In college football, in most cases, the quarterbacks are usually decided right after fall camp or a week or two before the season starts, unless a team has a Heisman-caliber player in its arsenal. However, the new Southern head coach, legendary Marshall Faulk, is going off the book and planning to name his starting QBs way sooner than most people might anticipate.

So, the big news is that Marshall Faulk isn’t playing around when it comes to picking his starting quarterback. Since 2017, Southern has had a revolving door at QB, where nobody really knew who the leader was from week to week. Faulk wants to kill that trend immediately. He’s made it clear that he wants to name his starter before fall camp even starts, so the whole team can get behind one guy and build some real chemistry before their first game against Alabama State.

“They understand it’s a battle, and it’s a competition,” Faulk said. “We’re not going into the fall with a competition. It’s too late. We are going to figure this out in the spring and a little of this summer and on what we call player-led practices. How they handle those, and then we got to make a decision. We are going to know who one, two, three is when we get into the fall.”

Basically, the idea is to create urgency within the QB room. The competition currently boils down to a three-way battle during spring drills. Ashton Strother is the veteran of the group and the only returning QB who actually took snaps for the Jags last year. He threw for over 1,111 yards and four touchdowns across nine games. He’s got the early advantage of knowing the roster, but Faulk has described this entire spring as a ‘discovery phase’, so everybody’s going to get a fair shot here regardless of their experience or what year they are in.

The biggest threat to the veteran is probably the new guy from California, Wyatt McCauley. He’s a transfer from Long Beach City College, and you usually don’t bring in a junior college transfer unless you think they can compete to start right away. Last season at JUCO, he racked up 1,803 passing yards and tossed 18 touchdowns against only 5 interceptions.

Then you have the wildcard in the room in Vashaun ‘Tig’ Coulon. He’s a true freshman from St. Augustine in New Orleans, and his high school stats were absolutely insane. He threw 50 touchdowns in his senior year! Even though he’s young, fans are really excited about him because he’s a local star. Then again, you don’t see many true-freshman getting the starting role. He might have to wait a year or two.

The biggest benefit of deciding early is stability. By picking a leader now, the team can stop worrying about the competition and start building real trust and chemistry with one guy. It also gives the starter more time to master the playbook and take all the first-team reps during “player-led” summer practices.
Since it’s a player-led, it’s easier to eye-test who’s going to be 1,2,3 in the QB room. Fans will finally get a live look at how this battle is shaping up during the Spring Showcase on April 4th at A.W. Mumford Stadium.

Marshall Faulk to deliver the promise?

When Marshall Faulk got hired, he told everyone the losing days are over and winners win. He doubled down on that, saying that at every level of his life, he has found a way to win, and he promised he would do the exact same thing for the Jaguars.

Will it be that easy? Most probably not, but he sure has his work cut out for him. The Jaguars were 2–10 last season, including a difficult 1–7 run in conference play in the SWAC.

For his first year, the goal is pretty simple: stop the bleeding by any means. Southern was one of the most penalized teams in the league last year. They racked up about 106 penalties for 872 total yards. Faulk is expected to clean up those sloppy mistakes and do damage control on the defense that was giving up 33.5 points per game.

To make sure he hits the ground running, Faulk has surrounded himself with some members of ‘The Greatest Show on the Turf’ coaching staff. He’s brought in NFL veterans like Todd Lyght and Donald Penn, plus local coaching legends like Fred McNair. That’s one heck of a sideline. All that doesn’t mean anything if wins don’t come in.

Let’s see whether leaving Deion Sanders in Boulder was worth it for the new head coach.