Report: Ken Seals to start at QB for Vanderbilt, AJ Swann available vs. Missouri

Vanderbilt has made their decision at quarterback for their SEC showdown with Missouri on Saturday.

According to Pete Thamel of ESPN, it’ll be Ken Seals leading the Commodores against the Tigers, but usual starting quarterback AJ Swann will also be available. He’s simply not at full health at the moment.

“Source: Vanderbilt will start back-up quarterback Ken Seals against Missouri today,” tweeted Thamel. “Starter AJ Swann will be available, but he’s not 100-percent and has been limited in practice. Seals has rare experience for a back-up, starting 16 games for Vanderbilt since arriving in 2020.”

Last weekend, Swann battled through an elbow bruise that has plagued him since the UNLV game. Finally, it became too much to deal with and Swann was lifted from a game against Kentucky.

Afterwards, Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea explained that Swann simply couldn’t be effective anymore.

“He seemed like he was ready to continue to press through, and we wanted to give him a shot to know what we know he can do back there,” coach Clark Lea said. “Obviously by the time we made the switch the game was out of hand, but felt like there wasn’t more out there for him to prove and needed to get someone in there healthy to try to salvage that last drive and finish the game with some pride and hopefully launching forward into this week.

“So that’s where the decisions came down, and appreciate AJ’s toughness and fight through it. Want him to get back healthy, need to play better at quarterback.”

Swann was clearly impacted by the injury against the Wildcats, turning in his worst statistical performance of the year.

He went just 16-of-40 passing (40.0%) for 189 yards, throwing three interceptions. Two of the interceptions were returned for touchdowns, putting Vanderbilt seriously behind the 8-ball.

“We need to play better at quarterback period,” Lea said. “Whoever’s in there needs to run the offense better, make better decisions with the ball. It’s the burden of that position, the game on that side of the ball runs through the quarterback. We want to be mindful of the fact that AJ’s been battling through this elbow and we want to see that he’s ready to continue through it.

“And if not we want to give the offense a chance to run through a healthy player there so that we can perform better offensively. I think that’s important. That’s how we’re treating the week.”

Now, Ken Seals will get his shot against Missouri, in what’s to be a fascinating SEC showdown on Saturday.