At some point early this week, senior quarterback Everett Golson, formerly of Notre Dame, will pick a new team.

The recent Fighting Irish graduate, at 6-foot and 200 pounds, is college football’s most coveted free agent of sorts, unless Ohio State’s Braxton Miller also looks elsewhere.

Golson played in a BCS National Championship as a freshman, threw for more touchdowns last season (29) than any SEC quarterback — including Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott — can run the ball effectively at times and spent most of 2013 working with quarterback whisperer George Whitfield Jr.

Most expect Golson to announce he’ll join Florida State in an attempt to replace Jameis Winston. (Seminoles head coach Jimbo Fisher, not known for his public relations expertise when it comes to college quarterbacks, told the media last week FSU was “negotiating” with Golson.)

The signal-caller also visited Florida and Georgia, and due to uncertainty at the position, he’s been associated with Alabama as well.

But would SEC teams really want to inject him into a quarterback competition this fall anyway? To wit:

  1. Golson lost his job to Malik Zaire ahead of the Music City Bowl win against LSU, primarily because despite all sorts of screaming, prodding and poking by coach Brian Kelly, he couldn’t take care of the football.
  2. By the numbers: Golson has thrown 20 interceptions and lost 12 fumbles in 25 collegiate games. He threw seven picks in a single three-game stretch in ’14 that included losses at Florida State and at Arizona State.
  3. Playing for an SEC team means playing against SEC defenses. Notre Dame rolled through a decent schedule in ’14, but Golson navigating an SEC schedule could mean even more turnovers.
  4. The reason he missed the 2013 season? He got caught cheating on a test at Notre Dame, which is grounds for an academic suspension.
  5. Due to that suspension, and the fact that he only has one year of eligibility remaining, any SEC team that wants Golson would have to get a special waiver from outgoing conference commissioner Mike Slive.

Golson, who wore No. 5 in South Bend, Ind., wasn’t going to play for the Irish this year. If he wants a future in the NFL — which seems tenuous at best — he needs to connect with a football teacher who can corral his athleticism by fine-tuning his mechanics and decision-making.

On his part, it makes sense to seek out a change of scenery. If all else fails, he can fall back on a pretty good Notre Dame degree, and he deserves respect for returning to the school and graduating when he could have left for another program immediately with fewer headaches.

But he doesn’t make much sense for an SEC team, even one of the many with quarterback questions and potential championship rosters.

At Florida, he’ll play behind a potentially-porous offensive line that won’t give him the chance he wants to properly develop. Plus, the Gators are trying to build for the future, not take shortcuts to win an extra game or two in 2015. Will Grier could be even better than Golson in another year or two if given the chance to develop.

Nick Saban already took a flier on a pretty talented quarterback transfer from one of college football’s name programs when Jacob Coker joined the Tide from FSU last summer. Coker still hasn’t earned the starting job. And Saban hates turnovers nearly to the degree that American war generals hate terrorists.

Ole Miss already has Chad Kelly, the former Clemson quarterback with a myriad of off-field issues. Criticism would rain down on coach Hugh Freeze like a Tornado Alley thunderstorm if he even broached Golson’s name.

At Georgia, with such a dominant running game and a promising defense, coach Mark Richt and offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer need someone who is going to take care of the ball even with a limited arm, like Hutson Mason. It’s unclear if Golson represents a talent upgrade over Brice Ramsey anyway.

South Carolina already has said no to the Golson sweepstakes.

LSU, with former NFL offensive coordinator Cam Cameron, may be the most logical SEC spot, but the Tigers haven’t appeared to be part of the discussion surrounding Golson’s transfer of late. Plus, bringing in Golson may make LSU start to look desperate, especially if the risk doesn’t lead to a reward. He would inflate expectations immediately, and it perhaps would be ill-advised.

Most media and fans have focused on the potential drama with the waiver: would a team petition the SEC office to bring on Golson? And would Slive grant such a request? Academic impropriety is the kind of issue that the league created the rule to avoid. But Golson was pretty open, contrite, made amends and graduated.

The real, overlooked issue is that Golson probably wouldn’t be an upgrade. Golson may be slightly more talented than some of the projected starters in the SEC this season. But that’s in a vacuum, not considering that Golson would have to learn a new playbook in a few short months, then gain the trust of his teammates and build timing with the receivers.

It would be difficult to land Golson without promising him at least a long look as the starter, as Golson — again, a player who started and played decently against Alabama in the national championship at the end of the 2012 season — didn’t transfer for his football career to end on the bench.

Even if Golson provides a slight edge, which is a dubious assumption, he’ll be gone for good in January.

In some cases it makes sense to accept a hired gun. If Miller enters the market, it’s a different narrative. But if and when Golson heads to FSU, SEC fans shouldn’t fret. It’s probably for the best.