LSU opened preseason practice Thursday with everyone wondering: who will enter the season as the starting quarterback?
Sophomore Brandon Harris spent the day operating with the first-team offense, while junior Anthony Jennings worked with the backups.
It’s up to you to parse whether that development holds meaning.
Jennings started all but one game last season, and despite a close competition throughout spring practice, the general feeling was that it would be up to Harris to wrest the job away from the incumbent with a strong fall.
Then Jennings endured a six-week suspension after getting arrested, which ended when the charges against him were dropped. Harris spent those six weeks enjoying snap after snap with the team’s starting receivers in informal, players-only sessions of 7-on-7.
It was a rare chance to work with players like Travin Dural and Malachi Dupre without glancing over his shoulder at Jennings or worrying about what the coaches would think from a few feet away.
It’s impossible to know whether Thursday is an indication that Harris has pulled even, or gone ahead, entering August. Coach Les Miles mentioned Jennings would face “internal discipline” stemming from his arrest. So perhaps part of that discipline is ceding first-team reps to Harris. (He also stopped just short of saying that there will be no suspension for Jennings.)
LSU may install some sort of rotation, with each quarterback getting an opportunity to work with the other offensive starters.
Whatever the case, Harris’ positioning with the first-team offense is both symbolic, given it was the first day of practice, and significant. It appears that Harris will be given a legitimate opportunity to win the job this fall. Now it’s up to him to prove he knows the playbook, he’s mature enough to be a leader and he can maintain control of the offense.
An itinerant journalist, Christopher has moved between states 11 times in seven years. Formally an injury-prone Division I 800-meter specialist, he now wanders the Rockies in search of high peaks.
