SEC QB Power Rankings, Week 8: Can Nico Iamaleava snap out of his slump before it becomes a spiral?

Quarterbacks: There are a lot of them! Each week throughout the season, we’ll help you keep the game’s most important position in perspective by ranking the SEC starters 1-16 according to highly scientific processes and/or pure gut-level instinct. Previously: Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7.

1. Quinn Ewers | Texas

It might seem a little weird to think of Ewers, an entrenched upperclassman with 26 career starts, as some kind of wild card. As much as we’ve seen of him, though, he still faces plenty of question marks heading into Texas’ steepest test of the regular season against Georgia. Chief among them: Have we already seen him at his best?

If we have, it wasn’t for long. Ewers’ untapped potential was a big part of the reason he opened the season atop the rankings; halfway home, it still is, for the very good reason that he hasn’t faced any particular urgency to tap it. He got off to a hot start in Texas’ Week 2 trip to Michigan, leading 4 scoring drives in the first half, but holstered his guns early once it was obvious the Wolverines didn’t have the ammunition to keep pace. And while he was decidedly not hot in the early going of Saturday’s 34-3 thumping of Oklahoma — Texas’ first 3 possessions resulted in an interception and a pair of 3-and-outs — there was never any question of the anemic OU offense threatening to pull away; Ewers shook off the rust in the second quarter, and once again had no reason to empty the chamber with the game well in hand.

The upshot is that it’s difficult to separate the “in command” vibes Ewers gives off in real time from the circumstances, and the numbers aren’t much help. His stats are skewed in part by the fact that he missed the better part of 3 games (all prime stat-padding opportunities) to an abdominal injury, and in equal part by the fact that when he has played the context has called for vanilla. Per Pro Football Focus, out of 21 SEC quarterbacks with at least 50 drop-backs on the season, he ranks 21st in average depth of target (6.1 yards) and the percentage of his attempts that have covered 20+ air yards (9.3%).

Vanilla is hardly going to cut it against Georgia, which is no doubt relishing its status as an actual underdog (albeit it a narrow one via FanDuel) for the first time in 4 years. The Bulldogs are not as imposing as usual on defense, but they’ve proven in both of their big games to date against Clemson and Alabama that they can score points in bunches against top-shelf competition; unlike Michigan or Oklahoma, a UGA offense that erased an 18-point deficit in a little more than half a quarter in Tuscaloosa ensures that no lead is safe. Ewers hasn’t played in a 60-minute game that was competitive in the 4th quarter since the Longhorns’ Playoff semifinal loss to Washington on Jan. 1, when he finished 24-for-43 for 318 yards, 1 touchdown, and a good-not-great QBR rating of 73.0. If he’s made as much progress in the meantime as they hope, he won’t get a better chance to prove it until the postseason rolls back around.
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(Last week: 3⬆)

2. Jalen Milroe | Alabama

Early on in his tenure as the Tide’s starter, Milroe earned a reputation as a boom-or-bust type prone to generating big plays and giveaways in equal measure. He quickly outgrew that label during last year’s Playoff run, and didn’t offer any reminders of it over the course of a 4-0 start this year. The past 2 weeks, though, the old — er, young? — Milroe has been back with a vengeance, accounting for nearly as many turnovers (4) as touchdowns (5) in a couple of underwhelming performances against South Carolina and Vanderbilt. (Add an intentional grounding penalty that resulted in a safety to the turnover column, and it comes out even.) Arguably the biggest difference in the outcomes of those 2 games is that Vandy cashed in both of its takeaways for touchdowns while Carolina managed only a field goal.

Frankly, it’s hard to blame Milroe for trying to do too much. He’s as much of a workhorse on the ground as any of the actual running backs (more so when it counts), and aside from freshman phenom Ryan Williams, the receivers are a relatively nondescript group by Bama standards. The defense is not holding SEC offenses to 20 points per game anymore, either, which it did while Milroe was growing into the job last year. If he’s not making plays, who is? As long as the positives keep coming, the negatives might just be the cost of staying in business.
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(Last week: 1⬇)

3. Jaxson Dart | Ole Miss

Dart took a beating in Ole Miss’ overtime loss at LSU, facing pressure on 21 of his 51 drop-backs with 6 sacks. But what really hurt in the morning was the sheer number of opportunities the Rebels missed to win a game they badly needed to win. Six red-zone possessions on offense yielded just 13 points; the most productive receiver in the country dropped a certain touchdown in the early going; the offense failed to cash in either of 2 takeaways, including its only possession in regulation that started in LSU territory; and finally, with a chance to put the game on ice, the defense allowed 2 4th-down conversions in the final 2 minutes, including the game-tying touchdown pass with seconds to go. Ole Miss never trailed until the Tigers connected on the game-winning touchdown in overtime.

The Rebels’ Playoff hopes are not dead, but with 2 losses in 3 weeks, they are on life support heading into an open date. They’ll almost certainly have to win out to make the cut, including an Oct. 19 date against Georgia in Oxford. Otherwise, Dart is destined to go down in the local tradition alongside Eli Manning, Chad Kelly and Matt Corral — prolific, but never quite enough to make Ole Miss an actual contender.
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(Last week: 2⬇)

4. Carson Beck | Georgia

Georgia’s 41-31 win over Mississippi State was a departure for the usually mild-mannered Beck, who set new career highs for completions (36) and passing yards (459) and could have added to both totals if not for multiple drops by his receivers. He also threw 2 interceptions, giving him nearly as many INTs in the past 3 weeks (5) as he threw all of last season (6). Read into that what you will. Personally, I suspect that after the Alabama game, the Dawgs realized they can’t trust the current version of the defense to enforce a slugfest game plan on a weekly basis and needed to let Beck cook before the scoreboard leaves them with no choice. We’ll see how well that theory holds up in this weekend’s trip to Texas.
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(Last week: 4⬌)

5. Diego Pavia | Vanderbilt

Once again, Pavia was a model efficiency in a grueling, 20-13 win at Kentucky featuring two teams determined to bleed the clock as dry as a bone. They managed just 7 offensive possessions apiece, with Vanderbilt ultimately winning the time of possession struggle by a little more than 9 minutes. Pavia finished 15-for-18 passing, accounted for 216 total yards (143 passing, 83 rushing, excluding sacks), and was responsible for 13 of the Commodores’ 19 first downs. The Vandy wagon is real, but it is a slog.
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(Last week: 5⬌)

6. Garrett Nussmeier | LSU

Nussmeier’s stat line in the Tigers’ come-from-behind, overtime win over Ole Miss had a little bit of everything. Actually, in a game that spanned a little more than 4 hours and featured 159 combined offensive snaps, it had a lot of everything. He was prolific (337 yards, 3 touchdowns), he was erratic (29 incompletions, 2 interceptions), he was under fire (21 pressured drop-backs), he was cool as a cucumber (zero sacks, somehow).

In the end, the only plays that are going to stick were Nussmeier’s twin TD passes on his final 2 attempts of the night — the first coming on a 4th-down strike that tied the game in the final minute of regulation, the second coming on a game-winning lob to Karen Lacy on LSU’s first snap in overtime. The latter is the kind of play that goes directly into the rotation of highlights that get cued up every time the teams involved play for as long as anyone is alive who remembers it. But it was the roller-coaster that brought them to that moment that made it worth remembering in the first place.
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(Last week: 6⬌)

7. Conner Weigman | Texas A&M

Weigman had Week 7 off to nurse his sore shoulder and bask in the glow of a potentially career-saving performance against Missouri in Week 6. He’s reportedly 100% healthy for this weekend’s trip to Mississippi State for the first time this year.
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(Last week: 7⬌)

8. Brady Cook | Missouri

Cook rebounded from a miserable afternoon at A&M with a reassuring outing at UMass, where he finished 14-for-19 for 219 yards and 2 touchdowns in a 45-3 romp. This weekend’s visit from a reeling but desperate Auburn is a must-win ahead of Mizzou’s Week 9 trip to Alabama.
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(Last week: 8⬌)

9. Taylen Green | Arkansas

Of course an SEC Saturday that featured no major upsets unfolded without Green, the league’s leading chaos agent. He’s back this week against LSU in Fayetteville, where the Razorbacks are officially 2.5-point underdogs via FanDuel, but everyone understands that almost literally anything could happen.
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(Last week: 9⬌)

10. Nico Iamaleava | Tennessee

We need to talk about Nico. Conference play has been rough on our lanky boy: His last touchdown pass, a 67-yard strike in the first quarter of the Vols’ Week 4 win at Oklahoma, was nearly a month ago. Since that throw — a real beauty, one that’s going to lead the highlight package when he’s a first-round pick someday — Iamaleava is in a bona fide slump, averaging a pedestrian 5.7 yards per attempt over the subsequent 11 quarters. His QBR rating has plummeted by the week, from 60.7 vs. the Sooners (not great) to 38.2 at Arkansas (woof) to 17.5 in Saturday’s overtime escape against Florida (sirens wailing). In the same span, he’s 2-for-11 on attempts of 20+ air yards, taken 10 sacks, lost 3 of 5 fumbles, and generally looked more like a work in progress than a rising star.

Sharif Denson picks off Nico Iamaleava pic.twitter.com/XtP6M4uhiX

— NMD Grant (@NMDgrant) October 13, 2024

Now, does any of that mean that I recommend abandoning your seat on the Iamaleava bandwagon? Nah. The potential is plain enough and the glimpses we’ve seen so far impressive enough that it’s still hard to imagine him not panning out in the long run. Growing pains are normal, even if a little jarring for a precocious talent who was inspiring September Heisman buzz before his first SEC start.

The million-dollar question now is just how long a run are we talking about? Is the slump just that, or just the beginning of an extended, years-long project? Tennessee isn’t the high-octane offensive juggernaut the preseason hype anticipated, but it is still a borderline top-10 team in the thick of the Playoff chase on the strength of its defense and ground game. The Vols have a chance to tip the CFP odds decisively in their favor Saturday against Alabama, with only 1 other game remaining on the schedule (a Nov. 16 trip to Georgia) they won’t be heavily favored to win. For his struggles, Iamaleava has not regressed to the point that he’s a basketcase or a turnover machine — at least, not yet. It might be ugly otherwise, but if he can make enough plays to get over against the Tide, it will go a long way toward preventing a spiral and resetting expectations at a more manageable level for the stretch run.
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(Last week: 10⬌)

11. Brock Vandagriff | Kentucky

Vandagriff is not entirely to blame, but aside from the flaming wagon wreck at Oklahoma, Kentucky’s offense was the most disappointing in the conference over the first half of the season. The Wildcats rank dead last in scoring, and above only the Sooners in total offense, yards per play, passing offense and pass efficiency.
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(Last week: 11⬌)

12. DJ Lagway | Florida

It’s officially Lagway’s team after Graham Mertz suffered a torn ACL in the Gators’ overtime loss at Tennessee. It was a disappointing ending to a turbulent career for Mertz, a 6th-year senior, who had rebounded from a dismal start to the season to reassert himself as the starter. The fact that it came essentially at random, on a non-contact injury following a touchdown pass that put Florida up 10-0 in the third quarter, was particularly cruel.

Although Lagway’s ascension to QB1 has been highly anticipated since he set foot on campus in January, needless to say this is not the way anyone wanted it to happen. The 2-for-1 rotation devised by Billy Napier to ease his touted freshman into the lineup was going as well as could be expected. And for all his potential, Lagway has been very much a freshman to date, serving up 4 interceptions in just 57 attempts vs. FBS opponents. He takes the reins with just enough time to settle in ahead of the November gauntlet that has loomed over the Gators’ season from Day 1: They get Kentucky this week, followed by an open date, followed by a brutal 4-game stretch against Georgia, Texas, LSU and Ole Miss. As it stands, Florida is 3-3. If a winning record is still on the table heading into the season finale at Florida State — and if Napier still has a job — the initial phase of the Lagway era will qualify as a success.
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(Last week: 12⬌)

13. LaNorris Sellers | South Carolina

Sellers makes a couple of eye-opening plays per game, but has struggled with consistency and especially struggled under pressure. For one thing, he’s been under a lot of it, facing pressure on 44.1% of his total drop-backs, per PFF, among the highest rates in the country. His abysmal 28.5 grade on those snaps ranks next-to-last among Power 5 quarterbacks, and no one in the entire FBS has been responsible for more turnover-worthy plays (10).
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(Last week: 13⬌)

14. Payton Thorne | Auburn

Auburn didn’t play in Week 7, so Hugh Freeze had to go back to the Tigers’ Week 6 loss at Georgia to air his weekly criticism of Thorne’s decision-making at the behest of local media. This weekend’s trip to Missouri will surely offer up some fresh material.
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(Last week: 15⬆)

15. Michael Van Buren Jr. | Mississippi State

I’m wary of reading too much into Van Buren’s 306-yard, 3-touchdown stat line at Georgia, which was a little bit like the shove he received from Kirby Smart in the process: Real, but not quite worth moving the needle over unless it becomes a trend. On one hand, yes, Van Buren was obviously better than he had any right to be, leading 4 TD drives of 75+ yards — a feat for a true freshman making just his second career start in one of the most intimidating environments in the country. He didn’t do it dinking and dunking, either. The highlight reel confirms an extremely live arm.

https://twitter.com/TruMaroonNation/status/1845861120168349860/

OK, that’s some SEC Freshman of the Week stuff, for sure. On the other hand, there was never a moment when it wasn’t clear he was toiling in a losing effort. Mississippi State trailed by as much as 24 points and never pulled within single digits after the midway point of the second quarter.

Put it this way: Let’s say the Miss State just found itself a keeper in comeback mode. A hidden gem, the quarterback of the future, a silver lining in an otherwise depressing season. Great. Now, in the portal era, can they actually afford to keep him in the fold long enough for the upside to pay off?
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(Last week: 16⬆)

16. Michael Hawkins Jr. | Oklahoma

If Oklahoma’s season were unfolding according to plan, Hawkins’ biggest concern right now would be preserving his redshirt. Instead, he’s being served up as the goat on an offense that can’t run the ball, can’t protect him and still has no healthy wide receivers. Brent Venables reaffirmed his commitment to Hawkins after Saturday’s 34-3 debacle against Texas, naming him the starter for this weekend’s game against South Carolina; he also declined to rule out the possibility of bringing Jackson Arnold off the bench to share reps — that is, of course, unless Arnold opts to preserve his own redshirt with an eye toward portaling out in December. With Ole Miss, Missouri, Alabama and LSU still on the ledger and no end to the offensive malaise in sight, Venables’ own status between now and then is suddenly an open question.
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(Last week: 14⬇)

Matt Hinton

Matt Hinton, author of 'Monday Down South' and our resident QB guru, has previously written for Dr. Saturday, CBS and Grantland.