Could Arkansas Have a New Number 2 Quarterback?

Last week, against Auburn, Arkansas finally had their worst nightmare come to fruition with Austin Allen taking a knee injury. The coaches have started hinting they have a plan but it’s not what you might think.

Towards the end of fall practice, fans and media were discussing who would end up being the number two quarterback. Right before the season started, it was announced that Arkansas native Ty Storey would be the backup to Allen and freshman Cole Kelley would be taking a redshirt.

Austin Allen said earlier this week that he would be playing in two weeks against Florida but coaches haven’t confirmed. Bielema said that Cole Kelley is getting a lot of reps with Ty Storey. Dan Enos said they are splitting reps 50/50 this week. When asked if Storey was getting ready to fill the position for Allen, he replied “Him or Cole.”

Multiple media members and people close to the program said that they believed there were two different scenarios to take Austin off the field. The first one is if the Hogs are up by a large margin and they don’t need to risk getting him hurt. In this case, Storey comes in to get some reps and relieve Allen.

The second situation is what we have here. If Allen gets hurt and is going to miss multiple games, Cole Kelley loses the redshirt and takes the reigns. The reasons they didn’t do the this against Auburn when he got injured was because they were already too far down and didn’t know the severity of the injury to Austin.

So why name Storey to backup if there is a plan in place to not play him? Because if Austin didn’t get hurt, Kelley would get an extra year with the redshirt. I have been saying this would happen for a while. Kelley is bigger than Mallet was at 6’7″ 265 pounds and has a better command of the huddle. He is a better fit for an SEC team. Especially one that gets their QB hit as much as Arkansas.

I’m sure more will come out closer to the matchup with Florida. Enos already said that this is a totally different team without Austin. As much as I can’t wait to see the Kelley era, I really hope Allen can come back. As far as this season, he is the ONLY reason Arkansas has any chance.