SEC West: What we learned from spring football

Five things we learned about the SEC West during spring football practice:

1. Alabama has another scary running back

The SEC can breathe a sigh of relief now that the menacing Derrick Henry is gone, right? Well ... meet Bo Scarbrough, a 6-foot-2, 230-pound sophomore who ran for 243 yards on 21 carries in the team’s first two spring scrimmages.

“He’s a big, physical and fast. He can catch and he’s got power,” Alabama coach Nick Saban told FoxSports.com. Damien Harris, another sophomore running back, had a better spring game than Scarbrough and still has a chance to be the starter, but Scarbrough is the scarier of the two.

2. Auburn’s quarterback situation is a mess

The Tigers thought they’d be working on Jeremy Johnson’s second Heisman Trophy campaign but now, but Johnson imploded last season, handing the starting quarterback job to Sean White.

Johnson and White both return this season, but the odds-on favorite to win the job is John Franklin III, a former Florida State quarterback who stopped at East Mississippi Community College before arriving at Auburn. Franklin is electric with his legs but has to prove he can throw the ball well enough at this level.

3. LSU has two dominant running backs

South Carolina fans will remember Tigers running back Derrius Guice (who rushed for 161 yards last year against the Gamecocks) but the rest of the SEC may have to learn his name now.

Yes, LSU still has Leonard Fournette, and he’ll still be the workhorse, but Fournette won’t have to carry so much of the load thanks to Guice’s emergence this spring. The 5-foot-11, 222-pound sophomore told The (Baton Rouge, La.) Advocate, opponents “are going to have to play hard against me as well as him.”

4. Mississippi State may have another star

The Bulldogs, who host South Carolina on Sept. 10, doesn’t have Dak Prescott anymore, but it does have Malik Dear, who will be one of the most interesting players in the SEC this fall.

Dear, a sophomore, is 5-foot-9 and 220 pounds and was projected as a running back before finding a home at wide receiver this spring. Dear, who caught six passes in the spring game, was a four-star recruit who played running back, wide receiver and quarterback in high school. He’ll do a lot of everything for Mississippi State, too.

5. Texas A&M has a new QB, again

Trevor Knight, a transfer from Oklahoma who won the job late in spring practice this year, will be the Aggies sixth starting quarterback in four years. He completed 25-of-36 passes for 282 yards in the Texas A&M spring game. Knight led the Sooners to a Sugar Bowl win over Alabama as a freshman but lost his starting job prior to the 2015 season.

He hopes to rekindle the magic with the Aggies, who haven’t exactly provided a stable home for signal-callers of late. Former five-star prospects Kyle Allen and Kyler Murray both transferred out after last season, and five-star commit Tate Martell recently Tweeted out that he now plans to take more official visits).

This story was originally published April 22, 2016 at 6:15 PM with the headline "SEC West: What we learned from spring football."