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SEC QB Power Rankings, Week 9: Let the controversy begin at Texas

Matt Hinton

By Matt Hinton

Published:

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 | Week 8.

1. Jaxson Dart | Ole Miss

Can I leave the top spot vacant? No? Ah, well. In that case, Dart was the big winner in Week 8, which he spent watching from the couch while nearly every other quarterback in the top half of the Rankings struggled to one degree or another on a Saturday dominated by the defenses. Although his stock has tailed off significantly in conference play, for the season Dart still ranks among the top 3 nationally in yards per attempt, passer rating and overall PFF grade.

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(Last week: 3⬆)

2. Jalen Milroe | Alabama

It was a little less than a month ago that Milroe was rocketing to the top of the Heisman charts following a historic performance against Georgia. It’s been downhill since:


I don’t know if it’s fair to say that Milroe has regressed, if only because Alabama is absolutely dependent on his dual-threat skill set — in the 3 games on the right side of the chart he’s accounted for just shy of 80% of the Crimson Tide’s total offense. Frankly, between a sketchy ground game, an overreliance on precocious freshman WR Ryan Williams, a defense hanging on by a thread and a plague of penalties, Milroe is arguably the least of Bama’s problems right now. It can’t be all up to the quarterback to keep carrying a team wobbling in that many areas.

But he certainly remains an enigma, as much so with 21 career starts under his belt as he did last year as an underclassman still getting his feet wet as QB1. The big difference between now and then is that, in 2023, he had a defense he could generally count on to hold up its end of the bargain while he learned to rein in his most reckless tendencies. These days, not so much, opposite a defense that ranks 15th out of 16 teams in SEC play in both yards and points allowed. (Seriously, read that again. Alabama: 15th out of 16 on defense!) It’s up to Milrpe to do the compensating now, with all that entails.
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(Last week: 2⬌)

3. Carson Beck | Georgia

The bigger the load the Dawgs ask him to shoulder, the more the once-reliable Beck reveals himself to be a turnover machine. In 2023, Beck threw 6 interceptions in 399 attempts; in the past 4 games alone, he’s thrown 8 picks in 168 attempts, with multiple-INT games against Alabama (3), Mississippi State (2) and now Texas (3).

Make no mistake: Despite the 30-15 final score, Beck had a rough night in Austin, finishing with a career-low 77.3 passer rating and a negative EPA. All but 1 of Georgia’s 6 scoring drives against the Longhorns started inside the UT 35-yard line. Even with the defense in top form (not as easily taken for granted with this group as with some of the vintage Kirby Smart-era defenses of the past few years), it’s hard to win consistently with a quarterback who’s consistently throwing the ball to the wrong team.
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(Last week: 4⬆)

4. Quinn Ewers | Texas

When you’re winning, having 2 viable quarterbacks is a blessing: Behold our bounty! When you’re not, though, it becomes a burden in a hurry. The second quarter of Texas’ loss to Georgia was the moment the dynamic between Ewers and Arch Manning crossed the line separating the good kind of problem from just a plain old problem.

Steve Sarkisian, of course, badly wants to avoid the whiff of a controversy. He insisted after Saturday’s loss that “Quinn’s our starter,” apparently leaving no wiggle room about the pecking order ahead of this weekend’s trip to Vanderbilt. But then, actually entrenched starters don’t need their coach constantly reinforcing their status, do they? A bogus social media “report” that Ewers was planning to opt out for the draft, while swiftly debunked, only bubbled to the surface because of what was already in the water. Despite his assurances, Sarkisian’s willingness to hand the ball over to Manning at the end of the first half, with Texas down 20-0 and Ewers struggling in the face of a resurgent Georgia pass rush, spoke for itself.

Manning got 2 series before halftime, looked like a deer in the headlights himself, and yielded to Ewers for the entire second half. Still, the message was plain enough: If Ewers is the starter, he’s also never more than a bad quarter or two from the bench.

The biggest red flag Saturday was Ewers’ dismal performance under pressure. Contrary to how it felt in real time, he was actually kept clean more often than not, per PFF, facing pressure on 19 of his 50 drop-backs. But Georgia feasted on those opportunities, which generated 5 sacks and a pair of fumbles vs. just 2 first downs allowed via Ewers’ arm. (The Dawgs also sacked Manning twice in his brief appearance, forcing another fumble in the process.) Ewers has never been considered a particularly creative or an elusive athlete, mobility-wise, and has rarely had to be behind a veteran o-line featuring multiple future draft picks. But if sticking with him means the offense is going to grind to a halt against Playoff-caliber defenses capable of turning up the heat, the Longhorns’ ceiling is limited.
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(Last week: 1⬇)

5. Garrett Nussmeier | LSU

Nussmeier is not breaking the bank statistically, but as the headliners have faltered, he has quietly risen to the top of the conference rankings in touchdown passes (18), Total QBR, and EPA over the course of a 6-game LSU winning streak. This weekend’s trip to Texas A&M is a major breakout opportunity in a collision of the only remaining unbeaten teams in SEC play.
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(Last week: 6⬆)

6. Diego Pavia | Vanderbilt

Pavia gives off gunslinger vibes, but his best asset this season has been his ball security. He’s thrown just 1 interception and hasn’t lost a fumble (despite leading the team in carries and yards) since the opening series of Vandy’s Week 3 loss at Georgia State. The lone pick is a big reason he’s leading the SEC in pass efficiency vs. Power 4 opponents. If the Rankings were confined to considering only the current season, he and Nussmeier would both be strong contenders for No. 1 right now.
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(Last week: 5⬇)

7. Conner Weigman | Texas A&M

It’s not getting any easier to peg Weigman down. His season to date has consisted of 1 alarming performance (in a Week 1 loss to Notre Dame), 1 reassuring performance (in a Week 6 blowout over Missouri), a month-long injury absence in between, and a meh outing Saturday in the Aggies’ 34-24 win at Mississippi State. This weekend’s primetime date against LSU is the biggest start of his still-young career, and will go a long way toward defining it, one way or the other.
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(Last week: 7⬌)

8. Brady Cook | Missouri

Cook might be quickly forgotten by the rest of the country when his campus days are over, but Saturday’s come-from-behind, 21-17 win over Auburn was a good example of why he’s going to drink free in Missouri for life. He twisted his ankle in the first quarter, left the stadium to be transported to the hospital, only to return in the second half to rally Mizzou from a 17-6 deficit to win. In his absence, backup Drew Pyne led the Tigers to just 3 points on 7 possessions. After Cook’s return at the end of the third quarter, they drove for 2 touchdowns on their last 4 possessions, including a 17-play, 95-yard march capped by the go-ahead/ultimately game-winning TD with 46 seconds left.

Time will tell just how meaningful that effort turns out to be. Even at 6-1, Missouri is flying well under the radar as a potential Playoff dark horse, for obvious reasons. The schedule is the most forgiving in the SEC; still, the offense has averaged just 22 points vs. Power 4 opponents, including an overtime escape against Vanderbilt and now a close shave against last-place Auburn. Altogether, the 31-point margin of defeat in the Tigers’ only loss, a 41-10 debacle at Texas A&M, was more than twice as large as the combined margin of victory in all 3 of their Power 4 wins (13 points). ESPN’s Football Power Index gives Mizzou just 16.5% odds of making the CFP cut.

That can all change overnight after this weekend’s trip to Alabama, a must-win game (for both sides) that stands to make or break the season. Besides deepening the existential crisis in Tuscaloosa, a Missouri win would clear the path to an 11-1 finish through an extremely manageable November schedule. (Toughest remaining game after Saturday: At South Carolina on Nov. 16.) If Cook has a legacy beyond “local overachiever made good,” springing an upset on the Tide is probably his last chance.
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(Last week: 8⬌)

9. Nico Iamaleava | Tennessee

I’m still not sure how much I trust Iamaleava, who has had a rough October in SEC play and spent much of Tennessee’s 24-17 win over Alabama inspiring visions of Joe Milton. He finished 2-for-8 on attempts of 20+ air yards against Bama while repeatedly overthrowing open receivers, especially in the first half. But the 2 downfield throws he did connect on were difference-makers in high-leverage situations. The first, a 55-yard strike to Dont’e Thornton Jr. near the end of the third quarter, moved the chains on 3rd-and-6 and set up a first-and-goal inside the Bama 5-yard line; the Vols scored on the next play to take their first lead, 14-10. The second came with just under 6 minutes to go in the fourth, with Tennessee trailing 21-17 and facing a crucial 3rd-and-5 at the Bama 16-yard line; this time, Iamaleava lofted a beauty into the end zone for Chris Brazzell II, who came down with what turned out to be the game-winning points.

https://twitter.com/Vol_Football/status/1847780351248363916/

On paper, Iamaleava is still a mess statistically. With the game on the line, though, those are the kinds of throws you invest in a 5-star quarterback to make in those kinds of moments.
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(Last week: 10⬆)

10. Taylen Green | Arkansas

Green’s mobility is an asset, but his production as a runner has plummeted over the past month. In Arkansas’ first 4 games, he ran for 393 yards (excluding sacks) and 4 touchdowns with 23 missed missed tackles forced, per PFF. In the past 3, he’s managed just 39 yards with no touchdowns and 4 missed tackles forced. Some of that decline has to be chalked up to injury: Green was clearly limited in Saturday’s 34-10 loss by a knee injury he suffered late in the Razorbacks’ Week 7 upset over Tennessee, and the scoreboard reflected it. Until he’s back to looking like himself again on the hoof, the Hogs’ odds of inflicting more chaos against the top half of the conference are greatly diminished.
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(Last week: 9⬇)

11. DJ Lagway | Florida

If you just glanced at the box score of Florida’s 48-20 romp over Kentucky, Lagway’s stat line doesn’t exactly leap off the screen: He completed just 7 of 14 passes, none for touchdowns. He also threw his 5th interception of the year in just 86 attempts. In context, though, his first SEC start in place of an injured Graham Mertz was exactly what Florida fans have been clamoring to see all year — specifically, a quarterback who is a live threat to push the ball downfield at all times.

If anything, in Lagway’s case “threat” might be putting it mildly.

Per PFF, half of his 14 attempts and 5 of his 7 completions came on attempts of 20+ air yards, yielding 211 yards on a little more than 30 yards per attempt on downfield throws alone. (Contrast that with Mertz, who was just 4-for-11 for 86 yards on downfield attempts on the season before suffering a torn ACL in Week 7.) Three of those completions found their way into the hands of his favorite target, Arizona State transfer Elijhah Badger, covering 50, 58 and 40 yards, respectively, on 3 of the most aesthetically pleasing throws of this or most other Saturdays.

https://twitter.com/OldRowGators/status/1847808997018992750/

https://twitter.com/fhstigers_/status/1847837190321287438/

All 3 of those completions set up short touchdown runs by true freshman RB Jadan Baugh, who went for 106 yards and 5 touchdowns (all from 10 yards or less) in his first career start. But although the Gators kept the ball on the ground on roughly three-quarters of their total snaps, the majority of their 476 yards on the night came on just those handful of flicks of Lagway’s wrist.

The flip side of his explosiveness, for now, remains his inexperience (obviously) and inconsistency. He’s thrown as many interceptions (5) as touchdowns on the season, and that’s counting 3 TDs in a Week 2 win over Samford. He is very much a work in progress, which is why Billy Napier was so reluctant to fast-track Lagway to the top of the depth chart earlier this season even when the entire country — this space included — was begging him to dump Mertz before it was too late to salvage his job. Mertz was in the process of justifying that decision prior to his injury, which occurred on a touchdown pass that put Florida up 10-0 at Tennessee in the third quarter of an eventual overtime loss in Knoxville; that game is all that’s separating the Gators from taking a four-game winning streak into a brutal November schedule.

But if Napier still has a job on the other side of that gauntlet, it’s going to be for one reason only: Lagway’s potential to generate optimism for 2025 and beyond. Even at his savvy, veteran best, Mertz’s mission ended at stopping the bleeding in the present. Lagway, green as he is, actually represents something to look forward to. The Gators are probably in for a rough landing to the season, but as he proved on Saturday, with his gifts, it only takes a few brief glimpses of what’s possible to make the future look very bright.
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(Last week: 12⬆)

12. LaNorris Sellers | South Carolina

Sellers didn’t have to do much in a 35-9 romp over Oklahoma, which was over almost as soon as it began due to an immediate flurry of OU turnovers. (See below.) South Carolina’s defense scored 2 of the ‘Cocks’ 4 first-half touchdowns directly, and set up another with starting field position in OU territory; the offense shifted into ball-control mode at halftime. Notably, Sellers somehow still managed to get sacked 5 times, running his total to an SEC-worst 24 sacks on the season.
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(Last week: 13⬆)

13. Michael Van Buren Jr. | Mississippi State

Caveat emptor and all that, but a little stock advice: Buy your ticket on the Van Buren bandwagon while there’s still room. A true freshman thrust into the lineup following an injury to starter Blake Shapen, Van Buren has breathed life into an otherwise listless rebuilding campaign, leading 6 touchdown drives of 75+ yards over the past 2 weeks in competitive losses to Georgia and Texas A&M. Whether Mississippi State wins an SEC game or not — and a rock-bottom defense still suggests not — doing whatever is necessary to keep Van Buren in the fold in 2025 needs to be a priority.
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(Last week: 15⬆)

14. Brock Vandagriff | Kentucky

Vandagriff was a big fish on the offseason transfer market, but outside of a workmanlike effort in a 20-17 upset at Ole Miss, he hasn’t moved the needle. His production ranks at or near the bottom of the SEC in yards per attempt, efficiency and Total QBR, and that’s with a significant boost in nonconference games. Kentucky is 2-9 in its past 11 SEC games dating to last year, including 6 straight losses at home.
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(Last week: 11⬇)

15. Payton Thorne | Auburn

Auburn owed its 17-3 lead at Missouri as much to the defense and special teams as it did to the quarterback, but for once the offense was not actively undermining the effort with untimely giveaways. (Thorne did lose a fumble in the first half, but Missouri missed a subsequent field goal attempt.) Then came the late Mizzou rally behind Brady Cook, after which point Auburn’s offense was an albatross. With the momentum swinging hard toward the home team, the Tigers’ 4 4th-quarter possessions went 3-and-out, 5-and-out, 3-and-out, turnover on downs; in the same span, Thorne finished 1-for-6 passing while Cook led 2 touchdown drives the other way. All in all, just another week on The Plains.
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(Last week: 14⬇)

16. Jackson Arnold | Oklahoma

Arnold was seriously considering a redshirt after being benched earlier this season, presumably with an eye toward portaling out in December. Instead, he’s back in the saddle this week after replacing his former understudy, true freshman Michael Hawkins Jr., in a pitiful outing against South Carolina. Hawkins committed 3 rapid-fire turnovers to open the game in a span of just 9 snaps, all 3 of them resulting in Carolina touchdowns. He threw an interception on the first play; coughed up a fumble on the next series that turned into a scoop-and-score touchdown the other way; and followed that up by tossing a pick-6 under duress that put Oklahoma in a 21-0 hole barely 5 minutes into the game.

Arnold went the rest of the way with as much dignity as he could muster while getting sacked 8 times in a blowout. (Not for nothing, PFF also cited Oklahoma receivers for 6 drops.) Even if he’s back for good, though, he’s not exactly a prime candidate for a redemption arc. Arnold was sent to the bench for a reason following his Week 4 meltdown against Tennessee, and his long-term outlook remains as murky as ever amid upheaval in the program. Offensive coordinator/QB coach Seth Littrell was fired on Sunday after just 7 games on the job, the first step in what will almost certainly be a much larger exodus after the season.

At any rate, Arnold’s issues are well-documented. But the offense as a whole has been the worst in the conference by almost every relevant measure, and bottomed out in his absence. The Sooners can’t run the ball, can’t protect the quarterback, and for the past month haven’t had a healthy wideout who began the season on the two-deep. In their 3 losses, they have 3 times as many turnovers (9) as touchdowns (3), with all 3 of the latter coming in garbage time of games that were over at halftime.

Nor is there a light at the end of the tunnel: Oklahoma will be a decided underdog in each of its 4 remaining conference games against Ole Miss, Missouri, Alabama and LSU, beginning this weekend as a 3-touchdown dog in Oxford, according to FanDuel. At this point, Arnold may as well be auditioning for his next head coach. The real question is whether that ultimately means finding a new home on the open market, or convincing whoever replaces Brent Venables in Norman.
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(Last week: n/a)

Matt Hinton

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

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