Three SEC teams to feature new QBs in ’08
It’s a new quarterbacking day in the nation’s best football conference, as no fewer than half of the Southeastern Conference’s teams will line up for the 2008 opener with new men under center. Up this week, the Eastern Division, with the Western Division coming next week.
SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS …
Blake Mitchell’s 2007 performances mostly resembled an EKG from week-to-week, but his time in Columbia is now complete. Tommy Beecher and Chris Smelley have each had multiple chances to lay claim to the job (especially Beecher, who started six games last season), but neither has shown any amount of consistency. And I’m not talking about winning games with huge plays – at this point, Steve Spurrier would be overjoyed with a quarterback that could simply distinguish his team’s jersey from those worn by the opposing secondary. And the man for that job is Stephen Garcia, a redshirt freshman from Jefferson High in Tampa.
I was able to watch Garcia in person during two different trips to Columbia last season, including a preseason scrimmage in Williams-Brice, and he’s the most physically talented quarterback of the bunch … and it’s not even close. Stephen Garcia stands at 6-foot-2 and just over 220 pounds, and is still a duel-threat quarterback, despite adding nearly 20 pounds since beginning the Gamecocks’ weight program in January of 2007. If he can learn the offense a bit better (and stay of the police blotter), the job is his.
TENNESSEE VOLUNTEERS …
New offensive coordinator Dave Clawson has three guys to choose from, but the job is Jonathon Crompton's to lose. He’s a fourth-year junior who filled in for Erik Ainge in several games in 2006, including most of the LSU game and then starting and going the whole way the next week vs. Arkansas. After having shoulder surgery and missing all of 2005, the 6-foot-4, 230-pound Crompton stayed healthy during the next two seasons as Erik Ainge’s understudy and improved dramatically.
Nick Stephens is a redshirt sophomore with good size as well, while freshman B.J. Coleman also hopes to get in the mix. But the reality is neither Stephens nor Coleman has ever attempted a pass in a college game so it will be a steep uphill battle for the pair. Whoever gets the job will reap the benefits of an offensive line that is stocked with experience, after the Vols played almost exclusively with junior and sophomore linemen in 2007.
KENTUCKY WILDCATS …
OK, here’s where we start some serious guess work. Curtis Pulley is the most talented of five quarterbacks on the UK roster, but he’s also the only one that has dropped out of school for a semester, been suspended for missing classes and moved from QB to receiver and then back to QB. And the fourth-year junior from Hopkinsville, Kentucky is still probably the favorite to win the job. He’s 6-foot-4 and a shade over 200 pounds, has a plenty strong enough arm and is a scrambler more in the mode of former Wildcat Shane Boyd than the statue that was Andre Woodson. Mike Hartline is the only other realistic candidate at this point, after spending 2007 as Woodson’s backup while Pulley ran the scout team.
Oliver can be heard on 790 The Zone’s “Afternoon Saloon” weekdays from 4-7 p.m. and can be reached at king@790thezone.com.
PICS CUTLINE
MAKING CHANGES: South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier (left) may benefit from starting Stephen Garcia, a redshirt freshman, at quarterback in 2008. As for Kentucky, it won’t be easy for them to replace Andre Woodson (right, with AT&T regional manager Dave Weller) and his outstanding production. Photos courtesy of the University of South Carolina/University of Kentucky.
See More
at www.790thezone.com
|
