Southern Miss QB room shaping up nicely during spring ball

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (WDAM) - Will Hall described the Southern Miss quarterback room as “comforting.”

Sophomore Zach Wilcke is back after eight starts as a freshman. Billy Wiles and Holman Edwards transferred in this spring and all three are competing for the starting job.

“If you don’t have competition are you really getting better?” Edwards said.

“Yeah it’s fun, because that’s exactly what it does,” Wiles said. “It elevates everyone in the room. My best friends really, so being able to compete with them every day has been really fun. We’re all getting better from it.”

Wiles almost ended up at Tulane out of Stone Bridge High School in Virginia, recruited by Hall when he was the Green Wave’s offensive coordinator.

But when Hall went to USM, Wiles went to Clemson as a preferred walk-on, earning a scholarship in 2022.

Edwards is a French Camp native who played two years at East Central Community College and one season at Houston.

The newbies have described Hall’s offense as ‘QB-friendly.’

“[Hall] played quarterback, he knows how we think,” Wiles said. “The way we read stuff and the way we see it, he knows what we’re seeing so he just knows how to design it to help us in that way.”

“Compared to the offenses that I’ve been in, more control over what’s going on so you know more of what’s happening,” Edwards said. “You get to decide kind of how you want things to happen and there’s always an answer.”

The spring answered a few of Hall’s questions about his new additions at quarterback, noting how much more efficient the Golden Eagles look in the red zone.

An experienced offensive line should help the transition under center.

“They’re really good at the things you can’t see – protection checks, run checks, functionality behind the O-line,” Hall said. “They’re very accurate. They’ve really upgraded the talent in that room and upgraded the standard, too I think as well. It’s been fun to coach ‘em and fun to watch ‘em.”

Hall will have to wait until fall to further evaluate the most important position on the field. But he feels a lot better about that room headed into his third season.

“We can be as good as we want to be,” Wiles said. “Every one on the offense works hard, we all want it. We have a lot of talent. We can go win the conference if we want to and we will. We can work hard and we’ll go do it.”

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