Preseason Football – Mackey takes first snaps on offense

Petre Thomas | The Daily Mississippian
Randall Mackey passes during the scrimmage Saturday.
Mackey took the first snaps on Tuesday.

By David Henson

The Ole Miss football team hit the practice field again Tuesday in preparation for the season opener against BYU on Sept. 3.

Head coach Nutt said the goal of Tuesday’s practice was to put the team in game-like situations.

“We put our guys in a lot of situations today,” Nutt said. “We put them in one coming off of the goal line, put them in one going into the red zone, goal line offense and we worked on two-minute drills.

“We are just trying to play the game and put them in different situations. I thought they responded for the most part but we just have to continue to get better.”

Nutt said that last Saturday’s scrimmage did not result in deciding on a starting quarterback. While sophomore Barry Brunetti has been the first to go in fall practice, juniors Randall Mackey and Zack Stoudt have also shared time with the first-team offense in fall practice. On Tuesday, however, Mackey took the first snaps.

“I like all three of them,” Nutt said of his quarterbacks. “I’m not afraid to put any of them into the game. All of them are competing very hard. Mackey has really stepped it up these past two days.

Nutt said that Mackey has stepped it up over the past few days, and that he was looking forward to the next scrimmage.

“They have all gotten better,” Nutt said. “They know they are in a battle.”

While he had talked about potentially having a second scrimmage Wednesday afternoon, Nutt said he decided to just have the scrimmage Saturday evening.

Other notes

Freshman defensive back Senquez Golson, who turned down the Boston Red Sox on Monday night, is expected to return Wednesday. 

Sophomore Patrick Junen was back with the first-team offense at left guard Tuesday, after working behind freshman Aaron Morris on Monday.