Cowboys quarterback room growing as off-season rolls along

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) -The McNeese Cowboys have a lot of new faces in multiple different position groups, and that includes maybe most importantly quarterback.

This season just like the last, the Cowboys have two transfers vying for the starting job as Iowa State transfer Nate Glantz and Tusculum University transfer Tre Simmons have been competing for the job since the spring.

“The most important thing in this competition is protecting the football for sure, we got to make sure that we are making good decisions back there, they both go have strong arms and are both athletic, it’s neck and neck and I know you all probably think I’m just saying that, but it really is,” said head coach of the Cowboys Gary Goff. “It will be a very difficult decision for us, and that’s a good thing, they’re pretty advanced as far as they’ve been here in the spring and all summer, so they do know the offense pretty well, so I think it’s more them building a rapport with those receivers.”

Both signal callers have built a strong relationship with all the quarterbacks within the room, and Simmons harped on the importance of trying to make every player within that position group better.

“We come to compete every day, our coach gets us all going and makes each of us better every day in the room,” said Simmons. “We’re getting better together as an offense and we’re getting better by the day, if we make a mistake we correct it the next day, so we’re just improving as a room, and as a program right now in general.”

Glantz grew up in Nebraska watching Cornhuskers football, and he immediately found similarities with McNeese fans as he has ingratiated himself into the community.

“As I’ve come to Lake Charles, I’ve already had a chance to interact with some of these fans, and they’ve been nothing but amazing and I just want them to know that we’re here to win now and at the end of the day this whole program is brought in,” said Glantz. “We just want to win and it’s not about one single person, but I want them to know that we’re all motivated and we’ve been going up this thing since January 5. when the national championship and the Jacks held up that title, we were watching the game, and the next morning we had a 5:00 am workout, so I just hope they know that were humble, hungry, and motivated to just come and turn this place around.”

Coach Goff expects the quarterback battle to persist in the later parts of the summer, but he expects to have an answer before the Cowboys open up their season on September 2. against Tarleton State.