Louisiana Tech finished the 2018 season at 8-5 overall. Skip Holtz’s squad finished the season with a 31-14 victory over Hawaii in the Hawaii Bowl. The attention has now shifted towards the 2019 season, and the Bulldogs will open spring practice Friday afternoon. Let’s take a look at a key storyline that we’ll be watching throughout the next month leading up to the April 13th spring game.
How open is the competition at quarterback?
For every 300+ yard and two touchdown performance that J’Mar Smith has had over his 27 career starts, it feels as if though Smith has had two or three rough performances that have followed.
The rough performances are what lead to Skip Holtz saying prior to La Tech’s 31-14 win over Hawaii in the Hawaii Bowl, “When you watch him do it out here on the practice field, I have confidence in J’Mar. It’s not so much doing it in practice, it’s the consistency on gameday.” Smith responded well to Holtz’s challenge by piling up 306 total yards and two touchdowns.
However, this spring will be different. No longer is Tim Rattay in charge of the Bulldog quarterbacks as he has moved on to the Washington Redskins. Offensive coordinator Todd Fitch will now coach the quarterbacks. The competition is certain to be more wide open than it has been the previous two seasons. Westin Elliott, Aaron Allen, and early enrollee, Jakson Thomson, will be Smith’s competition.
How open will that competition be? That remains to be seen, and perhaps it’s up to Smith.
Areas that Smith will be looking to improve on are throws that were made 20+ yards down the field where he completed only 32% of throws and throws outside the numbers to the right side where he completed only 48% of his throws. To go more in depth, Smith was pressured the fourth most times of any quarterback in the country. When pressured, Smith completed only 41% of his throws. When kept clean, Smith completed 63% of his throws for 2,061 yards along with nine touchdowns and only three interceptions. This proves that Smith can be good when things go as planned, but the senior must get better when plays break down.
How Smith handles the pressure of Elliott, Allen, and Thomson this spring will go a long way in determining whether or not he can be unseated as the Tech starting quarterback this fall.
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*Quote courtesy of The Newsstar. All data provided by Pro Football Focus, weekly data given to BleedTechBlue subscribers throughout the football season.
