Guerry Clegg: SEC not a league full of great QBs
They have won eight of the last 10 national championships and they fell just short the other two times. They’ve produced five of the last nine Heisman winners and annually have more players drafted in the NFL than any other conference.
Yes, the dominance of the SEC has been well noted.
But there’s a glaring hole on the resume.
Why does college football’s top conference produce so few great quarterbacks?
Oh, there have been some plenty good ones lately, as least for the college level. AJ McCarron at Alabama, Aaron Murray at Georgia, Johnny Manziel at Texas A&M, Connor Shaw at South Carolina.
Three of those five Heisman winners were quarterbacks — Manziel, Tim Tebow and Cam Newton. But Newton was the only one able to adapt to the NFL.
But when the NFL opens its season in three weeks, there will be only four starters who played in the SEC: Cam Newton (Auburn), Matthew Stafford (Georgia), Eli Manning (Ole Miss) and Jay Cutler (Vanderbilt).
Think about this. With Jimmy Garoppolo filling in for Tom Brady the first four weeks and Tony Romo returning from injury, Eastern Illinois will have as many starting quarterbacks in the NFL as the mighty SEC West.
Dak Prescott, the rookie from Mississippi State, is having a good camp with the Dallas Cowboys. But he’s not about to take the starting job away from Romo.
With Jason Campbell (Auburn) and Peyton Manning (Tennessee) retiring in the last two seasons, there could be fewer than 10 former SEC quarterbacks on NFL rosters. With 32 teams each carrying three, that’s 96 roster spots. Kansas City probably won’t keep both Murray and Tyler Bray (Tennessee), although the odd man out there could land a job elsewhere.
Ryan Mallet (Arkansas) will be Joe Flacco’s backup in Baltimore while McCarron’s job with Cincinnati is secure but contrary to what many people think he’s not about to take the starting job from Andy Dalton, not this year at least.
So why is this? Theories abound.
One of those theories is this is a cyclical matter.
Not that long ago, there was a stretch where an SEC quarterback was the overall No. 1 pick in the draft six out of 14 seasons — from six different schools. That was one more than all other conferences combined.
It started with Peyton Manning (Tennessee, 1998) and ended with Newton (Auburn, 2011). In between there were Tim Couch (Kentucky, 1999), Eli Manning (Ole Miss, 2004), Jamarcus Russell (LSU, 2007) and Matthew Stafford (2009, Georgia).
True, Couch and Russell were NFL busts. But the fact is they played on a high level in college and had enormous measurable skills or the NFL scouts wouldn’t have evaluated them so high. Eli has won two Super Bowls and Stafford has been a productive player on some dysfunctional teams.
Other theories:
Top quarterbacks get recruited nationally so there’s much more competition. Hunter Johnson from Indiana is the top-rated pro style quarterback in the 2017 signing class. He is committed to Clemson. Behind him is Davis Mills of Greater Atlanta Christian in Norcross, Ga. He’s going to Stanford. More than any other position in recruiting, for the quarterback it’s about their relationship with the head coach and position coach.
Quarterbacks develop.
The highest-rated quarterbacks in high school seldom leave college as the best quarterback in their class. Andrew Luck was just the No. 6 quarterback of his signing class, behind Terrelle Pryor, Blaine Gabbert, Dayne Crist, E.J. Manuel and Mike Glennon.
Many slip through the cracks for whatever reason. Ben Roethslisberger wound up at Miami-Ohio. Flacco went to Delaware. Several other NFL starters played at schools that were not Power Five conference teams when they signed their scholarship offers: Teddy Bridgewater (Louisville), Blake Bortles (Central Florida), Derek Carr (Fresno State), Alex Smith (Utah), Ryan Fitzpatrick (Harvard) and Dalton (TCU).
Of course, just because some of these quarterbacks aren’t NFL material doesn’t mean they aren’t fun to watch in college. Tebow at Florida was one of the great SEC players of all time. Nick Marshall developed into an exciting player at Auburn. Blake Sims won an SEC championship and Jake Coker a national championship at Alabama.
Maybe it will cycle back around, but that probably will take some time. At least eight of the 14 SEC teams are expected to have new starting quarterbacks this season. Chad Kelly of Ole Miss and Josh Dobbs of Tennessee are the only draft eligible quarterbacks who project to get selected. After those two, the players with the most upside are freshmen and sophomores.
Their arrivals might be accelerated out of necessity.
This story was originally published August 20, 2016 at 8:57 PM with the headline "Guerry Clegg: SEC not a league full of great QBs."