When the preseason All-SEC teams came out, I didn’t necessarily think that Devin Leary was a lock to make the cut. As far as I can tell, no transfer quarterback had ever stepped into the SEC and immediately received preseason all-conference love.

In some ways, it makes sense. After all, the SEC is considered the premier conference in the sport. The consensus is “if you haven’t done it in the SEC, why should you jump the line?”

It’s a fair question. When your conference champion has played in 16 of the last 17 national championships, you can say that type of thing.

But here’s another fair question I found myself asking after Leary wasn’t 1 of the 4 SEC quarterbacks who got preseason all-conference honors — does the SEC realize how good this guy is?

Kentucky fans know. It’s why there’s optimism that the Wildcats’ offense could be better with Leary than it was with Will Levis. Bringing back Liam Coen to run the offense has a lot to do with that, as well. In 2021, he led Kentucky to its best offense in 14 years and was a monumental part of a 10-win season.

What some in the SEC might not realize is that at this time last year, Leary was voted the preseason ACC Player of the Year. On the heels of breaking Philip Rivers’ single-season touchdown record at NC State, Leary was widely considered a top-10 quarterback in the sport.

Of course, then a midseason pec injury cut his 2022 short and he didn’t have the year he hoped for. Perhaps there’s some uncertainty within his new conference about how he’ll perform coming off that extremely unique injury, which prompted an unprecedented surgery from Dr. James Andrews.

If Leary had been 1 of Kentucky’s 3 player representatives in Nashville, it’s possible that conversation would’ve been a bit different. Joe Milton got to do that for Tennessee, and he split third-team All-SEC honors with Mississippi State’s Will Rogers. Never mind the fact that Milton lost his job at 2 different Power 5 programs. The freakishly talented Milton might’ve played well in the Orange Bowl against Clemson, but if you compare his track record vs. Power 5 competition to Leary’s, it’s not even close:

Career vs. P5
Milton
Leary
TD-INT
12-6
46-13
Passing yards
2,009
5,296
Yards/attempt
8.2
7.1
Multi-TD pass games
2
12
Beat Clemson?
Yes
Yes

Yeah, don’t forget that Leary beat Clemson with a 4-touchdown game in 2021. Yet it was Milton who was given the benefit of the doubt with the preseason honor.

Preseason honors are supposed to be based on past performance. They’re not supposed to be an end-of-season projection. Even if Milton has a banner year in 2023 and fulfills that relatively untapped potential, nothing about his past proves that he’s been a better college quarterback than Leary. If Milton has anywhere close to a 35-5 TD-INT ratio for an AP Top 25 finisher like Leary did at NC State in 2021, it’d be seen as a massive victory for Tennessee.

But maybe this isn’t really about Milton vs. Leary, and this is just more about the outside skepticism surrounding the Kentucky offense as a whole. And perhaps more specifically, this is about the skepticism of the Kentucky offensive line.

Last year, no Power 5 team allowed more sacks than Kentucky (46). In hindsight, Levis’ toughness worked against him. He played through several injuries and his propensity to hold onto the ball to let a play develop proved costly.

Leary is built and wired differently than Levis. No, Leary is not physically imposing and he might not dazzle with a 65-yard bomb like the play Levis made against Florida.

But does Leary get rid of the football quicker with more pocket awareness than Levis? Absolutely.

Oh, and can we move past this notion that Leary won’t be able to handle the physicality of the SEC?

The question for Leary, who turns 24 this fall, isn’t going to be whether his skill set translates in the SEC. It’s about whether Kentucky’s depth on the offensive line can hold up and give him a chance during that brutal 5-game stretch to close the regular season. Without that continuity and improvement up front, it limits what you can do with these Kentucky wideouts, which might be the best returning group the program has ever had.

It wasn’t just the pro-style concepts that made UK’s transfer portal quarterback sell a good one. It was also the promising trio of Barion Brown, Dane Key and Tayvion Robinson. There’s an expectation that Brown and Key will take significant Year 2 steps after starting as true freshmen, while Robinson is entering Year 6 with over 2,000 career receiving yards. Evan Stewart was the lone SEC true freshman who had more receiving yards than Key and Brown.

It’s why Kentucky got arguably the top transfer portal quarterback. And sure, you could argue that new Notre Dame QB Sam Hartman had a case for that title. But remember that last year, pre-injury Leary had the preseason honor in the ACC, not Hartman (then at Wake Forest). Obviously, much has changed. Leary didn’t have the 2022 he was hoping for, and admittedly, he had to find his voice early in spring after transferring to Kentucky.

It’s been 16 years since the Cats had an All-SEC quarterback at season’s end. There was hope that Levis could change that after he was a third-team All-SEC guy in the preseason. That didn’t happen, but Leary is positioned even better to end that drought.

As long as he’s healthy, Leary is one of the conference’s top quarterbacks. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the SEC sees that.