Sophomore Stilley the frontrunner for Coastal Carolina QB job

A two-player duel for the Coastal Carolina University starting quarterback job has apparently been cut short due to injury.

Redshirt freshman Chance Thrasher, who had surgery last fall to clean up bone chips in his throwing shoulder, is still having related shoulder issues so sophomore Josh Stilley has been elevated to the starting position.

Though head coach Joe Moglia stopped short of naming Stilley the starter for the season-opener next Saturday at Lamar, it seems a formality that Stilley will be appointed next week and be under center for the Chanticleers in Beaumont, Texas.

“Josh Stilley will be the guy that starts and Avery McCall will back him up. That’s the way we’ll look now,” Moglia said. McCall is a freshman from Dillon.

“Chase has a problem with his shoulder,” Moglia said. “We’re going to need to make sure that gets taken care of. So for the time being he’s not in the lineup.”

Stilley is listed at 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds. He is in his third year in the program out of William A. Hough High in the Charlotte suburb of Cornelius, N.C., where he threw for 2,274 yards and 25 touchdowns as a senior while completing 115 of 196 passes (58.7 percent).

Stilley did not play as a freshman and threw just two passes last year as a backup to FCS All-American and three-year starter Alex Ross. Stilley, who has a 4.0 grade-point average, was limited in spring practices after cracking a bone in his foot prior to winter workouts but appears to have fully recovered.

This story was originally published August 25, 2016 at 8:08 PM with the headline "Sophomore Stilley the frontrunner for Coastal Carolina QB job."