Here’s some good news for Auburn fans along with supporters from the SEC’s eight other programs worried about their first-year starting quarterbacks this season: Your chances are actually better something special happens this fall compared to squads with returners at the position.

(I hope Dak Prescott, Maty Mauk and Brandon Allen aren’t reading this post.)

Looking back, four of the last six SEC Champions have been led by rookie starting quarterbacks — Blake Sims (Alabama, 2014), Nick Marshall (Auburn, 2013), Cam Newton (Auburn, 2010) and Greg McElroy (Alabama, 2009).

Going back even further, it has happened six times over the last decade.

On a national scale, the numbers are similar. Inexperience at quarterback hasn’t bothered five of the last six national champions including last season when Ohio State, down to a third-teamer, knocked off Alabama and Oregon behind Cardale Jones to claim the funky new trophy.

In 2011, then-sophomore and rookie starter A.J. McCarron helped Alabama to the program’s 14th national championship with a charismatic performance in New Orleans against LSU despite not winning the SEC.

There’s something to be said for experience under center and it certainly helps in late-game, high-pressure situations, but it hasn’t mattered much in the age of high-powered uptempo offenses.

A heavier emphasis is now put on a one-off, game-changing facilitator more so than a consummate veteran. It’s part of the reason career winners and multi-year starters like Aaron Murray, Connor Shaw and Bo Wallace never won big in the SEC and annual JUCO and transfer rumors garner so much interest during the offseason (see Everett Golson, Braxton Miller 2015).

If Texas A&M’s defense wasn’t historically bad in 2012, Johnny Manziel would’ve likely joined the top rookie club to win a championship as well as the first freshman Heisman winner in the award’s 77-year history up to that point.

Looking at this same dynamic, why do you think Jeremy Johnson has received so much hype this spring after taking over Gus Malzahn’s offense on the Plains? With Malzahn calling the plays in 2010, a first-year starter by the name of Cam Newton obliterated several SEC offensive records on his way to an unbeaten and Heisman-winning season.

His resurrected career, defined by one year in a system fitting his skill set, led to the Carolina Panthers taking him first overall in the ensuing NFL draft.

Johnson may not have Newton’s uncanny tackle-breaking ability as a runner, but how do we know he won’t blow the lid off the Western Division when history so often repeats itself?

We don’t and that’s what makes this time of the year, ‘talking season’ as Steve Spurrier calls it, so exciting.

On the other side of the coin, the last veteran quarterback to lead his team to a league title was Alabama’s A.J. McCarron in 2012. Before him, it was Tim Tebow who appeared three times in Atlanta’s big game as a collegian but only won once (2008) as the Gators’ starting quarterback.

In the 1990s, experience at quarterback was vital to a team’s success — at least in the middle of the decade. Florida’s Danny Wuerffel won consecutive SEC championships as a junior and senior in Spurrier’s Fun-&-Gun while Peyton Manning’s lone league title came during his final campaign in 1997.

Ironically, the Vols won the first-ever BCS National Championship the following season with Tee Martin, a first-year starter, under center.

In all, 12 first-year starting quarterbacks have won the SEC championship since the league began a divisional winner bout in 1992.

First-year SEC QB starters in SEC title game and beyond

  • Alabama, Jay Barker, 1992 (SEC champ, national champ)
  • Florida, Terry Dean, 1993 (SEC champ)
  • Florida, Danny Wuerffel, 1994 (SEC champ)
  • Tennessee, Tee Martin, 1998 (SEC champ, national champ)
  • Florida, Rex Grossman, 2000 (SEC champ)
  • LSU, Matt Mauck, 2001 (SEC champ)
  • Georgia, D.J. Shockley, 2005 (SEC champ)
  • LSU, Ryan Perrilloux, 2007 (SEC champ)
  • Alabama, Greg McElroy, 2009 (SEC champ, national champ)
  • *Alabama, A.J. McCarron, 2011 (national champ)
  • Auburn, Cam Newton, 2010 (SEC champ, national champ)
  • Auburn, Nick Marshall, 2013 (SEC champ)
  • Alabama, Blake Sims, 2014 (SEC champ)