I'm a at Pats fan and I went to Michigan... lookit, this sort of things happens all of the time. John Navarre set records at Michigan, so did Henne , so because we are used to having the attention on whatever we're doing, we sold those two as legit QBs nationally. Mallett is not very different.
As far as the Pats go, they struck out with this experiment and they are lucky to be able to get rid of him and still have something legit in his place. Brady is gonna be gone soon, hopefully the team is ready for a new way.