For the first time in 11 seasons, the Southern Conference sent only one team to the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs in 2014. Part of that was because of a revolving door at quarterback for some teams, due to injuries, inconsistency or overall program uncertainty.
Don’t look for that to be the case this season.
Seven of the eight teams in the conference return their starting signal-callers for 2015. Included among those is 2013 and 2014 SoCon offensive player of the year Jacob Huesman of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He’s one of two league representatives on the STATS preseason watch list for FCS offensive player of the year. The other is Western Carolina quarterback Troy Mitchell.
UTC Jacob Huesman is tackled by Indiana State’s Mark Sewall Saturday at Finley Stadium in this 2014 file photo.Those two and Mercer quarterback John Russ will be starting for at least a third season. It’s the fourth for Huesman. In addition, Virginia Military Institute sophomore Al Cobb threw for a league-high 2,971 yards and 20 touchdowns in 2014 and was the runaway pick for conference freshman of the year.
“It was great, but we didn’t win many games last year,” Cobb said at SoCon media day. “We’ve been working hard on focusing on the team effort. It’s all about the team, regardless of who is getting individual honors, because if the team doesn’t do well, then we’re not successful. That’s what VMI drills in us, and that’s what we’ll drill into the team as well.”