Though 49ers coach Mike Nolan wasn’t sure on Wednesday whether J.T. O’Sullivan or another of the team’s quarterbacks would start the second game of the preseason, against the Packers on Saturday, Nolan confirmed on Thursday that O’Sullivan will indeed start.

“I think this game will be an opportunity to show what I have,” O’Sullivan said at a post-practice press conference.  “I feel good, as kind of evolving every day and going out there and trying to play exactly how they want me to play.  So, the next step is to be able to do it consistently.”

But Nolan still isn’t committing to O’Sullivan as the regular-season starter.  “Right now, we are just in an evaluation process,” Nolan said. “We are utilizing this time in the preseason practice and in the games to evaluate our people.”

Complicating matters for Alex Smith, the former starter, is that his close friend, David Edwards, recently died.  Smith has been excused for Friday, and will return for the game on Saturday.  “Obviously, this has been a really hard week, let alone the quarterback stuff going on, just for me and for my family and obviously his family, my good friend’s family,” Smith said. “It’s been really hard. It will be good to go down there and see all of the people, all of the friends. All of his old friends and family. It’ll be good to kind of deal with it.”

Smith seemed to recognize that the incident, and the distraction it created for him, might have contributed to the team’s decision to use O’Sullivan as the starter for this weekend’s game. “I’ve talked to Coach Nolan a lot this week and I think it’s a difficult situation just with what happened. I  think maybe he was looking to . . . don’t know.  Maybe this could have been a different week, but obviously with this going on, it kind of puts things in perspective for me a little bit.  And I’ll come back and treat it the way I always have.  Just focus in and take advantage of the reps I get and try to make the most out of them.  It’s kind of all I can do.  Do the best I can.  I’m going to go out there and focus in and just really try and take advantage of it, and not worry about who I’m in there with or who I’m going against.   Just worry about my responsibilities going in and executing.”

Still, there’s a clear sense that Smith is losing his grip on the job, which would be a stunning fall from grace for the No. 1 overall selection from the 2005 draft. 

And with the Niners next playing the team who picked the quarterback on whom San Fran passed, Nolan wasn’t inclined to revisit the decision.  “You know, it’s a long time ago,” Nolan said when asked about the choice of Smith over Aaron Rodgers. “It was a long time ago, let’s not go there now because it would be a lot of BS.”