Are We Forgetting About Grant Tisdale's Shot in the Ole Miss QB Competition?

Talk regarding the Ole Miss quarterback room seems to involve only two names. Are Rebel fans forgetting about Grant Tisdale?

The Ole Miss quarterback competition is wide open. And it's not just a two-man race. 

There's so much uncertainty. March and April were supposed to be the times in which Kiffin and the Rebel coaching staff finally got their hands on their new team for an extended period of time. Coming to Oxford in December, essentially all they've had to this point is tape. With the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down spring football, they still have no real idea of what any of these players will look like in their schemes.

At no position will this be more obvious than at quarterback. 

To this point, conversations about that quarterback room coming from both the fan and the media perspective have centered around two guys: John Rhys Plumlee and Matt Corral. It's fair and logical – these are the two guys that started games last year and have experience. 

But are we overlooking the former four-star recruit that redshirted last season, Grant Tisdale?

Bye week means a chance to catch up with Grant Tisdale, the guy that sometimes seems lost in the shuffle of this weird #OleMiss quarterback situation pic.twitter.com/TZKK43n0Iq

— Nathanael Gabler (@nategabler) October 23, 2019

Kiffin has not spoken in much specifics about the quarterback position since taking the job. This makes sense, he's never actually had time to get to know them in a practice setting. Like every other position, the quarterback spot is said to be a completely open competition when football camps resume later this summer. 

"With baseball that's going to be tough to evaluate that with John (Rhys Plumlee) playing baseball, and we want that to be his first priority and he'll go with that, whatever time he has left he'll come to us," Kiffin said in February. "I'm excited to work with a lot of really young players at that position and two players that played a lot last year."

So yes, the only quarterback he really said by name in this quote from signing day is Plumlee. But he also said he's excited to work with a lot of young players at the position. I don't think we should rule Tisdale out quite yet. 

Tisdale redshirted in 2019, appearing in just one game – the fourth quarter of a blowout loss at Alabama. In that game, he went 2-2 passing for 56 yards, including a beautiful 28-yard touchdown pass down the right sideline with five seconds remaining in the game. The in-game sample size is far, far too small to draw any real conclusions from, but the one throw was a beauty. 

Coming out of high school, Tisdale was essentially just as highly recruited as Corral and Plumlee. Corral was the highest rated of the three, a top-100 prospect coming out of California in 2018, but all three were four-star rated by the 247Sports Composite score.

After a season in which he got lost in the shuffle behind Corral and later Plumlee, Tisdale entered the transfer portal on October 29. Later, on December 9, two days after Ole Miss hired Lane Kiffin to run the program, Tisdale announced that he would be returning to Ole Miss and competing for the job in 2020.

It's fair to assume Plumlee and Corral have a leg up on Tisdale entering the fall, just because they both have much more SEC experience under their belts. It's also worth mentioning the other names in the quarterback room: another redshirt freshman, Kinkead Dent, and Kiffin's hand-picked true freshman Kade Renfro. 

I won't say I wrote this whole story because of this one throw against Alabama, but I will say I think about this throw too much.https://t.co/o4EIfmQyoB pic.twitter.com/DMv5eS3vmt

— Nathanael Gabler (@nategabler) May 8, 2020

Yes, Plumlee and Corral have the experience, but everyone in the room is learning a brand new system this summer. That levels the playing field. 

Historically, Lane Kiffin has favored quarterbacks that are more accurate passers. That's not to say that he doesn't value athleticism at the position, but every starting quarterback under Kiffin since 2010 has had a completion percentage of 60-percent or higher. Even Jalen Hurts, a guy that is known as a running quarterback, passed that bar. 

Last year, John Rhys Plumlee completed only 52.7-percent of his throws. His value came with his legs. While quarterback rushing has value in Kiffin's offense, it may prove hard to beat out Corral, who's completed 60.5-percent of his throws at Ole Miss. He's simply a better thrower of the football. Tisdale, despite being a duel-threat recruit out of high school, is much closer to a Corral-level passer than a Plumlee-level passer. 

No one knows how the quarterback room will shape up over the coming three months. Not even Kiffin knows this. But ruling out Grant Tisdale as a possible starter in 2020 seems just silly at this point. 

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