Prairie View football coach Tremaine Jackson is known for saying he normally takes his quarterback into every postgame press conference, and he ain’t going with nobody who is soft or anybody he don’t know nothing about.
“So we are going to find out who that is and we are going to find out who can be the leader of the locker room,” Jackson said. “And when we find who that is and make a decision, that’s who we are going to roll with.”
Just who that will be remains a mystery that probably won’t be revealed until Saturday night’s season opener at sixth-ranked Tarleton State. All we know for sure is that Cam Peter’s successor will be chosen among Tevin Carter, Preston Brown, and Kaeden Smith.
Offensive coordinator Chris Buckner and Jackson revealed to the team this week which of the three will be QB 1 at the end of fall camp, but everyone will have to wait until the opener.
What we do know is that the coaching staff is pleased with the group it has to pick from.
“This year, for whatever reason, these guys took off,” Buckner said to the Defender. “We had a strong spring ball, and we had a pretty strong fall camp. Overall, as an offense, I can say that we are better than we were last year. Not that much better, but I will say we’ve gotten better.”
A year ago, Jackson and his staff were new and inherited a quarterback group that they had to learn. This season, the Panthers return Carter, who was a part-time starter but mainly played a backup role behind Peters. Brown and Smith have been added to the roster as transfers after having played a lot of football at lower levels of college football.
On paper, the job is Carter’s, a dual-threat quarterback who started out at the University of Memphis and then went to Tennessee State before transferring to PV last year. Then there is Brown, who is coming off a breakout year at Division II Catawba College, where he was a Harlan Trophy nominee (The Division II equivalent of the Heisman Trophy) after throwing for 2,755 yards and 26 touchdowns while completing 69% of his passes.
But if you are reading between the lines, don’t be surprised if Smith, a product of Manvel, gets the nod despite having the least playing experience. Smith played primarily a backup role last season at Angelo State, completing 44 of 91 passes for 595 yards, 10 touchdowns, and two interceptions. The 6-foot-1 dual-threat quarterback also ran for 328 yards and three touchdowns in the two games he started and six that he played in last season.
Since arriving on campus last spring, Smith has definitely impressed his coaches.
“He probably would have rather stayed locally and come to Prairie View out of high school, so for him to get an opportunity to come back and play in front of his folks,” Jackson said to the Defender. “They don’t have to drive three or four hours to San Angelo, Texas. He is excited about it. He is a really good passer.
“I would like to say, had I been here when he came out of high school, he would have been here. He would have been here when he came out of high school, because I like him and I like the way he plays. We’re happy to have him.”
Buckner also has high praise for Smith.
“All three have done a really good job of really being around the team and getting to know the team. We have been very honest. The guy who is going to be the quarterback for the Panthers is going to be the guy who wins the team and takes care of the football. Really, all three of those guys have done a really good job of doing both of those.”
PV coach Tremaine Jackson
“Kaeden had a different look in his eyes and the way he attacked the field, and you would have thought a guy against what we do defensively would have struggled because he hadn’t seen it enough. But he has took it and ran with it and made plays and extended plays and ran the ball efficiently,” Buckner said. “I’m fired up about all three of them, but he was just the most surprising one.”
Smith seems to have all the intangibles that Buckner and Jackson are looking for. He makes the right reads, commands the huddle, makes the right throws, and Prairie View’s offense has some similar principles as the air raid offensive attack Smith is coming from at Angelo State.
The Defender was unable to speak to Smith or any of the quarterbacks because Jackson does not make his players available to the media during fall camp.
“He kind of saw it, so he is walking into an offense where he has some familiarity,” Buckner said of Smith. ”So when he came in, he was like, `I know what you guys are doing with the second level and true progression.’ And like I said, he just ran with it.”
Still, it’s hard to dismiss the benefits of going with Carter, who has a year of experience in the system and even came up with some big wins in what became the Panthers’ SWAC Championship and subsequent Celebration Bowl appearance last season. Carter was 2-1 as a starter last season, guiding PV to victories over Northwestern State and Grambling State while also having some moments in the loss against Rice.
“He is more comfortable today than he was then,” Jackson said. “He is better acclimated to the way the program works than he was then. Tevin was just kind of in here.”
Buckner agrees.
“Tevin is very smart, and he has been around me the longest, so he knows what I’m thinking,” Buckner said. “Kaeden is a killer, and I think Preston is a game manager.”
Jackson also sees a scenario where all three will play this season and may even start. He learned from coaching in the SWAC last season.
“All three of those guys have started games in college football,” Jackson said. “So for me, when you look at the climate and the state of college football, everybody is going to pay for one guy who started games somewhere else, and they go and steal them. We are fortunate enough to have guys who have started games here, started games in Division II, and started games in the Lone Star in Division II.
“I don’t know many rosters where you can say you’ve got guys who have started games, in your backup rolls, and all the way to your three game (third string). Normally on this level, the third guy is a freshman who ain’t played. You are getting a very inexperienced guy.”
