Ole Miss freshman quarterback Shea Patterson to play on Saturday
With senior quarterback Chad Kelly out for the season, Ole Miss will look toward the future starting on Saturday.
With a 37-27 win over Georgia Southern last Saturday, the Ole Miss Rebels ended a three game losing streak. But senior quarterback Chad Kelly was injured during the game, and he will miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL. With a 4-5 record as a disappointing season winds down, head coach Hugh Freeze is ready to unveil highly touted freshman quarterback Shea Patterson.
Source: Ole Miss QB Shea Patterson will have his redshirt pulled and play this weekend vs. Texas A&M.
— Barrett Sallee 🇺🇸 (@BarrettSallee) November 11, 2016
Patterson played at the famed IMG Academy in Florida as a high school senior, after winning the Elite 11 MVP award in the summer of 2015, and he was the No.1-ranked pro-style quarterback in the 2016 class as a whole. Back in June, former Dallas Cowboys’ executive Gil Brandt anointed Patterson as the next great college quarterback that will grab attention from NFL teams once he’s draft-eligible.
It’s unclear if Patterson will start Saturday against Texas A&M, or in either of the final two regular season games against Vanderbilt and Mississippi State. Redshirt freshman Jason Pellegrin stepped in when Kelly was injured last week, and he’s also a young quarterback in the mix for playing time over the rest of the season.
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With two wins over their next three games, Ole Miss can earn a trip to the kind of low or mid-tier bowl game that seemed like an absolute worst-case scenario before the season. At this point it’s probably more important to get a long look at Patterson, regardless of wins and losses, with an eye toward 2017.