A number of college coaches have made it a part of their game plan to use the back up QB for a designated series each half (sometimes first possession of the second and fourth quarters, sometimes for example the 4th possession of each half) with a series of plays planned for them.There were plenty of opportunities under MM to get back up QBs meaningful reps; they just refused to do it, playing all starters until a few minutes left in blowout games.
It also doesn't need to be garbage time to get back up players game reps. After we went up 10-0 against AFA, we went about 3 full quarters without scoring a point. Pretty sure Lytle could have led us to 0 points during that stretch as well. This notion that the starters must play every snap of the game until it's out of hand is dumb, but too often bought into by coaching staffs.
Gives the backup experience with the starters and against a starting defense, lets the other starters be comfortable with the backup QB as well.
Huge advantage of this is that if the starter gets hurt or otherwise can't play the transition to the backup is almost seamless.
I'd love to see us do something similar here.