For the last few years, the Prairie View Panthers quarterback role had been primarily in the trusted hands of Trazon Connely.
But the Connely era on The Hill is over.
This spring has been about replacing the quarterback who led the Panthers to two SWAC Championship Game appearances. Junior college transfer Cam Peters and second-year quarterback Jaden Johnson have been the leaders of the pack.
Their competition has been spirited and sometimes frustrating as the two try to pick up the nuances and demands of new offensive coordinator Anthony Weeden’s pro-style offense.
“We’re taking it day by day,” said Peters, who is a product of Stafford but has made collegiate stops at UTSA and Kilgore College before arriving at PV in January. “It’s a new offense so we are all still learning. Really it’s about catching on to it, feeling the offense and getting comfortable with it. Other than that, we are all just learning and getting better.”
What that has ultimately meant is some good moments where the 6-foot-4 Peters cannon of an arm shows, or the athletic Johnson comes up with a throw across his body while on the run that just makes no sense. But then comes an unexplainable interception or a clear miss of an open receiver.
That’s when the frustration shows for both.
What: Prairie View Annual Purple vs Gold Spring Game
When: Saturday, 4 p.m.
Where: Panther Stadium
Cost: $10 per person
“It’s new system, new offense and new guys in place,” said Johnson, who was a 3-start quarterback at Memphis prior to stops at Southern, Missouri State and a junior college prior to coming to PV in 2023. “It’s just taking some time right now to get our chemistry down. We just have to keep moving forward so that we can get into our mid-season shape.”
The ups and downs of the two has probably had Prairie View head coach Bubba McDowell feeling part coach and part counselor this spring as he and the coaching staff have tried to get both up to speed. All and all, McDowell has been pleased with their growth and the competition between the two this spring.
“It’s going good. They are both challenging each other,” said McDowell, who will conclude drills with the Panthers’ Annual Spring Game on Saturday (4 p.m.) at Panther Stadium. “They are both doing some things that the other guy is not doing, kind of keeping it even.
“One minute (Weeden) is putting Jaden Johnson in there starting and then he will turn around and put Cam Peters in there. So there is competition, and that’s always a good thing. Like I tell guys all of the time, it’s really important that you compete and that we bring guys in who want to compete to try to get that starting job.”
McDowell says it’s too close to call at this point, which means the competition will continue into fall camp. It will also likely be a little more complicated with two more quarterbacks in the mix.
Fulshear High School product Timothy Barrington will be in camp, and the quarterback position will receive a huge boost if Montana State’s Clifton McDowell makes good on his verbal commitment to join the Panthers this summer.
McDowell, a product of Spring, is coming off a season in which he led the Grizzlies to the FCS national championship game, then surprisingly put his name in the transfer portal in January. The 6-foot-4 quarterback, who attended the Panthers’ practice on Wednesday, would give PV something it doesn’t currently have and that is an experienced signal caller who has proven he can run a pro-style offense.
McDowell had committed to Temple in January, reopened his recruiting process, and as of earlier this week it had come down between McNeese, Texas Southern and Prairie View. He reportedly told the PV coaches he would be joining them on Wednesday.
Bubba McDowell did not initially confirm McDowell’s commitment but seemed optimistic about his quarterback position heading into Saturday’s spring game and fall camp.
“I told them both individually, the best person is going to win,” McDowell said of Johnson and Peters. “They both have great skills and they both do things differently. But they are both challenging each other at this particular time.”
