Help wanted in SEC West for QB derby
Most of the coaches in the SEC West are looking for a quarterback. None of them expect that fact to mean college football’s most revered division will be any less daunting in 2015.
“You are playing against the top teams in the country week in and week out,” said Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen, whose team was ranked No. 1 in the nation at one point last year and finished 6-2 in the conference. “That’s what I love about the challenge of the league, and what it’s all about. That’s why guys want to come play in the SEC West, because it’s the best competition every week.”
Mullen is the only coach in the SEC West who brings back a veteran quarterback who started all or most of 2014. Bulldogs senior Dak Prescott passed for 3,449 yards, rushed for 986 and totaled 56 touchdowns last season, making him far and away the most proven commodity in the division.
Alabama and LSU, the SEC West’s two marquee programs, are looking for a starting quarterback. The Crimson Tide will replace Blake Sims with Jacob Coker, David Cornwell or Blake Barnett.
“As soon as we get to where we can zero in on the first-, second- and third-team guy, the happier we will be, but I don’t think that’s something we can force,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “We are going to let it happen, not make it happen.”
Tigers coach Les Miles has two quarterbacks with experience in Anthony Jennings and Brandon Harris, but their experience last year was mostly bad. Both players have improved greatly, Miles said.
“I think there is going to be very decided improvement there. I feel very good compared to last year,” he said.
Miles would like to have one definitive starter but did not rule out rotating Jennings and Harris, much as he did in 2014.
“I would like to have The Guy, but I could also see a time where you have the necessity to play them both,” he said. “I would like to see one separate themselves from the other and be a clear-cut decision. If that does not happen, we can’t make it happen.”
Former Notre Dame quarterback and Myrtle Beach native Everett Golson has been linked to Alabama and LSU, although Golson is predicted to enroll at Florida State.
At Texas A&M, the Aggies bring back sophomore Kyle Allen, who took over for Kenny Hill midway through the season and is expected to keep the starting job this year. Auburn will go with Jeremy Johnson to replace Nick Marshall. Johnson, a junior, started last year’s season opener against Arkansas in place of the suspended Marshall. Arkansas brings back starter Brandon Allen, but Allen completed fewer than 50 percent of his passes in SEC play last year and will be pushed by incoming freshman Rafe Peavey. Ole Miss is auditioning replacements for Bo Wallace, one of which is former Clemson quarterback Chad Kelly.
“I was impressed with (Kelly’s) football IQ and how he came out and studied things,” Rebels coach Hugh Freeze said. “He had some nice practices in the spring.”
ESPN.com placed five SEC West teams (No. 4 Alabama, No. 12 Auburn, No. 14 Ole Miss, No. 16 LSU and No. 22 Arkansas) in its early Top 25 this offseason.
“I think top to bottom, now that Arkansas is playing well and the two Mississippi schools are playing really well and you add that to the mix of what we add, there are no weeks off,” Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said. “It’s a man’s league, and you have to play well each week to win.”
It’s not the national championship league, though. That honor goes to Big Ten, thanks to Ohio State’s upset victory over last year’s SEC West winner, Alabama, in the College Football Playoff. Still, Mullen at least doesn’t believe the difficulty of the division hurts a team’s chances of winning a national title.
“I think what it does is it allows the teams to be prepared when they do move on,” he said. “If they get that opportunity, the team from the SEC West is certainly prepared, having played a lot of big games and is going to be ready for that challenge of the playoffs.”
This story was originally published May 12, 2015 at 9:27 PM with the headline "Help wanted in SEC West for QB derby."