For the second time in his college career, Shea Patterson is being hailed by a fan base as a savior. Of course, that didn’t work out well for him in Oxford and he’s since transferred to Ann Arbor to try and have better success at Michigan.

While he’s yet to be named Michigan’s starting quarterback, it would be a surprise if that didn’t happen before the team’s season opener at Notre Dame. In a recent article from Bleacher Report’s Matt Hayes, Patterson claims he left Oxford because he didn’t want to play for a program that had no chance to compete for postseason play.

“We weren’t playing for anything at Ole Miss last year; we were playing for each other,” Patterson said according to Hayes. “We thought, Let’s suck it up, play hard, and then go out (in 2018) and try to win it all. I don’t think I could’ve went on living like that, knowing that I had no chance to play in a bowl again.

“You take one bullet, and it knocks you down. Then the next one comes, and it knocks you out.”

Interestingly enough, the article does not mention Jordan Ta’amu. There’s a good chance had Patterson returned to Oxford for the 2018 season he wouldn’t be playing at all thanks to Ta’amu. Ole Miss rallied late in the season due to the insertion of the former junior college QB into the lineup and it appears Ta’amu is more suited to play in Phil Longo’s offense.

While Patterson notes the option to play in a postseason game played the biggest factor in his departure from Ole Miss, you have to wonder if Ta’amu’s presence combined with Michigan’s lack of answers at the position played an even larger role before Patterson left Oxford for good.