Former Mississippi State QB Jack Abraham Talks Decision to Transfer to Mizzou
Jack Abraham is staying the SEC.
The former Mississippi State quarterback formally announced his decision to transfer to Missouri via Twitter on Monday after initially entering the transfer portal back in January.
The former Southern Miss signal-caller was in close competition with current Bulldogs starting quarterback Will Rogers before he was derailed by a head injury last year that left him with post-concussion syndrome and a long recovery time.
Abraham says that after he was granted a medical hardship waiver by the NCAA, he received the most attention from Ole Miss and Austin Peay. Interest from Mizzou came later on but obviously had a huge impact on his final decision.
"I heard from a couple others off and on, but those were the two that kind of stuck with me," Abraham told me Monday afternoon.
"I heard from the Mizzou receivers coach (Jacob Peeler) a couple months back or so. He said at that time they were in the market, but the talks didn't really heat up until really the last week and half, two weeks. They said they were really interested and wanted me to get out there and check out the place, so that's what I did this past weekend. Fell in love with it."
Abraham instantly felt a connection with the Tigers coaches when he arrived on campus and is confident he'll make a smooth transition after already playing under six offensive coordinators over his lengthy college career.
"I was able to talk to the quarterbacks coach, Bush Hamdan, for a good two hours on Saturday and the way he presented himself and seemed as a coach really fired me up because I could really see myself playing for him and having a successful year under him," Abraham said.
Mizzou's offensive scheme is a solid combination of a lot of the other playbooks Abraham has had to learn.
"The offense, a lot it is similar to other offenses I've been through," Abraham said. "There's Air Raid stuff, there's a lot of the same stuff I ran at Southern Miss for three years, dropback things, RPOs. At the end of the day it's just about going and learning a new terminology. A lot of the concepts are similar and I'm pretty good at learning a playbook now that I've learned six of them."
Abraham brings a lot to the table for Mizzou on top of his wealth of experience, and should be favored to win the starting job over sophomore Brady Cook, freshman Tyler Macon and freshman Sam Horn.
"Purely as a quarterback, I consider myself to be someone who is very accurate. I have really good timing and think I'm a good decision-maker -- no second-guessing," Abraham said. "I go into a game knowing what I'm getting. I spend a lot of time in the film room so I know what I'm facing each week. In terms of mobility, I can run a little bit if I need to, but that's not something I try to do a lot. I try to get that ball out my hands and into the hands of more athletic players."
How close he came to potentially becoming the starter for the Bulldogs is something that gives Abraham an extra boost mentally, even with all the adversity he has gone up against.
"I felt really good about it," Abraham said. "Through spring ball, I thought I was playing really well and I had a good spring game. Obviously, I was competing against a really good quarterback in Will Rogers, who turned out to have a great year. But I thought the competition was going about as well as it could have up until the point I was injured. It was a crazy freak situation that happened, and it sucks. But God has a plan for it all and it's starting to come into fruition at this point. So it's something I've kind of trusted in this whole time is that He has a plan for it all."
On his seventh and final season of eligibility after putting up big numbers like the ones at Southern Miss when he completed 69.3% of his passes for 7,067 yards with 41 touchdowns and 29 interceptions over three seasons, Abraham is eager to prove he can achieve success on college football's largest stage.
"Very important (to remain in the SEC)," Abraham said.
"I went to the SEC level to try for a job and squash any doubts that anyone would have about me and level of competition. If I can do it at this level, it gets rid of any doubts people might have had about me at the Group of Five level."
