Mark Stoops rejects perceived inexperience of Ole Miss QB Austin Simmons: ‘He’s really not’
By Jake Faigus
Published:
Week 2 in the SEC is getting ready to kick off, and we already have a conference game on the horizon.
Ole Miss visits Kentucky to get things started in SEC play in a game that could get very interesting, as it has in past seasons. Kentucky escaped last week against Toledo, while Ole Miss dominated Georgia State. The difference maker is Austin Simmons under center for Ole Miss, someone Mark Stoops acknowledged, too.
This is Simmons’ first full year as a starter, but he has been a backup in Lane Kiffin’s system for a few years. Mark Stoops even acknowledged that when discussing what he expects to see from Ole Miss’s offense.
“You look at the progression of (Ole Miss QB) Austin Simmons and what he’s going in his third year, and man, he looks good, and you sit there and say in one aspect, he’s inexperienced, but he’s not,” Stoops said. “This is his third year in the system. He stepped in last year and played extremely well against Georgia– they didn’t miss a beat. I had to go back and look. Do you know what I mean? Like, wait a minute here.”
Simmons is a 6-foot-4, 215-pound quarterback who was named the starter as a sophomore after making backup appearances last year. He came to Ole Miss as a 3-star recruit, and after sitting behind Jaxson Dart last season, he has a lot of potential. He showed sparks the previous season when he came in for Dart in certain games and when he started the bowl game against Duke.
This is also a big contrast from Zach Calzada’s experience level – the Kentucky signal caller is an experiences quarterback who played in the SEC before lighting it up at Incarnate Word.
