As I sat in the Saturday Down South office Monday night, I found it ironic: we discuss SEC position battles, player ratings and power rankings for eight months — yell at each other, really — and then one day, the season arrives.

Georgia, LSU and Ole Miss all named starting quarterbacks Monday. Without much fan fare. All across the SEC, coaches released depth charts. Each one contained at least one mild surprise.

There are no fireworks. No big ceremonial announcement or acceptance speech. Just the indication that a player wearing a certain jersey number at a certain position will see the field early after this week’s kickoff. It’s understated, really.

After all this talk, a sort of consensus has emerged on every player and every team. That consensus is about to be shattered in some cases. We decided to take a crack at identifying the players that we’ve all misjudged entering the season.

WHO IS THE MOST OVERRATED AND UNDERRATED SEC PLAYER?

Kevin Duffey (@KevinDuffey): Overrated — Tennessee QB Joshua Dobbs; Underrated — Texas A&M WR Speedy Noil

I like Dobbs and think he could be a nice player, but if I told you a quarterback would start the last 6 games of the season, average roughly 200 yards per game, throw 9 TDs and 6 INTs and help lead the team to wins over a 7-6 South Carolina, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Iowa, your reaction would be … meh. He’s receiving more hype than is warranted simply because Tennessee had been such a dumpster fire prior to the string of wins previously mentioned. Beat Florida or Georgia this year, then let’s talk!

On a team that spreads the ball around quite a bit, Noil caught 46 balls as a freshman last year for 583 yards. With Malcome Kennedy gone and Kyle Allen under center for a full season, Noil should have more balls thrown his way in the Aggies offense. Noil could also do some damage on special teams this season.

Jon Cooper (@JonSDS): Overrated — Mississippi State QB Dak Prescott; Underrated — Tennessee DE Derek Barnett

Dak Prescott is projected by most as the SEC’s best player entering 2015. However, he may not even be the second-best quarterback in his own division. Auburn’s Jeremy Johnson and Texas A&M’s Kyle Allen should both have bigger seasons than Prescott. And take the overrated label with a grain of salt. Prescott is still a very good football player. But is he the SEC West’s best?

Myles Garrett is getting all the love in the SEC, with respect to defensive linemen. So is Robert Nkemdiche, Chris Jones and Carl Lawson. However, Derek Barnett is the second-best lineman in the conference, behind Alabama’s A’Shawn Robinson. Barnett made the second team in the coaches’ and media’s preseason All-SEC voting. He’s overlooked heading into the season, and he’ll prove it.

Christopher Smith (@csmithSDS): Overrated — Arkansas QB Brandon Allen; Underrated — Tennessee CB Cameron Sutton

Let me pre-empt the inevitable backlash: yes, I realize Allen threw 20 touchdowns against five interceptions last season. So he’s a game manager, you say. Isn’t that what Arkansas needs? Well, yes — until the team is trailing in the fourth quarter of a critical SEC game.

The Razorbacks are 0-7 in one-possession games under coach Bret Bielema. All of those losses aren’t Allen’s fault, but he’s played poorly in them. Arkansas is ready to compete as a Top 25 program. But Allen needs to show he can win games in the fourth quarter. Oh, and improve his career completion percentage drastically as a senior — especially throwing to the tight ends and running backs on play-action behind that terrific offensive line.

As for Sutton, he gets lost in the discussion of the conference’s lock-down cornerbacks between the defensive arsenals at Florida and LSU. But Sutton tied for the SEC lead by breaking up 13 passes in 2014. Tennessee ought to stick him on some of the conference’s No. 1 receivers — with success — this fall. And that will be huge for a Vols secondary already down two starters due to injury.

Brad Crawford (@BCrawfordSDS): Overrated — Arkansas RB Alex Collins; Underrated — Missouri RB Russell Hansbrough

By no means in this an indictment on how I think the junior speedster will play this season considering he’s now the featured ball-carrier with Jonathan Williams on the mend. Collins’ career production is considerable with consecutive 1,000-yard seasons but all-league talk is premature. Only two of his seven career 100-yard games have come against SEC opponents, both times against Texas A&M — the SEC’s worst-rated rush defense each of the last two years.
Collins is almost guaranteed to hit the 1,000-yard mark again if he stays healthy. But I wouldn’t put him in the same conversation with players like Nick Chubb and Leonard Fournette. Those comparisons are misguided.

‘Mizzou’ and ‘underrated’ in the same sentence, sound familiar? Probably the least-known security blanket in the SEC this fall, Hansbrough’s rushed for 1,769 yards and 14 touchdowns in the last two seasons but is rarely mentioned among the league’s elites. Maty Mauk’s going to need to lean on this senior even more this season until the Tigers find reliable weapons on the outside.