Lincoln Riley on his QBs: "These guys will be ready to play"
Despite the NCAA-mandated athletics shutdown in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Lincoln Riley says he’s not worried about his quarterbacks’ development heading into the 2020 season.
“Honestly, it’s a lot better than if it were last year for a lot of reasons,” Riley told Toby Rowland on KREF. “Our quarterbacks… neither one of them played a ton of snaps at the college level, but I wasn’t gonna be able to help that through spring practice and fall camp anyway. I mean, that’s not gonna change till we play games.”
Spencer Rattler, the Arizona wunderkind who came to Oklahoma as one of the most highly regarded prospects in school history, is expected to start in the fall. He saw action in a few early-season contests last year before taking a redshirt. But he’ll have to contend with Tanner Mordecai, the Waco product with two seasons in the system under his belt.
Riley played up the quarterback competition between Kyler Murray and Austin Kendall in 2018, and did the same with Jalen Hurts and Mordecai in 2019. Although it’s tough to imagine a world in which Mordecai beats out Rattler for the job, don’t expect Riley to officially name his starter for quite some time.
“The thing that is different this year is, these guys have both been in our system now for a while, they’ve been in our program now for a while.,” said Riley. “And you can tell. I mean, even in the one day of practice we got, I felt like we had two experienced guys.”
Riley expressed his belief that both players would use the hiatus to work individually and make progress. He concluded his remarks on Rattler and Mordecai with a final vote of confidence.
“These guys will be ready to play. I’ll be excited to get them back and get back to work with them.”
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