Creel Sets Completion Percentage Record to Earn MVP Honors

By Tim Gayle

Caden Creel didn’t have the flashy statistics that most players have who are considered for most valuable player honors.

Then again, the redshirt sophomore had the plays — and the statistics — that are indicative of his performance this season as Jacksonville State’s starting quarterback.

The Fairhope native directed his team on an early touchdown and rallied them late, helping the Gamecocks to a 17-13 win over Troy in the 12^th annual Salute to Veterans Bowl. The gritty, blue-collar performance by Creel earned the quarterback the Johnny Williams Most Valuable Player Award.

“Caden has performed great all year long,” Jax State coach Charles Kelly said. “He’s a great leader. He’s a great athlete. I wouldn’t trade him for anybody. Listen, you always want to go into a game with the same person you’d go into a fight with. And I’d take him. Every time.”

Creel, as he has in most of his nine starts for the Gamecocks, just made the plays he needed to. He was his own worst critic, especially on the five sacks by the Trojan defense, but he kept making plays to put his team in position to win.

“When you can stay ahead of the chains, Coach is going to give us four downs,” Creel said. “He’s an aggressive coach. We can’t have those penalties that set us back and I can’t take sacks or get tripped up on naked (bootlegs) and stuff like that.

“I do like to rely on my legs and make plays myself, but when there are certain things that are there, just put the ball in play and let my guys make plays, kind of like I did in the second half.”

On the Gamecocks’ first possession, he threw a slant-in to Deondre Johnson to move the ball into Trojan territory, then delivered a third-and-four pass to a wide-open Brock Rechsteiner for 22 yards and the game’s first points.

After the first possession, the Jax State offense was silent for the remainder of the first half, something for which Creel took the blame.

“A lot of those times when we have those lulls, it’s because we’re getting behind the chains,” Creel said. “A lot of that has to do with me and some of my mistakes, so I’ve got to be better in certain areas.”

Early in the third quarter, he hit Deondre Johnson on a third-and-nine play to keep the drive alive for a Garrison Rippa field goal and on the first play of the fourth quarter, he ran for seven yards on a third-and-three keeper that would later set up Andrew Paul’s 1-yard game winning touchdown.

In the end, his numbers were modest — 31 yards gained, 41 lost on five sacks, along with 173 passing yards. But he completed a bowl-record 70 percent of his passes (14 of 20) and won the statistic that mattered most in a four-point win.

He said earlier in the week his job was easy with Conference USA Player of the Year Cam Cook behind him, but with Cook sidelined by injury, Creel still delivered when it mattered most.

“This is his first time when he didn’t have that guy,” Kelly said. “I think there were some situations — he’ll go back and look at it — where he’ll say, you know what? I don’t need to do too much. Just trust my eyes. My eyes will tell me what to do. But his leadership, what he brought to the team … there was never a time throughout the game where we felt like we were going to lose the game. That’s what you’ve got to have in your quarterback. The speed of the leader determines the speed of the pack.”

Creel, not surprisingly, accepted his award modestly, then handed it to his defensive teammates. After wrapping up his first season of action at Jax State, he gave the credit to his coaching staff.

“We did have a lot of guys come in, but I think that just shows how good of a coach Coach Kelly and the rest of the staff are,” Creel said. “When you look around, one thing that stands out about our team is we’re always together and we’re never out of a game and I think a lot of that has to do with the coaches and the mentality they make us have.”