Dallas Davis to start at QB for South Alabama vs. Idaho
Dallas Davis will start at quarterback in South Alabama's Sun Belt Conference opener with Idaho Saturday, Jaguars coach Joey Jones said Tuesday.
Cole Garvin, who sprained his right ankle in Week 2 against Oklahoma State, has still not recovered sufficiently to practice at full speed. That means Davis is the Jaguars' starter under center for the foreseeable future.
"We're going to go with Dallas," Jones said. "Cole's still not ready. I don't know when he's going to be ready, so I'd better not guess."
Davis, who started 10 of 13 games for the Jaguars last season before undergoing offseason shoulder surgery, lost out to Garvin for the starting job in fall camp. He replaced the injured Garvin early on against Oklahoma State and played every meaningful snap of a 45-0 win over Alabama A&M last week, completing 9 of 12 passes for 255 yards and two touchdowns.
Davis did not perform as well the previous week against Oklahoma State, completing 13 of 23 passes for 126 yards and one touchdown with one interception. In addition to facing a Top 10 team, he was coming in cold after not receiving many practice reps in the week leading up to the game.
"It made a huge difference," offensive coordinator Bryant Vincent said. "Any time you're going to play in a Division I football game, you've got to have the live reps, the speed of the game during the week. And I think everybody saw his performance when he got those reps. Overall, he ran the offense very well. His timing was there, his accuracy was there and his command was there. I was very pleased."
Against Alabama A&M, Davis completed passes to six different receivers. Included among them were touchdowns of 66 yards to Sa'Mory Collier and 28 yards to Jahmmir Taylor, as well as a 53-yard gainer to Jamarius Way.
Davis said his shoulder is getting better "day-by-day." He added that he hopes the Jaguars have turned a corner after back-to-back blowout losses to Ole Miss and Oklahom State to begin the year.
"I was proud of the guys for keeping their heads about them after the first two losses we had," Davis said. "We knew we had to make a statement against Alabama A&M and we did that. We've just got to keep it going."
Junior Evan Orth, who played in mop-up duty against Alabama A&M, will once again back up Davis against Idaho. In a little less than a quarter of action, Orth threw just one pass, which was incomplete.
While Jones refused to speculate as to when Garvin might return, he said he won't just be handed back his starting job. Competition between Garvin and Davis will resume when both are healthy.
"We'll open it back up," Jones said. "It will be the guy who we think can do the best job of helping us win. It becomes about each week at that point. It's no different than any other position. But we'll deal with that when he comes back."
as well and we have depth at DT