USF Football: Cade Fortin Named Starter Ahead of Season Opener at NC State

In news that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone paying attention, USF football head coach Jeff Scott announced on Monday that former UNC transfer Cade Fortin has been named QB1 ahead of the Bulls season opener at NC State next week.

After being hand-picked by Scott during the 2020 recruiting cycle, Fortin struggled—like the rest of the team—finding his footing at a new school, and in a new offense without the benefit of spring ball thanks to COVID-19. He dealt with COVID, and injuries before getting shut down for the rest of the year after a shoulder injury knocked him out of the Tulsa game.

He found his footing this year.

During the spring, Fortin took command of the offense, and was the best quarterback by a lot for all of spring, and proved it during the spring game in front of USF fans. Fortin threw for 224 yards, and two scores, and made an impression on the coaches that they couldn’t ignore.

Then in fall camp, he just solidified his position as QB1, and when asked on Saturday if he had made a decision, Scott said no, but there wouldn’t be suspense, or surprises. He kept his word.

September 2 will be the second time Fortin has faced off against NC State in his career. He threw for 276 yards, one TD, one INT, and a rushing TD in a 34-28 overtime loss to then-22nd ranked NC State.

Check out Joey Johnston’s fantastic story on Fortin here, but we’ll leave you with this from Fortin in the story:

“We want to be the team that puts this program back on the right track. I don’t know much about what happened in the past few years. But I know this program has won big before and we can do it again.