New coach, new GM, new secondary … same old quarterback.

The Jets underwent a massive rebuild this offseason, but one thing will be the same when the team opens the 2015 season as it was when it closed 2014: Geno Smith will be the starting quarterback.

New offensive coordinator Chan Gailey made that stunning announcement Wednesday, saying there will be no competition this summer between Smith and Ryan Fitzpatrick, as had been expected. Instead, Smith will be handed the job again entering his third season.

“Right now, Geno’s the starter,” Gailey said. “That’s the way it sits and that’s the way we expect it to be unless something happens where you get an injury or something like that that you don’t foresee.”

The statement by Gailey was surprising because head coach Todd Bowles had said all along there would be a competition in training camp. Bowles said Smith would be given more reps with the first team, but indicated the job would not be handed to the third-year signal-caller who has been maddeningly inconsistent in his first two seasons.

According to Gailey, a quarterback competition “wasn’t a thought.” Gailey said they told Fitzpatrick he would not have a chance to start when the team traded for him in March, meaning Smith was anointed the starter before the coaches could even watch him practice.

Smith, the team’s second-round pick in 2013, has compiled an 11-18 record in 29 starts over the last two seasons. In 2014, he had 13 touchdowns and 13 interceptions in 13 games. This is the third straight year Smith has done little to earn the starting job. In 2013, he was given the job by default when Mark Sanchez suffered a season-ending injury in the preseason. Last year, the organization never allowed Michael Vick to compete for the job.

Now, the new staff is going down the same road.

“We saw a lot of talent on film,” Gailey said. “We saw a lot of promise on film. We saw a lot of things that made us think he could eventually be a pretty good quarterback. It’s hard to have quarterback competition going into a season. Once we decided he was the guy that we felt like could be the best option at this point for us, that’s the direction we went. I think it’s best if you do it that way.”

Gailey studied Smith’s 2014 season, but said he did not look at any film of Smith’s rookie season. Gailey apparently was impressed with what he saw.

“He can throw the ball,” Gailey said. “He was making good decisions when it was clean reads. That’s what you try to do – you try to make it clean reads for him. We evaluated how he threw the ball, how he handled himself when there was pressure, how he handled himself when things broke down, all those little things like that. He can make every throw in the book, now. He can make them all. You don’t find many that can do that. You try to find a guy that can do that and you give him every opportunity to be successful.”

Gailey sounds optimistic that Smith can thrive at quarterback. Jets fans are likely a lot less optimistic.

“I think you see an awful lot of talent there,” Gailey said. “If we can get him to where he puts all of that together, I don’t know how good he can be. He can be pretty good if he can put it all together.”

Anyone who has watched the past two seasons knows that’s a pretty big “if.”