Conner Manning and Aaron Winchester are getting most of the reps with Georgia State’s first-team offense, but coordinator Luke Huard on Monday said that Emiere Scaife isn’t out of the competition to become the Panthers’ starting quarterback.
“Conner and Aaron right now have emerged, but Emiere is doing some good things too,” Huard said.
Huard said all three quarterbacks made good decision in their progressions during Saturday’s scrimmage.
Manning is a redshirt junior who transferred to Georgia State from Utah in the offseason.
Winchester is a redshirt freshman.
Scaife is a redshirt sophomore who has spent the most time in Huard’s system.
None of the three have played a significant number of snaps in a college game. They are competing to replace Nick Arbuckle, who passed for more than 7,500 yards the previous two seasons and led the Panthers to their first bowl game following the 2015 season.
Huard said the quarterbacks were correct on 85 percent of their protection checks on Saturday, which he said was solid considering they were facing a veteran defense that returns nine starters.
“We still aren’t anywhere where we want to be; we’ve got a lot of work to do these next two weeks but I feel like we are inching closer and closer and our guys are getting better,” Huard said.
Huard said “we’ll see” when asked if Manning and Winchester could both play when the season starts with Ball State at the Georgia Dome on Sept. 2.
The starter will be determined by which quarterback moves the offense and takes care of the ball.
“They are all working hard, they are all doing a good job, they are all invested,” Huard said. “All three guys are still competing for snaps.”
Huard said he has confidence in all three players.
“It’s better that they are all doing good things than none of them doing anything good,” Huard said. “They are getting better.”
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