Alabama State, Southern QBs getting it done when it counts

By JOSEPH SCHIEFELBEIN, Advocate sportswriter

If a Southwestern Athletic Conference starting quarterback is described as “nonchalant,” Southern fans might assume the description was being hung on their new guy, Bryant Lee.

Alabama State fans, meanwhile, think of their new guy, Chris Mitchell.

Either fan base is right.
Neither quarterback wowed their coaches in practices, and both are laid-back. Then again, both are winners who don’t rattle easily and have already led several come-from-behind wins.

Both lead 4-0 teams into Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. Gulf Coast Classic clash at Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile, Ala.

Mitchell, a transfer from East Mississippi Community College after playing for LeFlore High in Mobile, Ala., has led four fourth-quarter comebacks for Alabama State (4-0, 3-0 Southwestern Athletic Conference), which plays SU (4-0, 2-0) at 2:30 p.m. in Ladd-Peebles Stadium.

“This is us,” Mitchell said. “We’ve got a bad habit of playing so close, but this is what I love about this team. We play all the way until the end.

“(The fourth quarter is) when we have to buckle down. We know what we have to do.”

Mitchell is 46-for-81 (56.8 percent) for 621 yards, five touchdowns and four interceptions.

“He has that personality,” Alabama State head coach Reggie Barlow said. “It’s kind of nonchalant. It doesn’t seem like a whole lot bothers him. He’s always the same: never too high, never too low. I guess that’s a good thing. It’s been working for him so far.”

While Mitchell came off the bench in the second quarter of the season opener, SU began the transition to sophomore Lee late last season.

Lee is 5-1 as a starter (6-1 if given the win for his comeback against Texas Southern). He has won his last five starts.

SU head coach Pete Richardson said pretty much the same thing about Lee. In fact, Richardson earlier this season delivered a description of Lee that sounded nearly word for word like Barrow’s summation of Mitchell: “He’s a nonchalant individual. He’s not going to say a lot. The thing about him, you watch him practice and you swear he can’t play.

“But you put him out there (Saturday) and all of a sudden the lights go on. That’s all you’re looking for.”

Lee is 83-for-126 (65.9 percent) for 870 yards, nine touchdowns and no interceptions.

Lee has led Southern to second-half comebacks over Texas Southern, Grambling, Florida A&M and Tennessee State.

“The kid is just calm, cool and collected,” SU offensive coordinator Mark Orlando said. “When you play in the championship game in high school in the Superdome (leading Hahnville High over Evangel Christian Academy in 2003), he’s just a kid who’s a gamer on a Saturday night. You can’t ask for anything else.

“He doesn’t get rattled out there, doesn’t let anything get to him — coaches, players, fans. He plays his game, stays focused on what he’s doing.”

Both quarterbacks are still learning.
Mitchell, being a transfer, has had less time to learn than Lee, in his third season at SU. And Barlow even said Mitchell didn’t practice well in preseason camp. The staff even talked to him about showing a little more pep.

But when returning starter Alex Engram struggled in the opener, Mitchell came in and did fine.

“Real confident kid,” Barlow said. “He doesn’t get rattled by a whole lot. We just want him to continue to learn our system. We need him to learn and grow up even more.”

Lee was third on the depth chart — behind J.C. Lewis and C.J. Byrd — last season and he held off surging Warren Matthews for the No. 1 job in preseason camp.

“He’s really improving, feeling a little more comfortable in the system,” Orlando said. “He did some things well (Saturday) night that he hadn’t done in the previous three games.

“He’s focused in on what he’s got to do, 100 percent.”