By Cody Porter

Sometime before Saturday’s game against Ole Miss, UK head football coach Joker Phillips will have to decide who his starting quarterback will be.

For Phillips, that may not be as easy as it would seem, even with the performance of the freshman quarterback Maxwell Smith on Saturday night against the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

“We have to make some type of a decision,” Phillips said following UK’s loss on Saturday.

“He (Smith) played good enough that we got to make a decision on that, right?”

Since he stepped on campus, Morgan Newton has been regarded as one of the most talented quarterbacks UK has had commit to them, at least since Tim Couch was setting records with his “Air Raid” attack.

Newton is Phillips’ “guy”. He recruited and helped prepare him for the departure of former UK quarterback Mike Hartline. When Newton stepped in to replace an injured Hartline in 2009, Cats fans rejoiced as he helped lead the team to a Music City Bowl appearance and victories over the likes of Auburn and Georgia.

My oh my how times can change. With his performance this season consisting of eight touchdowns, seven interceptions and a 3-5 record, Newton has become

simply a fad that no longer has interest from UK fans.

With four games remaining, the question is who is going to help reinvigorate the program?

Each player is going to have their pros and cons, so here is a breakdown of each and what they could mean going forward.

Maxwell Smith

As Smith sat down for his interview session on Saturday following the game, he already seemed to be more confident than Newton has shown through both his play and actions following games all season long.

That was confidence that he should have shown following his 26 for 33 game in which he threw for 174 yards against a top 30 defense.

“I thought I played pretty well,” said Smith.

Smith’s season debut wasn’t bad either as he completed six of his 11 passes for 41 yards in the late stages of UK’s loss to Florida.

The freshman was then shook up a few weeks later by South Carolina, who intercepted two of his three attempted passes.

“I feel a lot better, a lot more relaxed,” Smith said. “Having that experience in those first two games where I didn’t play well at all, it was huge.”

Joker Phillips praised Smith’s ability to compose himself following some early game struggles.

“He took some big hits, picked himself off the ground, came back in, stood in there and made some other big throws.”

One of the biggest influences of Smith’s play was his ability to get senior wide receiver Matt Roark involved in the offense.

Roark, who has struggled to make a play much of this season, had more catches on Saturday with 13, than he had all of the 2010 season.

Smith factored his connection to Roark to their extra practice sessions together dating back to the spring, shortly after Smith arrived on campus.

If Smith can consistently get Roark to be another threat on offense to compliment La’Rod King and the running game, that alone helps shift the offense into that next gear that they have failed to find this season.

Morgan Newton

Coming into this season, the offense was thought to have only one clear leader and that was Morgan Newton.

As the season has progressed, he has had his ups and downs. Much of which could be contributed to being provided little help.

The offensive line and wide receivers for many weeks were either allowing him to hit too often or dropping touchdown making passes.

Dating back to the Cats trip to Death Valley against LSU, it could be said that Newton’s confidence had officially been lost.

Smith’s amount of completions during the game Saturday exceeded Newton’s by three going back to that trip to Death Valley, so it seems that it wasn’t just the receivers that had become the problem.

While we will never know if he could have made the same reads as Smith on Saturday due to his unfortunate shoulder and ankle injuries, it seemed early on that Newton was preferring to move the ball on the ground.

Ironically his decision to do so is what led to each of his injuries and early game fumble.

The circumstances are eerily similar to how Newton received the starting job during his freshman campaign, but the following year the veteran in Hartline regained control of the offense and played to a level that far exceeded expectations.

For now though, it seems with the season nearly a wash that Newton needs to heal from his injuries and try to do what his predecessor did by finding himself as a team leader and league-leading quarterback.

He may not want to hear it, but there is always next year as the saying goes. He will have the receivers. It’s just a matter of him getting them the ball as opposed to risking harm in being devoured by a massive SEC defensive line.

Ladies have their Team Edward vs. Team Jacob debate from the Twilight series, and now UK fans will find themselves debating for the remainder of the season, is it Team Max or Team Morgan?

I’m confident in saying that a clear answer will probably not show through, at least for these next four weeks. Once Newton is fully healed I suspect Phillips to utilize them both according to their strengths; Smith with his passing and Newton with his ground and pound rushing attack.

With that said, I do believe that Smith will be the starter on Saturday against Ole Miss, and deservedly so for the freshman. Even with the recent loss, there seemed to be a sense of relief from some of those in the program, which can be attributed to Smith making some tough passes while moving the ball.

If a win is going to happen before season’s end, then it will be due to the spark of confidence that Maxwell Smith has provided for this team.