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Mason remains undecided on his starting quarterback against Ole Miss
By Ethan Levine
Published:
As the Ole Miss Rebels prepare for their SEC opener, and the lone SEC matchup of the weekend, Saturday in Nashville against Vanderbilt, head coach Hugh Freeze and company must gameplan for three different quarterbacks to lead the Commodores’ offense.
Vandy head coach Derek Mason has been unsure of who his team’s starting quarterback would be since he arrived in Nashville following last season. All three of his quarterbacks under consideration – Johnny McCrary, Patton Robinette and Stephen Rivers – saw time in a 37-7 loss to Temple last week, and Mason’s comments in his weekly press conference on Tuesday seemed to indicate Vanderbilt would decide on a quarterback prior to facing Ole Miss.
We need to have consistency. You go through the process of evaluating and you want to see what you see in practice measure up to what you see on gameday. We don’t have the consistency at the position that you’d like but I needed to see all three guys in order to see where we are. What we’ll do moving forward is not name a starter and at game time you’ll see who’s starting at quarterback and then move forward.
Mason may be wise to keep his quarterback a secret, if indeed he’s chosen just one to lead the offense, in order to force a menacing Ole Miss defense to gameplan for all three.
However, following Wednesday’s practice, Mason admitted his quarterbacks still don’t know who will be starting on Saturday, then admitted just a few seconds later even he remains undecided.
“I want them to be about the work. I want the full body of work to show who they are, what they do, let their teammates see the leadership come through,” Mason said Wednesday. “And the other part of it is, right now, they all do different things well, so we’re still honing. We’re still working. I won’t know anything definite until Friday, and even on Friday you wont know until Saturday.”
All three quarterbacks are listed as the first team quarterback on this week’s depth chart, separated with a simple “or” to indicate no one man can claim the job solely. However, Johnny McCrary’s name was listed before the first “or” on the depth chart.
Is it perhaps a sign he would start Saturday? One reporter asked Mason.
“I think I’ll change the order tomorrow,” Mason said.
In case you can’t read between the lines, that means no.
Mason even admitted in Wednesday’s SEC coaches’ teleconference, “all those guys may touch the field, one of those guys may touch the field,” when discussing his quarterbacks.
The head coach is either being coy to disrupt the Ole Miss defense in its preparation for the Commodores’ offense, or he truly has no clue what he’s doing with his quarterbacks as he prepares for the No. 15 team in the country two weeks into the season. Whichever it is could go a long way in deciding the competitiveness of this longstanding SEC rivalry.
A former newspaper reporter who has roamed the southeastern United States for years covering football and eating way too many barbecue ribs, if there is such a thing.
