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Tennessee State football will hold its first scrimmage of the 2024 preseason Saturday at Hale Stadium.
Coach Eddie George heads into his fourth season with hopes the Tigers will be able to post back-to-back winning records for the first time since going 7-4 in 2016 and 6-5 in 2017. TSU was 6-5 last season.
Here are the three key things George will focus on in the scrimmage, which is closed to the public:
Steady quarterbacking
Draylen Ellis is preparing for his third season as the starting quarterback for the Tigers and George expects to see a maturity and consistency that has been missing throughout Ellis’ career.
While he has shown glimpses of being a quarterback capable of getting TSU out of the offensive funk it has been in the past six seasons, he has not played well for long stretches. The Tigers haven’t finished higher than fifth place in total offense in the Ohio Valley Conference (now the Big South/OVC) since 2017.
George believes Ellis will benefit from the offense that was installed in the spring under new coordinator and quarterbacks coach Travis Partridge, who spent the previous two seasons at UT Martin.
“We’ve got someone (Partridge) who’s played the position so he’s calling the game from the quarterback’s eyes,” George said. “He’s developed quarterbacks. You look at his pedigree at UT Martin over the last couple of years. He took (Dresser Winn) out of the (transfer) portal in July and made him all-conference. Draylen has really taken to being a student of the game because of that.”
Ellis, who has started 16 in games, completed 103 of 196 passes for 1,075 yards and five touchdowns last season and rushed for 252 yards and five touchdowns.
George said Tevin Carter, a transfer from Memphis who played in six games for the Tigers, will take snaps with the second-team offense. Ryder Hagan, a redshirt freshman from…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/three-things-eddie-george-looking-100751312.html
Author : The Tennessean
Publish date : 2024-08-09 10:07:51
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