Sports

Quarterback shuffle leaves questions on the offensive play style

Quarterbacks Charles Wright and Geremy Hickbottom. Jada Stokes/The Gramblinite

The Grambling State football team has played very well as of late, after starting the season off poorly.

After winning three straight games after a four loss streak to start the season, the G-Men have shuffled around the young quarterback group during the Alabama A&M game, the team’s second win of the year, looking for a perfect fit.

Junior returning starting quarterback Geremy Hickbottom has seen most of the time in the first six games of the season. However, the Tigers looked to backup quarterback Charles Wright early in the game against Alabama A&M University after a shaky start from Hickbottom who threw an early interception which allowed Alabama A&M to have a potential scoring opportunity.

Wright, a redshirt senior came in but was later benched in the third quarter after a fumble which led the game to be tied at 10-10.

Wright completed 13-19 for 98 yards right before being benched for the starter Geremy Hickbottom. 

Hickbottom then returned to the game but then threw another interception in the red zone which led coach Fobbs to pull the him again and insert sophomore third string quarterback Aldon Clark.

Clark couldn’t seem to find any rhythm as well with the offense going three and out. Which led them to bring back Hickbottom.

They finished the game with running the ball eight out of nine times and eventually got the game winning score by sophomore running back Jakarie Nichols.

With being benched throughout the game and having an underwhelming performance, the Tigers went back to the starter Geremy Hickbottom against the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff last week.

The quarterback had one of his more impressive games of this season after throwing 19-33, 248 yards and two touchdowns, while also running for 45 yards and a touchdown.

The quarterback discussion seems to be on pause for now. With performances like what Hickbottom displayed against UAPB it will be very difficult to move on to another quarterback.

The Tigers look to build off the performance from Hickbottom this week and take the next step of securing his quarterback job against the winless Texas Southern football team.

During this stretch of conference games to close out the season it will be interesting to see what direction the quarterback trends to from week to week and the strides he continues to make.

The G-Men must continue to build off of their performances each week and show steady improvements especially from the quarterback position if they are to seriously compete for the SWAC title.