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When you look through the storied history of the Southeastern Conference (SEC), it’s hard to pick a more even year at the sport’s most important position.
For the first time in more than a decade, there’s been a giant generational change at quarterback, as the SEC – this despite Florida State of the Atlantic Coast Conference coming in as defending national champions – enters a season that will lack so many of the signal-callers who have come to underline recent SEC dominance.
Gone are Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel, Georgia’s Aaron Murray, Missouri’s James Franklin and Alabama’s AJ McCarron, and in their places come a bunch of relative unknowns.
Of course, star players leaving campus is nothing new, but I can’t remember a time when a group more important and established quarterbacks have all left at the same time.
The importance of a quarterback cannot be overstated, and this year, as we enter a five-day countdown to the first snap of the 2014 season, it’s anyone’s guess as to what might happen.
Schools who’ve known quarterback stability for at least a few seasons – Georgia and Alabama, particularly – have had two- or three-horse races for quarterback between players so unfamiliar to most of their fan-bases that some fans wouldn’t know these potential stars if they ran them down on the streets of, say, Tuscaloosa or Athens.
Alabama, South Carolina, Texas A&M, Georgia and the surprise packets of 2013, Missouri, will all be putting new or relatively new faces under centre when the season begins on Friday morning in Australia.
As far as returning stars go, you could argue that the biggest ‘name’ is Auburn’s Nick Marshall.
A season ago, Marshall – and, indeed the entire Auburn program – was an unproven commodity. No one was sure whether Marshall would turn out to be the next Cam Newton or morph into a middling-type quarterback in a league overflowing with talent. One year, Marshall’s a guy no one knew, and the next he’s the focal point of a Tigers team who had one of the most incredible seasons in SEC history.
Marshall is as good an example as Johnny Manziel in that a guy can be a nobody coming into fall camp and, come the first weekend in December, be standing in New York City holding the Heisman Trophy aloft. That’s how it went for Manziel. Sure, there were some rumblings about how good the kid they’d always called ‘Johnny Football’ was, but good on the high school gridiron and good in the SEC are two different things.
Manziel was one of those exceptions to the rule, and he’s a pretty good indication of what a guy coming in as a mostly-unknown player can do. That’s the brilliant thing about college football. You can go from an anonymous guy on campus to a national superstar almost overnight. In the SEC, a quarterback’s profile is arguably more enhanced than anywhere else in college football.
If you’re after experience at quarterback, then look no further than South Carolina and Georgia, who both have the luxury of slotting fifth-year seniors into their offenses. These are guys who’ve been around the program a long time, which means there’s little that’s going to surprise them when they get into the game.
The Gamecocks have Dylan Thompson, who saw sporadic play last year for Steve Spurrier as backup to Connor Shaw, and he showed some flashes of talent. If there’s one not to question, it’s Spurrier’s ability to recruit and nurture quarterback talent, so if the Ol’ Ball Coach is happy with Thompson, then so am I.
Across at the Aaron Murray-less Bulldogs, head coach Mark Richt has tabbed Hutson Mason, who actually started in place of the injured Murray – the star Bulldog had blown out his knee – last season in a last-gasp win over Georgia Tech, and again in the Gator Bowl against Nebraska. Mason put up big numbers there, but couldn’t lead his team to a win. Still, he showed enough to provide hope to the large Bulldog fan-base.
A similar situation exists in Columbia, Missouri, where sophomore Maty Mauk started four games for the Tigers last year in relief of an injured James Franklin, throwing eleven scores and only two picks in those games, and the Tigers, who surprised all and sundry in their second SEC season, barely skipped a beat.
As much as everyone laments injuries, there’s certainly something to be said for a quarterback’s development when he’s thrust into a starting gig unexpectedly. Mauk, Mason and Thompson will be better for the experience of having started on good teams throughout their career, albeit sporadically.
Those more experienced guys undoubtedly have a step on newcomers, and when you look down an SEC form guide, the number of quarterback wild cards at big programs, where pressure is as much a part of football as tailgating, really sticks out.
The cagey Nick Saban hasn’t given any word as to who will start Alabama’s first game against West Virginia on Saturday in Atlanta, still monitoring a battle between Jake Coker and Blake Sims. Whoever gets the nod, at least they’ll have some pretty good offensive talent to throw to, with proven performers like receivers Christion Jones and Amari Cooper and running back Kenyan Drake all back. The problem is: we don’t know much about either.
Sophomore Kenny Hill beat out freshman Kyle Allen during camp, and will lead Kevin Sumlin’s Texas A&M into battle. The Aggies open on Thursday night against South Carolina. Talk about a baptism of fire for the second-year player who beat out Allen, a highly-prized recruit coming into College Station. Sumlin has said that the battle may continue through the clash against the Gamecocks, but it’s Hill’s job to lose at the moment.
In Baton Rouge, sophomore Anthony Jennings will get the nod for LSU over freshman Brandon Harris, as Les Miles’ Tiger squad seeks to replace departed star Zach Mettenberger. Harris had a good spring, throwing for three scores and running for one, but former NFL coordinator Cam Cameron gets a chance to mould Jennings as he moulded and improved Mettenberger last season. It helps that LSU might have the best offensive line in the conference.
There’s also quarterback change at Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Tennessee, too – yeah, basically everywhere, and it’s not a stretch to say that the SEC is wide open in 2014.
The conference enters a brave new world after years of stability. It should translate to some wildly entertaining conference play – and perhaps a few frustrating moments for fans – in which figures to be the most likely year in about a decade for a major shake-up in the nation’s premiere conference.
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