Despite promising performances from the Lobos' two young quarterbacks in Saturday's Cherry-Silver game, UNM head football coach Rocky Long says the starting job still belongs to incumbent senior Casey Kelly.
"Neither one of the other quarterbacks have proved they're better than Casey," Long said. "When you're the starting quarterback, they have to prove they're better than you in order to become the starting quarterback."
Playing for the Silver team - which rolled to a 26-6 victory - junior transfer Tali Ena began making his case for starting quarterback on just the second play from scrimmage. On a routine screen pass, Ena hooked up with senior receiver Adrian Boyd, who scampered 80 yards for a touchdown.
Ena took every snap for the Silver and looked fairly confident running the offense.
"I feel like I've got a good grip on the offense," Ena said. "I have good chemistry with some of the starters."
He finished the game with five completions in 12 attempts, good for 119 yards and the touchdown to Boyd.
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"I'm most comfortable with anything that's got to do with throwing the ball," Ena said. "And getting the running backs some yards, too. Pretty much everything but the option. I'm not an option guy."
Ena added that getting the win was of equal importance to his promising statistics.
"This is what I've been waiting for," he said. "I've won all my scrimmages - I'm 3-0. I don't know what that means to everyone else, but I'm winning and that's what I wanted to do."
A quarterback by committee was the Cherry squad's game plan, with Kelly and redshirt freshman Kole McKamey splitting duties.
In limited action, mostly in the first half, Kelly was 1-6 for five yards. He also rushed for 12 on a quarterback draw up the middle.
Taking over for good in the third quarter, McKamey began to hit his stride with a 9-yard bullet to junior tight-end Mike Augustyniak.
On the Cherry's next possession, McKamey aired things out, connecting with senior wide receiver Rashaun Sanders on back-to-back passes for 27 and 38 yards. Late in the fourth quarter, McKamey hit Sanders again, this time for a 45-yard touchdown.
McKamey said he was excited to be playing in front of several hundred of the Lobo faithful.
"I think a lot of it was just the competition and the fans being out there hyping it up," he said. "This is the end of spring ball. It's kind of a climax here, so it was a little bit of both."
Finishing the game with six completions on nine attempts, one touchdown and an interception, McKamey said he was pretty comfortable with the offense overall.
Between now and the beginning of fall practice, he added that learning complex defensive schemes will be his biggest challenge.
"In college, you get five or six different defenses thrown at you in one game," McKamey said. "So, just knowledge of all the different coverages and blitzes you'll see and just knowing where to go from there."
Long said it was good to see "both our backup quarterbacks get a lot of reps. I thought both of them did good things at times. I thought Kole really threw the ball well near the end of the game."
Competition for the starting job will continue through the first 10 days of two-a-day practices, Long said. He added that Kelly will remain the starting quarterback in the fall but said he liked the way McKamey and Ena played.
"It's nice to have three of them instead of just one," Long said.
