Ad Disclosure
Week 6 of the college football season is the first in which every matchup in the SEC is a conference game. So although it isn’t the official midway point, it’s worth looking at statistics of some of the notable players in the conference and predicting whether those numbers will increase, decrease or hold steady the rest of the season.
Ryan Davis, Auburn
Stat: 5.8 receptions per game
Rest of season? Increase
Davis leads the SEC in receptions per game, and his 29 catches have surpassed his total for the entire 2016 season.
Why will it increase? Davis is averaging just 6.1 yards per catch. Clearly, he is Jarrett Stidham’s safety-valve guy in the passing game. The feeling here is if the Tigers’ run game slows down even a little, that will put more pressure on Stidham to find receivers.
Obviously, Stidham has had no trouble finding Davis.
Derrius Guice, LSU
Stat: 4.8 yards per carry
Rest of season? Hold steady
Last season, Guice led the SEC in yards per carry at 7.6. So far this season he ranks 25th in the conference in that category. He missed last week’s game against Troy with an injury but is expected to play Saturday at Florida.
The reason fans should expect this average to hold steady is the Tigers’ schedule. Still left for LSU are games against the Gators, Auburn, Texas A&M and Alabama. The Tigers, Aggies and Crimson Tide all rank in the top five in the conference in rushing defense.
Shea Patterson, Ole Miss
Stat: 361.5 passing yards per game
Rest of season? Decrease
Patterson got off to a fantastic start, averaging 427 passing yards in his first three games.
He came back to Earth in a big way last week against Alabama, throwing for only 165 yards in a 66-3 loss.This week the Rebels travel to take on Auburn, and remaining on the Ole Miss schedule are games against Vanderbilt, LSU and the Egg Bowl, this season in Starkville.
Since we haven’t seen anyone put up passing yards per game like this since Tim Couch in the late ’90s, it’s hard to imagine Patterson continuing this impressive pace.
Nick Fitzgerald, Mississippi State
Stat: 53% completion rate
Rest of season? Increase
After completing over 61 percent of his passes through the Bulldogs’ first three games, Fitzgerald’s numbers took a hit over the last two contests (44 percent).
Keep two things in mind, though. Those last two games came on the road, and the opponents were Georgia and Auburn, two of the top defenses in the SEC, if not the entire FBS.
Mississippi State still has games against BYU, UMass and Ole Miss. Although his current completion percentage falls in line with his 2016 season, it’s difficult to imagine Fitzgerald not improving over the remainder of the season with those opponents still to come.
Kyle Shurmur, Vanderbilt
Stat: SEC-best 11 TD passes
Rest of season? Hold steady
The “hold steady” prediction means the belief here is that Shurmur will remain the SEC’s leader in TD passes the rest of the season.
Shurmur has been perhaps the most surprising player in the SEC this season. After all, who expected the junior quarterback to have 11 TD passes (tied with Shea Patterson for the SEC lead) and just 1 interception after five games?
After getting walloped by Alabama (4-15 passing, 18 yards, 0 TDs, 1 Int) two weeks ago, Shurmur showed something by bouncing back to throw for three TDs on the road at Florida.
While his numbers may take another hit this week as Vandy hosts Georgia, the Commodores still have games left against Ole Miss, Western Kentucky and Missouri.
Ralph Webb, Vanderbilt
Stat: 2.6 yards per carry
Rest of season? Increase
While his teammate Kyle Shurmur may be the biggest surprise in the conference on the positive side, Webb’s performance to this point has to be the most puzzling for Vanderbilt fans.
Webb ranks dead last in yards per carry in the FBS among players with at least 75 carries. In fact, Webb is the only player in the nation with at least 70 carries who doesn’t have at least 200 yards rushing (198).
So why will this average get better? Last season, Webb averaged almost 6 yards a carry over the final six games of the season (5.8). And Vanderbilt still has games left with Ole Miss, South Carolina, Missouri and Tennessee. Those are four of the five worst rushing defenses in the SEC so far this season.
Jarrett Stidham, Auburn
Stat: 72% completion rate
Rest of season? Decrease
Stidham leads the SEC in completion percentage, which isn’t that surprising considering Auburn also has one of the SEC’s best rushing offenses.
What is surprising is that Stidham completes a high percentage of passes and ranks second in the conference in yards per attempt (9.4). The last SEC player to lead the conference in completion percentage while ranking in the top two in yards per attempt was Johnny Manziel in 2013.
There hasn’t been a player in the SEC to complete 70 percent of his passes — with at least 100 completions — in a season since Greg McElroy in 2010. Past history suggests Stidham’s percentage will decrease, if only a little.
Bo Scarbrough, Alabama
Stat: 10 rush attempts per game
Rest of season? Increase
It certainly is true that Alabama has weapon after weapon to run the ball in its offense. Along with a strong group of running backs, quarterback Jalen Hurts is always a threat. In fact, Hurts leads the team in carries (55).
The biggest reason to expect Scarbrough to get the ball more the rest of the way is health. Scarbrough continues to recover from a leg injury suffered last season, and it’s difficult to imagine Hurts leading the Crimson Tide in carries for an entire season.
So if Hurts isn’t your leader in carries, who will be that guy? The feeling here is it will be a healthy, strong-finishing Scarbrough.
Kerryon Johnson, Auburn
Stat: 18 points per game
Rest of season? Decrease
Johnson leads the SEC in rushing touchdowns with nine, and if he had not missed two games due to injury (4 games played needed to qualify), his 18 points per game would be leading not only the SEC, but the FBS.
Auburn has a number of weapons at the running back position, but Johnson seems to have emerged at the go-to guy near the end zone. However, while Johnson could definitely finish as the SEC leader in rushing touchdowns, expecting him to average three scores a game probably isn’t fair.
Consider that with seven regular-season games left, if Johnson averaged three scores a game, that would give him 30 rushing TDs on the season, something no player in the history of the SEC has accomplished.
John Kelly, Tennessee
Stat: 144.6 all-purpose yards per game
Rest of season? Increase
All the talk of Butch Jones’s future at Tennessee has definitely taken some of the attention away from the spectacular season Kelly is having.
Kelly leads the SEC in all-purpose yards per game, and with the Volunteers’ remaining schedule, it’s not impossible for him to finish the regular season averaging 150 all-purpose YPG.
This is a Tennessee team that lacks firepower (12th in the conference in total offense). Kelly is the exception, and he should be able to get his yards, either rushing or receiving, the rest of the way.
Michael covers SEC football for Saturday Down South.
