they aren’t playing to win the job anymore. If one is having a bad day, he might get benched for that game, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’ll be alternating series the next week.

“There was one game, up at MDI, where Josh threw an interception and he was kind of down on himself, and I let Brett play the rest of the game,” he said. “Next practice, things were back to normal again.”

Nicholas said he is mindful of giving both quarterbacks ample opportunity to develop because they might not get the reps they normally would if they held the job alone. It’s not unusual for either one to play in a JV game to get some extra work.

The players admit it took some time to get used to the arrangement, but both insist they don’t have a problem with it. There are pros and cons, of course. Both are fresher at the end of games. It also helps to have someone to compare notes with while the game is going on.

“When I’m on the sidelines, I’ll watch what their defense is doing during our pass plays, and we’ll talk about what their defense is doing, how their defensive backs are covering our receivers,” Turcotte said.

“Every time I come to the sidelines after I’m done with my series, I tell Brett what to look for and just things that I see, and he comes back and does the same thing with me,” Sirois said.

Sirois and Turcotte are good friends off the field, so what competition there is between the two is friendly. They don’t try to upstage each other on the field or in the huddle, and there’s no confusion or rift in the huddle over who is taking the snaps.

“We go in the huddle, we do what we’ve got to do,” Sirois said. “The offense, the line and the backs, they respect both me and Brett and they know that we switch in and out.”

Though similar in size and demeanor, each player has his own strengths and weaknesses.

“(Sirois is) better at rolling out and I probably have a little bit better arm than him,” Turcotte said. “We were both pretty equal during preseason and we’re pretty equal (now).”

Nicholas said he is equally confident with either QB running any play out of the playbook. There aren’t plays designed specifically for one or the other to run.

“We just go with it,” he said. “When we run a play, I couldn’t tell you who the quarterback is.”

That’s the idea if you have quarterbacks who are equally adept at running the team, Turcotte said.

“Together, I think we’re pretty good,” he said.