Grambling lands Ole Miss transfer QB
Grambling's football team headed into the offseason without a starting quarterback for 2016.
It appears the Tigers may have found their guy after some splashy news hit the Internet late Saturday.
Former Ole Miss quarterback Devante Kincade, who served as the Rebels' third-string quarterback this year, announced he will transfer to play for Grambling. The sophomore spent the 2015 season behind Ole Miss starter Chad Kelly and backup Ryan Buchanan, completing 9-of-15 passes for 79 yards and a touchdown in just three games. He added 87 rushing yards.
Kincade, a former four-star recruit who is from Dallas, posted the following message on Instagram along with a photo of Grambling coach Broderick Fobbs, offensive coordinator Eric Dooley and quarterbacks coach Kendrick Nord.
"I will be Attending Grambling State University. Thank god to be able to finish school and get my degree and play ball something," he wrote. "I always dreamed of doing. You have to go with gods plan instead of trying to do it your way and see what he has in store for you. I have one thing in mind #FinishStrong if you want something different you have to do something different and god knows the fire that's in me to be great ON AND OFF THE FIELD. I'm highly blessed to get another opportunity thanks to #GramFam#OAONATION."
Kincade redshirted in 2013 and played a reserve role during his redshirt freshman season in 2014. He appeared in eight games and finished 16-for-20 for 127 yards and a touchdown and also managed 95 yards and a rushing touchdown on the ground.
Since Kincade is transferring from the FBS to the FCS, he'll be eligible to play immediately at Grambling. The Tigers are looking for a replacement for Johnathan Williams, who led the FCS with 37 touchdowns passes and was named the Southwestern Athletic Conference Player of the Year in 2015.
Rising sophomore Trevon Cherry, who backed up Williams, is the only returning quarterback on Grambling's roster with experience.
Last month, Fobbs said Grambling would spend the next few months trying to find quarterback additions to the roster for 2016.
"We are hitting the recruiting trail to bring other people in to compete for our starting quarterback position," Fobbs said. "At this particular time, we don't have a starter going into spring drills, which is a lot different with the way it was the first year we got here and the last year. That's part of it."
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Kincade could be the missing link to an otherwise explosive offense full of plenty of returners from the 2015 squad that went 9-3. Grambling returns several offensive linemen along with running backs Jestin Kelly and Martez Carter and Chad Williams and Verlan Hunter at wide receiver.
The transfer adds to a recent two-year trend of players coming to north Louisiana to resurrect or jump-start their careers. A few miles down the road from Grambling, Louisiana Tech enjoyed success from two transfer quarterbacks in Cody Sokol and Jeff Driskel. Like Kincade, both came from Power Five programs via Iowa (Sokol) and Florida (Driskel).
On Tuesday, he told the Denton Record-Chronicle that North Texas "is my top choice." It's unclear what gave Grambling the final edge.
Kincade announced his intentions to transfer in December, noting that he wanted to go somewhere close to home in Texas to "take care of my mom." At the time, he mentioned how he "found Christ" at Ole Miss.
Those factors helped Grambling land his services. Fobbs is a spiritual, family man who regularly talks about God at his press conferences.
Speaking at his final press conference of the 2015 season, Fobbs mentioned in December how Grambling doesn't have marquee facilities nor the ability to play on television every week, but the Tigers' program has something more than that.
"It's money you cannot see, you cannot touch but eventually you know it and you see it when they leave. To me, if I'm a parent that's what I want my kid to go to. I want him to go to a place where he's going to be fed inside from a spiritual perspective, emotionally, educationally and athletically," he said. "I don't think there's enough of us doing that."