{"id":431270,"date":"2024-10-12T15:11:56","date_gmt":"2024-10-12T19:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/?post_type=article&#038;p=431270"},"modified":"2024-10-12T15:11:56","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T19:11:56","slug":"former-arkansas-qb-kj-jefferson-reportedly-benched-by-ucf-in-favor-of-freshman","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/arkansas-football\/former-arkansas-qb-kj-jefferson-reportedly-benched-by-ucf-in-favor-of-freshman\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Arkansas QB KJ Jefferson reportedly benched by UCF in favor of freshman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Arkansas quarterback KJ Jefferson has been benched by UCF in favor of freshman EJ Colson ahead of the Knights&#8217; matchup against the Cincinnati Bearcats, according to a report from Pete Nakos of On3 Sports.<\/p>\n<p>Jefferson, formerly considered to be one of the best quarterbacks in the SEC before he ended up transferring, has had a bit of a fall from grace this season. Injury issues have played a role in Jefferson&#8217;s performance, but this decision seems to come down to a lot more than that.<\/p>\n<p>He finished out the loss to Florida on Oct. 5 going 12-for-22 passing with 165 passing yards and 1 touchdown. Through five games this season, Jefferson has completed 59.3% of his passes for 1,012 yards with 7 touchdowns and 4 interceptions.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">UCF is starting EJ Colson at quarterback today against Cincinnati, a source tells <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/On3sports?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@On3sports<\/a>.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Gs4Or7v0gM\">https:\/\/t.co\/Gs4Or7v0gM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Pete Nakos (@PeteNakos_) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PeteNakos_\/status\/1845171351868653641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 12, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Colson will now have a chance to prove himself in Jefferson&#8217;s place, set to see his first-ever live game action as a true freshman. He was originally listed as a 3-star prospect out of Cedar Grove High School in Ellenwood, Georgia, ranked by 247Sports as the No. 64 quarterback in the Class of 2025 and the No. 126-ranked overall prospect in the state of Georgia. He originally committed to UCF on July 6, 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Cincinnati and UCF are set to kick off at 3:30 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Arkansas quarterback KJ Jefferson has been benched by UCF in favor of freshman EJ Colson, according to multiple reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":364585,"featured_media":429227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","tags":[5103,6314,4592],"class_list":["post-431270","article","type-article","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arkansas-razorbacks","tag-kj-jefferson","tag-ucf-knights","article_types-news","teams-arkansas-football"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/431270"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/364585"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}