ForumsThe full-fledged quarterback controversy is official.
Today, during his media press conference, Derek Dooley named Tyler Bray as the starting quarterback for Saturday’s game against Memphis.
“We’re going to start Tyler Bray this week,” Dooley announced. “I just feel like that’s the best thing for our team right now.”
“I had a real good conversation with Matt, and Matt is a team guy. Matt’s a high character guy. Matt’s a competitor and Matt’s emotional. He was very apologetic for what happened after the game, and I really respect the fact that he came to me and said that.”
Dooley made it clear that Simms’ comments after the loss to South Carolina weren’t a factor in his decision to name Bray as the starter.
“The decision, just as an aside, has nothing to do with the comments. It’s strictly a business evaluation of our team and where we need to go.”
Against the Gamecocks, Simms completed 10 of 13 passes for 153 yards and a touchdown; but he also committed two costly fumbles.
Meanwhile, after throwing an interception that was returned for a touchdown on his first pass attempt of the game, Tyler Bray finished 9 of 15 for 159 yards and two touchdowns.
Dooley empathized with Simms’ frustration and explained, even though Matt isn’t starting, his services will be needed on Saturday.
“I wouldn’t expect a quarterback to be happy about getting pulled out of a game, but I do believe that he’ll be a great team player,” Dooley said. “We are going to need Matt and I told him that.”
“It’s not necessarily that Tyler has done everything he should do to earn a spot. It’s just that’s the decision we are making. It may be four series into the game, or three series into the game, we’ve gotta go to Matt. We’ll just let the game dictate that and see how Tyler handles the starting role.”
Dooley cited sacks and turnovers as primary reasons for the change.
“We’ve won two games,” Dooley said. “Even though we’ve showed some signs of doing a lot better things against a good team last week, we have a lot of sacks and turnovers. That’s not to say it’s Matt’s fault, but we just feel like we need to change things up to try to eliminate some of the bad plays that are happening.”
“When you have the number of sacks that we’ve had — and turnovers — even an extremely deep, experienced, talented team would be losing. So, we can’t afford to have anything like that.”
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