There’s no question about who the Eskimos’ starting quarterback will be this season.
Trevor Harris, a CFL free agent signed in February 2019, passed for 4,027 yards and 16 touchdowns in a little more than 12 games last year, completing 71.8 per cent of his passes despite suffering an arm injury in mid-season.
The 33-year-old eight-year veteran also broke his own CFL playoff record by completing 36 of 39 passes (92 per cent) – hitting on 22 straight pass attempts at one point – as the Eskimos defeated the Montreal Alouettes in the East Division semifinal.
While Harris’s job is secure, there should be plenty of competition going on behind him with five different quarterbacks trying to earn the Eskimos’ backup position:
- 2019 backup Logan Kilgore, a 29-year-old pivot who hadn’t thrown a CFL pass since 2016, made five starts and played in six games down the stretch as the Esks secured a cross-over playoff berth last year.
- Former Montreal Alouettes QB Antonio Pipkin is six-foot-three, 225 pounds and only 24 years old. A three-year CFL veteran, he played in six games in 2018 and parts of the first three games last year before Vernon Adams Jr. earned the Als’ starting job.
- Jeremiah Briscoe, 26, is also six-foot-three and 225 pounds. He threw only two passes – both against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Oct. 4 – during his rookie season with the Eskimos. While in college at Sam Houston State, he became only the second player to win the Walter Payton Award (as the most outstanding offensive player in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision) two times.
- Troy Williams, 25, joined the Eskimos on June 2, 2019, after spending some time with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks in 2018. Williams, six-foot-two, 208 pounds, played in two games last year, rushing nine times for 18 yards against the BC Lions and completing one of three passes for 15 yards against the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
- The newest QB on the roster is 24-year-old Bryan Scott, a six-foot-two, 220-pounder who was part of the Eskimos’ expanded practice roster late last season. Scott played at Occidental College, a NCAA Division III school in Los Angeles. He was named Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Player of the Year in 2016.
