Brandon Dawkins left Arizona earlier this offseason in the hopes of landing a starting job elsewhere. At least at the moment, that hope will go unfulfilled.
Thursday morning, Tom Allen confirmed that Peyton Ramsey will be his starting quarterback when Indiana opens the 2018 regular season against Florida International next weekend. The redshirt sophomore had been engaged in an offseason battle that included the grad transfer Dawkins and true freshman Michael Penix.
“First of all, a quarterback that protects the football and his decision-making — how he reads coverages, how he distributes the ball, how he protects the football. That was No. 1,” Allen said in explaining his decision to go with Ramsey. “No. 2 was the ability to move the team down the field consistently throughout those opportunities, whether it was scrimmages or those times throughout practice.
“And No. 3, we want a young man that the team believes in. That was very, very important to me. We go through and we selected our leadership council earlier in fall camp, he was our leading vote-getter by a landslide.”
Ramsey started four of the nine games in which he played last season, completing 134 of his 205 passes for 1,252 yards, 10 touchdowns and five interceptions. he also ran for 226 yards another two touchdowns.
With the Wildcats, Dawkins started 13 games -- nine in 2016, the first four in 2017 -- before losing his job to Khalil Tate.
