To a degree, I think all this 'best will play' talk is a self-fulfilling prophecy, from the coach's standpoint.
They committed to making Taylor the starter, and going forward with the offense with Taylor at the helm. Rather than commit to building off of Lee's work in the Holiday Bowl and his experience through all of last year.
Barring an injury at this point, it's highly unlikely we will see the Lee that the staff could have built this year's team around and committed to improving through his senior year. As with any quarterback, you will see improvement if you put him in the right position to succeed. If you throw him down to third string and build your future around two younger guys...well, I don't know. It's a tough road.
Taylor is going to be put into a position to develop and succeed, and it's reasonable to expect that he will, I suppose. It won't mean that if we had committed to Lee, and then worked in Taylor's wildcat package a la Leak/Tebow a few years ago, that we would not have been better off, both this year and in the long term. But for whatever reasons - dislike of Lee apparently being one of them - that's not the option that the coaches have deemed to be best.
In the end it's the decision we will have to live with (and probably will come to gladly accept, as bshirt always reminds me that I will), but I don't believe that such a decision should be immune to analysis or criticism, or explained away by "Taylor must have simply won an open competition."
In any case, it's highly unlikely that Taylor did flat out beat Lee (I'm not saying he didn't, since I don't know). But from Bo's comments about the gameplan with the QB rotation this game (Taylor, Cody, and then no set plan), to how Zac was used in game (garbage time, scout team), it could not be more apparent where Zac's standing is. So barring the possibility that we have two incredible young QBs who leapfrogged a senior by leaps and bounds, we have a scenario where the redshirt freshman was deemed to be a better option than the sophomore, with the idea of sticking with the senior out of the question. That's a judgment call the coaches can make, but it isn't Taylor flat out beating Lee.
^ Of course, one final note, to play devil's advocate, flat-out winning a QB race is hardly a guaranteed predictor of success (Keller).
