Can Patterson be ready?
I'm sure for close to 3 months that Patterson has gotten very limited reps in practice. Why would he? He's redshirting, right? I wonder how much he has had real, substantive practice the last few months. Throwing him out there in 3 SEC games with little practice or preparation would seem to be a bad decision to me.
This seems to be a massive screw up by Freeze from the start of the year if he plays Patterson now. If he plays Patterson, that means Patterson was clearly the number 2 QB on the team all along. But, he made a decision that he would try to get through the season with only one QB - knowing Kelly was a big part of their run game as well as their pass game. Imagine if Ole Miss were where they thought they were going to be - sitting with a chance to compete for Atlanta this late in the year - and then Kelly is hurt. If that was the case, Ole Miss was 8-1 or 7-2 with Texas A&M coming up and Kelly out. You know this kid has truly been your second QB but haven't played him or prepared him because you hoped Kelly could play all year without getting hurt? He's going to go in to that kind of game not having Patterson game ready - with that much on the line for Ole Miss? If he was the number 2 all along, he should have played and gotten spot duty here and there in games and gotten more reps in practice. Regardless of how it works out, his whole handling of Patterson this year is ridiculous if you take the redshirt off now.