[Fitzgerald] Athlon: 20 Players on the Rise Entering 16-17 Bowl Season

[Lloyd Christmas]

Link (http://athlonsports.com/college-football/20-players-rise-entering-college-footballs-2016-17-bowl-season)


Nick Fitzgerald, QB, Mississippi State: Replacing Dak Prescott - the best player in school history - wasn't going to be easy for coach Dan Mullen. While the Bulldogs had their share of ups and downs on offense, this unit came alive late in the season. Fitzgerald settled into the starting role and Mississippi State scored at least 35 points in five out of the final six games. The sophomore accounted for 367 total yards in the 55-20 win over rival Ole Miss and 391 in the Bulldogs' 35-28 upset against Texas A&M. Fitzgerald is a rising star to watch this postseason and should begin 2017 as one of the top quarterbacks in the SEC.

[RougeDawg]

But he doesn't even make any All SEC team. Someone needs to do the math because it must be common core math where your answer is correct if you explain how you obtained it.

[Jack Lambert]

He will be preseason all SEC. Probably 2nd team.

[ShotgunDawg]

He will be preseason all SEC. Probably 2nd team.

That will ruffle some Bear feathers.

Who knows though, once the bowl ban & scholly hit comes around next Summer, they may not care about football anymore

[Bothrops]

Athlon knows who Nick Fitzgerald is? That's amazing!

[Chip]

While the final record wasn't what we'd hoped it to be, it was a good season for building confidence through reps for Fitz. You could see his confidence gaining as the season progressed. The bowl practices will help that as well. Quarterback is such a pivotal role in college football, and his experience and confidence gained from this year bodes well for 2017 and 2018. We should then have a sophomore in Thompson in 2019 that will have played sparingly (hopefully) as his back-up, but will have filled out and learned the playbook, the pre-snap reads, and the QB progressions to be successful as well.

After the USA game boink off the upright, when everyone was in a panic and ready to fire Mullen, it was important to remain calm, realize that things are never as good nor as bad as you think they are, and to stay the course of the re-build and get Thompson signed and enrolled. I think that's still the right course, especially considering what is happening with the course of investigation at Ole Miss. Note that since then LSU has fired a coach, fans in Arkansas, A&M, and even Auburn are 50/50 on their current HC. Stability in a coaching staff means alot. Fitz in the meantime has come on and has us under good on-the-field leadership and should win a lot of games given how important QB play is in this league, until it's Thompson's turn.

TL/DR: Fitz is the next man up, and doing well. Dan has worked through the re-building year at QB, and is signing possibly his best QB yet. Relax.