Southern Miss offense shines during first scrimmage of spring practice
Southern Miss football reached a spring milestone in practice No. 10 with the first scrimmage of 2023 on Saturday.
The quarterback race was on display, as was an especially explosive offense led by familiar faces with experience in head coach Will Hall’s system and a pair of new-to-the-offense signal-callers who are still tightly locked in a battle for the starting job.
Incumbent starter Zach Wilcke is joined by Houston transfer Holman Edwards and former Clemson Tiger Billy Wiles to form a three-man race that represents the first true battle at the position in Hall’s tenure.
“I thought all of them played good,” Hall said of his quarterbacks after the scrimmage. “I thought we made some explosive plays. I thought our eyes were right. I thought we made throws that were hard to make. Edwards and Wilcke early on played really well. Billy had some good drives in there, early on. We’re just playing at a high level right there. ... We’ve got a chance to be pretty good at quarterback.”
The trio led an offense that struck on several chunk plays, including three touchdown passes and long runs from Antavious Willis and Memphis transfer Dreke Clark.
Wilcke tossed a pair of scores, one to Zay Franks, while Holman found Jakarius Caston through the air and scored on a quarterback scramble from the 10-yard line.
The unit played well against a defense that was without a handful of starters for either rest or continued recovery from prior injuries, most of them from the linebacker group.
Backers T.Q. Newsome, Hayes Maples, Swayze Bozeman, Josh Carr and defensive lineman Jalen Williams were held out.
The offense was further helped by an offensive line that kept the quarterbacks clean for much of the scrimmage. The unit returns four starters and is in Year Three of its gradual progression.
“It’s really just an accumulation over a three-year period and development over a three-year period,” Hall said. “To be good at O-line in the Group of Five, you need to develop. Well, to develop you have to have time to develop. So we’ve recruited really well and we’ve developed really well. Now we have time. ... They’ve had a great spring. We got to continue to improve, but they are and I’m really proud of the progress we’ve made right there.”
The front five saw growth in 2022 under then-first year offensive line coach Sam Gregg, with team yards per carry improving from 3.12 to 3.83 and sacks allowed from 44 to 34.
Hall is expecting further improvement from the unit this year.
Among the other standouts was sophomore wide receiver Ty Mims, who excelled in punt return with a pair of long returns and one score.
Mims first burst onto the scene when he was inserted into the starting lineup for injured slot receiver Caston midway through last season.
Caston, who now wears No. 1, has fully recovered from his hamstring injury and believes a mature battle at quarterback and an older offense has made a difference in how practice feels now than it did a year ago.
“Last year we had some (quarterbacks) who were nervous or scared to make a throw,” Caston said. “This year, they’re going to let it go. We’re getting quicker with passes and learning plays. As long as we get the plays down quick, we’ll play faster.”
The only known injury from the scrimmage was an apparent right shoulder injury suffered by running back Kenyon Clay, who had to sit out for the remainder of the practice.
According to Hall, Wiles is nursing an oblique injury and is not yet 100%.
Southern Miss has four more scheduled practices with another scrimmage set for April 1.
This story was originally published March 25, 2023 at 2:52 PM.
