Tuesday, April 27, 2010

A Look at the SEC Quarterbacks


As with any year, there is a certain amount of attrition at several positions on any College Football Team. Much ado has been made about the QB situation in the Bluegrass, here is a brief breakdown of the status of the QBs in the SEC.

Alabama: G McElroy--returns as the QB of the College Football Champs is a Senior and firmly entrenched

Auburn: Gone is Chris Todd. The starter might be Neil Caudle who will be a Senior.

Arkansas: Ryan Mallet--considered the most Pro-ready QB in the SEC

Florida: Superman is gone. John Brantley returns as a Senior with moderate playing time in the past

Georgia: A Train wreck at QB. Joe Cox from 2009 is gone, Zaach Mettenberger was kicked off of the team, Logan Gray is transferring leaving Aaron Muray almost by default. Murray is a Special Qualifier and a Sophomore.

LSU: Jordan Jefferson again. He had a QB rating of over 125 last year

Mississippi State: Tyson Lee is gone which means that it is probably Chris Relf.

Ole Miss: Jevan Snead is gone, but probably wishes he was back at The Grove. Nathan Stanley a Freshman may get the nod.

South Carolina: Steve Spurriers favorite QB of all time--Stephen Garcia.

Tennessee: The whole team seems to be a train wreck and Dooley seems to be in over his head. J Crompton is gone as well as about 1/2 of the rest of the team. I am going with Tyler Bray a Sophommore.

Vandy: Larry Smith a Junior. The Oline is young and Vandy has little talent in the trenches to make up for the youth.

So here seems the bottom line:

These players would seem to be ahead of UK QBs at this time due to the teams that they play for and the talent around them.

John Brantley-FL

Greg McElroy-BAMA

Ryan Mallet-ARKY

Jordan Jefferson-LSU

Here are the QBs which will probably struggle this year: Teams are listed. You can not convince me at this time, that our QB situation is worse going into this season than these teams listed below (unless I have forgotten some big time recruits--and remember that UK did beat Matt Stafford his freshman year--AND, we have much more talent now than we did then)

Auburn

Georgia

South Carolina

Vandy

Ole Miss

Mississippi State

Tennessee


I say the QB situation at UK is beginning to look up, No matter who is behind the OC!

UPDATED: 4/28/10

The comment is correct!! Cam Newton has been named as the Starting QB by Coach Chizik at Auburn.

5 comments:

  1. Wow, I'd hold off on making ANY negative comments on Tenn until the next DECADE we might beat them in! We better hope any of our 3 can get us into the end zone. We've got 2 guys with game experience that make poor decisions throwing into coverage consistently instead of throwing the ball away and 1 guy with no SEC experience. Yeah, we're in GREAT shape at QB!

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  2. Tyler Bray is a freshmen and so is Aaron Murray

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  3. I would put South Carolina in the other group simply because he has managed to beat UK the previous two years. Injuries definitely played a part in both losses (Lyons in 2008 and then Hartline last year) but Garcia has managed to step up and play well against us both years.

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  4. Jaws...I think you have your Hartline criticism mixed up...the common sentiment from the last two years is that his problem WASNT taking enough risks and throwing the ball away or to easy dumpoffs too much. And Newton didn't throw the ball enough to gain much of any reputation, outside of his locking on to WRs.

    He didn't make any negative comments about UT that weren't true outside of the Dooley in over his head comment (we don't know much about that yet).

    But I think it's clear that our QB play will be improved next year no matter who turns out to get the most PT.

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  5. I am optimistic about UK's QBs this year, whoever wins out. And I agree that the SEC QBs aren't that impressive this year, but what happened to the 6' 5" 245# 5* JC that transferred to Auburn?

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