What a Week 3 it was in college football. We had a couple of high-profile games that were shootouts that came down to the wire, and both featured SEC teams looking to make a statement. Georgia, in an uncharacteristic game from its defense, hung tough with Tennessee, ultimately delivering the knockout blow in overtime for a final score of 44-41. Later that evening, Texas A&M stunned Notre Dame in South Bend, winning by a point in the last minute, thanks to a botched extra point snap by ND. Both were huge games that I think we learned a lot from. Despite those learnings, I’m really only sure of one thing: I have no idea who is going to win the SEC. Georgia looks like a good bet; the offense can clearly score when it needs to, and I have a pretty good feeling the defense will be just fine. But I don’t know that I’m confident they’ll make it through conference play unscathed, because it feels like we have another chaos year in the SEC.
There are plenty of storyline to highlight in this race. Nearly every team has shown flashes of weakness or inconsistency. But the theme I find the most interesting is the overwhelming reliance on the quarterbacks’ legs. Coming into the year, we had a nice mix of returning starters and either first time starters or guys starting for new teams, but we were counting, or maybe hoping, for a substantial step forward in the passing game for many of them. Through three games, I’m not sure we’ve seen many of those improvements, but it’s pretty clear that improvement or not, a lot of these quarterbacks are gaining a lot of their yards on the ground.
Here’s the question I found myself asking this weekend: how many quarterbacks are there in the SEC that are more dangerous with the arms than their legs? And the answer I kept coming to was “not that many”. Garrett Nussmeier is the obvious answer. He’s the most polished pro-style quarterback in the conference, which is clear in the NFL mock drafts for 2026. I think Ty Simpson is another guy that is better with his arm. He’s looked much more comfortable since the Florida State game, which I’ve chalked up as a first career start in a really tough road environment. That’s not to say he’s a true pocket passer, because he is pretty mobile, but I think we can classify him as a passer. In a similar sense, DJ Lagway fits into this category (although after his performance in Death Valley I wouldn’t feel that threatened by the Gators offense). Lastly, I’d say Joey Aguilar fits here too. He hasn’t run much at all so far this season and especially struggled to get any traction against the Georgia defense, as they opted to air it out as the game unfolded. I was pretty impressed with his performance, but he showed some inaccuracy on deep throws that his receivers made nice plays on.
To me, every other quarterback on contending teams in the SEC are more dangerous runners than passers. For Georgia, Gunnar Stockton has three rushing touchdowns already and carried the ball 13 times against Tennessee. I’ll give him credit for the 300 passing yards in that game, but I’m not ready to call him a passer just yet. A&M got a huge win over Notre Dame, and while Marcel Reed had 360 passing yards, he completed less than 50% of his passes. Until proven otherwise, he still presents a primary threat on the ground. Oklahoma looks to be living up to the hype, but they’re relying heavily on John Mateer’s legs. In their biggest test so far, he had 19 carries for 74 yards and 2 touchdowns. He has more carries and only 5 fewer yards than their lead running back. Lastly, Texas, as we’re all familiar with, has really struggled on offense so far. I’d still consider them a contender on account of the nasty defense, but so far, it’s pretty obvious that Arch Manning is more effective on the ground than in the air. They’re really going to need him to figure it out if they want to maintain contender status.
Even when you move to the next tier of SEC teams, the trend continues. In Auburn’s Week 1 game against Baylor, Jackson Arnold ran for over 100 yards and 2 touchdowns. They’ve tried to get the passing game going in the last two weeks, but he’s clearly a primary threat when running the ball, especially in a read option offense. At South Carolina, it’s well known that Lanorris Sellers is one of the most elite runners in the country. He’s incredibly gifted as an athlete, but early returns say he hasn’t taken the step in the passing game that most hoped for. Diego Pavia, while incredibly tough and fun to watch, is definitely a runner. Arkansas’ offense has been electric to start the year, and while Talen Green is near the top of the conference in passing, he already has multiple games of 100+ rushing yards. I have no doubt that he’s primarily a running QB, especially as he faces some of the tougher defenses in the conference. One guy that I previously had in the runner category is Beau Pribula, but he’s looked pretty solid in the passing game. However, he hasn’t had to run it all that much because Mizzou has a two headed monster at running back toting the rock. Jury’s still out on Pribula.
Now, this is not to say that these guys can’t succeed in the pass game or improve throughout the season. I’m just pointing out that if I’m a defensive coordinator, most of the guys in the SEC pose more of a threat to my defense running the ball than they do dropping back to pass. What does this mean for the conference race? I have no idea. But I am interested to see which of these quarterbacks, if any, get it done through the air when they need to. We’ll get our first real test when Auburn goes to Norman to play Oklahoma this Saturday. Oklahoma’s going to have to stop Auburn’s heavy rushing attack and force Jackson Arnold to try and get the ball to his receivers. On the flip side, this Auburn defense needs to figure out how to slow down Mateer. The kid can definitely sling it, so they need to make him uncomfortable enough to make some mistakes, while limiting his big scrambles and running plays. I’m looking forward to seeing how it plays out.
