The Tulane Green Wave's quarterback competition is over, and head coach Will Hall delved into the why behind naming Zeon Chriss-Gremillion.
New Orleans, La. – The Tulane Green Wave had their first day of camp where the starting quarterback wasn’t up for debate on Tuesday. It wasn’t an entirely exciting practice with it running a little less than an hour, as was intended on the schedule this week.
But it felt like things definitively changed from “fall camp” mode to transitioning into season prep.
There was no individual period and they weren’t in full pads. They started breaking off and looked like they were clearly working on some schemes and stuff to run ahead of their season opener against the Duke Blue Devils.
What the practice did offer was some insight from head coach Will Hall in his post practice remarks to media on his decision to go with Zeon Chriss-Gremillion for Week 1 ahead of Kadin Semonza.
Namely, Hall wanted to dispel the “misnomer out there that he's not a good thrower.”
We don’t get access to this type of stuff without the tape to look back on, but Hall explained that Chriss-Gremillion had a 73 percent completion percentage in spring camp and a 68 percent completion rate through fall camp.
He also pointed to him having less turnovers as being a factor in the decision, and that certainly is a trait that matters.
Something Hall honed in on all of camp was the quarterbacks’ eyes, and he felt that Chriss-Gremillion has been "extremely right” with his.
To Hall, he felt like everyone was winning the competition more so than them all losing it, pointing to how strong of competitors Semonza and freshman Trace Johnson were in pushing him, and that pointing to how strong of a football player Chriss-Gremillion is in light of that.
It’ll be curious to see in Wednesday’s practice session that should be longer how he takes command of the offense, and what it looks like with a primary driver in the seat.
Obviously, an element of that that won’t be fully illuminated until the opener is Chriss-Gremillion’s running abilities and how that will play into the run game for Tulane that includes a Superback position, to the point where the released depth chart had 13 positions on offense listed.
But that wasn’t the reason that Chriss-Gremillion won out, and Hall was clear to point to his lack of turnovers and accuracy as the primary decision makers.
What will be interesting to watch this week is how his leadership unfolds. Now that he’s in the driver’s seat, that element is as important as the play on the field, especially looking back at the strong leadership the Green Wave have enjoyed at that position for the last several years.
That may take until adversity hits in a game setting, but now that it’s Chriss-Gremillion’s team, it’ll be curious to watch how he shapes that.
