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Groton Daily Independent
Wednesday, June 28, 2017 ~ Vol. 24 - No. 349 ~ 21 of 41
Chapel Hill signals he wasn’t thrilled with the QBs already on the roster.
Will Grier, West Virginia
Grier was last seen in Gainesville in 2015, giving Florida fans hope that he would be the Gators best
quarterback since Tim Tebow. He was suspended for failing a test for performance-enhancing substances after six games, and then transferred out. After sitting out last season, Grier is eligible for the start of 2017. Mountaineers fans are excited, but it should be noted that Grier’s resume includes four SEC games: one sensational performance against Ole Miss and three OK outings against Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri.
Tanner Lee, Nebraska
The Tulane transfer won the job in the spring practice after sitting out last season. Lee was a starter for two seasons for the Green Wave and his numbers were not good. He threw 23 touchdown passes and 21 interceptions and completed 53.5 percent of his passes while playing as a freshman and sophomore on teams that had little talent around him. Lee seems a better  t for Huskers coach Mike Riley’s offense than departed starter Tommy Armstrong, but it’s fair to be skeptical about his ceiling.
Jarrett Stidham, Auburn
Stidham was a four-star recruit who started three games as a freshman at Baylor and looked pretty good (934 yards passing, six touchdowns and 63 percent completions). Stidham sat out last season, giving him plenty of time to learn Gus Malzahn’s spread offense. Stidham is the most talented quarterback Auburn has had since Cam Newton, and the Tigers should provide him good weapons and protection. Expecta- tions are really high for Stidham. Maybe too high?
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Follow Ralph D. Russo at www.Twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP ___
More college football coverage: http://collegefootball.ap.org/
Pentagon: ‘active preparations’ by Syria for chemical attack By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon on Tuesday said it detected “active preparations” by Syria for a chemical weapons attack, giving weight to a White House statement hours earlier that the Syrian govern- ment would “pay a heavy price” if it carried out such an attack.
A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, said the U.S. had seen “activity” at Shayrat air eld that “indicated active preparations for chemical weapons use.” That is the same base from which the Syria air force launched an attack in April that the U.S. and others said used lethal chemicals to kill civilians. Syria denied the charge.
President Bashar Assad’s government and Russia dismissed the White House allegation that Damascus was preparing a new chemical weapons attack. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “such threats to Syria’s legitimate leaders are unacceptable.” Russia is Assad’s key backer and sided with him when he denied responsibility for a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of people in Idlib province on April 4.
The U.S. responded to that attack by hitting the air eld with dozens of cruise missiles.
A Monday evening statement by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the U.S. had “identi ed potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children.”
Spicer said the activities were similar to preparations taken before the attack in April, but provided no evidence or further explanation.
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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Josh Lederman, Lolita C. Baldor, Vivian Salama and Matthew Lee contributed to this report.
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