LSU Football: It's Time to Name Brandon Harris the 2015 Starting Quarterback

BATON ROUGE, La. — When their players come off the field, LSU head coach Les Miles and offensive coordinator Cam Cameron can often tell a lot just from the look in the quarterback’s eyes.

Sometimes they see how little he understands about what had just occurred. Much more desirable is poise and confidence, even when things didn’t go as well as planned.

They’re beginning to see that from a quarterback during training camp this fall, only it’s not the guy who started all but one game last season.

“It really doesn’t matter if they make a decision the day of the game, tomorrow, it doesn’t matter,” sophomore Brandon Harris said about his quarterback competition with junior Anthony Jennings. “You’ve got to go out there and perform to keep your spot, and if you don’t, you’ll be sitting on the sideline when somebody else is playing.”

That’s the kind of thing a player who’s figured some things out would say, and Harris clearly has.

While Miles called Harris “a little bit more explosive,” Jennings “a little more veteran” and might soon be calling freshman Justin McMillan a little bit of a phenom, it’s becoming more and more obvious who’s going to be behind center for the opener against McNeese State on Sept. 5 (7:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network).

Harris, who is beginning to fulfill his potential as a big, mobile quarterback with a strong arm, has earned it—or at least is well on his way to doing so.

Considering LSU’s schedule, with a Week 2 visit to Mississippi State followed by Auburn visiting Tiger Stadium, and how every practice can only help him and build the confidence of the other players, the sooner the better. Unless something dramatic happens during the next few days, the latest Miles ought to tell Harris is after the next scrimmage.

“Great improvement” was how Cameron described Harris since the end of last season, while Miles said the difference was “night and day” from last year’s Auburn game, when Harris’ first career start was a game he’d like to forget. 

The week before, the then-freshman had come off the bench to lead the offense to two touchdowns on seven straight possessions against New Mexico State, but during the 41-7 loss to Auburn, he completed just three of 14 passes for 58 yards before getting pulled early in the second half.

Gerald Herbert/Associated Press

“You have to realize this, Brandon came from a system in high school that had him primarily in the shotgun, and second they were running 100 plays a game,” Cameron said. “They were the equivalent of a guy going to the driving range and firing bucket after bucket of balls. ‘If I miss one I’ll fire another one.’ An incompletion really didn’t have any value.

“I can’t tell you how many times I saw Brandon Harris complete 4th-and-10. Multiple times. So now after the Auburn experience, you throw one incompletion and you punt, and you sit over there and then you throw a second incompletion and punt...the next thing you know you’re playing from behind. I think he has a greater appreciation of how important each rep is, and that’s a young-guy thing.”

The knock on Harris in 2014 was his youth and not fully understanding the offense, causing Cameron to scale the playbook way down for him. He played sparingly the rest of the season and finished completing 25 of 45 attempts for 452 yards, with six touchdowns and two interceptions in nine games.

Jennings was 111-of-227 (48.9 percent) for 1,611 yards, with 11 touchdowns and seven interceptions, for a passer efficiency rating of 118.3 that ranked 12th among Southeastern Conference starters and 83rd in the nation. The lack of consistency at the position was a huge reason why LSU finished 8-5 and tied for fourth in the SEC West.

Consequently, the quarterback competition resumed in the spring, and they were considered neck-and-neck when Jennings was suspended following a June arrest for alleged breaking and entering. Because he wasn’t reinstated until just before the start of training camp, Harris led the seven-on-seven drills during the summer.

“The guys really bought in,” Harris said. “The receivers fought hard this summer. I was tough on them by asking a lot of things, getting them up and having them catch passes with me every chance I got.

“They’ve had a great summer as well as fall camp.”

During Sunday’s media day at the LSU football complex, Harris was one of the first players to walk in, and the majority of reporters on hand immediately swarmed him. More than 45 minutes later, after every one of his teammates had already left, a school official finally pulled him out.

Harris answered every question, even the loaded ones. He talked about adding 18 pounds to get his weight up near 210, working with a quarterback coach on his own time and how he was completely staying away from the distractions of social media. Just about every time Harris could have answered a question with the word “I,” he instead used “we.”

In short, Harris hasn’t been waiting for the coaches to tell him he’s the starting quarterback. He’s acting as if he already has the job. 

Harris has been getting more snaps with the first unit during practices and, according to James Smith of the Times-Picayune, even addressed the offense at Saturday’s scrimmage.

Miles would only state that the quarterbacks as a whole completed 20 of 34 attempts, with five passes dropped, but Cameron’s description of Harris’ performance was: “Nice first series and then had to go over and stand for about eight plays. Came out and was right on rhythm starting the second series, was completion, completion, got his eight-play series in and threw a touchdown.”

Harris said he was pleased with “not trying to look for home run shots down the field every play,” using his checkdowns and getting the ball to his running backs in open space.

Those are all signs of a quarterback beginning to come of age, which, with LSU’s talent at all of the other playmaker positions, could make a tremendous difference this season.

That doesn’t mean that Cameron won’t continue to get all three of his quarterbacks ready to play, even McMillan, who has already shown a knack for making big plays.

“Justin McMillan stepped in last night and—bam—touchdown,” Cameron said about the scrimmage. “Two plays later—bam—touchdown. He’s improving. He’s learning.”

Yet for now he’s playing the role of the promising skinny freshman, the quarterback of tomorrow, similar to what Harris was this time a year ago.

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Christopher Walsh is a lead SEC college football writer. Follow Christopher on Twitter @WritingWalsh.