Why Vanderbilt football is sticking with Ken Seals at quarterback vs. Ole Miss
Clark Lea promised before the team's open week to re-evaluate the quarterback situation afterward. The Vanderbilt football coach came back with the same conclusion he had before: Ken Seals deserved to start.
Seals, Lea said, deserved to be the starter due to his maturity, leadership and the way he had "injected life" into the Commodores.
"Leadership, first and foremost," Lea said Tuesday. "I think he's been a galvanizing presence. Obviously he's earned the respect of the program and how he battled adversity and kept a positive outlook. He does a great job taking ownership on the field on Saturdays, owns his mistakes, has good rapport with the receivers and just seems to have done a great job again, leading that unit."
And those are some of the reasons why Seals will start for the Commodores (2-6, 0-4 SEC) at Ole Miss (6-1, 3-1) on Saturday (6:30 p.m. CT, SEC Network).
Lea also said quarterback AJ Swann suffered a setback in his recovery from an elbow injury. Lea termed the issue that Swann is dealing with as "elbow soreness."
Lea is familiar with the difficulties of playing through injury for a quarterback; Seals himself dealt with multiple injuries and saw a drop in his performance in 2021. Still, despite the injury complications, this decision calls into question whether Swann, who originally took over the starting job four games into his true freshman season before suffering a concussion, is still the quarterback of the future. Seals and Swann both have two years of eligibility remaining.
"AJ is an incredibly talented player," Lea said. "It's young in his career still. Obviously, he wants to be the guy, as does Ken. ... I felt like he really responded well, in the last couple of weeks in terms of competition level, obviously the setback today with his elbow. He's got all the tools he needs to be our number one. He's still refining his process. And I know he's a great competitor. I know he's going to be going at it."
Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Why Vanderbilt football is sticking with Ken Seals vs. Ole Miss
