Lions football is gearing up for the upcoming season through fall camp. Jonathan Rhodes/The Lion’s Roar

It’s that time of the year again when college and professional football become the highlight of the weekend. The Lions football team is preparing for the 2017 season and making decisions for their final roster.

One of those roster decisions is the starting quarterback battle among returning junior quarterback Donovan Isom, transfer sophomore quarterback Lorenzo Nunez and senior quarterback Micah Thomas. 

“We have the same standard for all of them,” said Assistant Coach Matt Barrett. “We expect them to play tough, expect them to take care of the ball, and expect them to not put the team in bad situations.”

It  is  possible that the Lions will run a two-quarterback offense, but as of now the competition is for one quarterback to be the starter.

“Right now, we’re not going to a two-quarterback system or anything like that,” said Head Coach Ron Roberts. “We’re going through the competition, and we will see how it is. If we have two of them that are helping us win and are playing at a high level then we’ll play two. But first, we want to see the competition and see one of them take the job.”

Isom has been waiting for this opportunity to fight for the starting quarterback job after getting an elbow injury last fall camp. He believes that he has been groomed up to this point by previous quarterbacks.

“Looking up to Justin and D’Shaie, they were two pretty good quarterbacks, and they were more like mentors for me, like my big brothers,” said Isom. “It was good to learn from them. I feel like they helped me get more prepared for fall camp this year and the season.”  

Roberts will be the defensive coordinator again this season. He believes in this year’s defense.

“I think we will be a lot more disciplined this year,” said Roberts. “I think we got a lot more experienced guys that understand the expectations that I expect and how we need to get things done.”

Senior linebacker Sione Teuhema is looking to get comfortable in his position of linebacker this season. Teuhema played defensive lineman at Louisiana State University and switched to linebacker after transferring to the Lions.

“I like the standup linebacker position,” said Teuhema. “I like to push myself to something different and to play a new position.”