Quarterbacks: There are a lot of them! Each week throughout the season, we’ll help you keep the game’s most important position in perspective by ranking the SEC starters 1-16 according to highly scientific processes and/or pure gut-level instinct. Previously: Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12 | Week 13 | Week 14.
1. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt
Diego Pavia is a lock for the Heisman ceremony after a full-throttle November surge. Can he actually win it?
Before Saturday, I would have said not a chance. As recently as 2 weeks ago, he was still a distant 4th place in the Heisman betting odds and very much on the bubble to make the trip to NYC at all. At that point, the SEC candidate with juice was Texas A&M’s Marcel Reed, fresh off the leading the Aggies’ buck-wild comeback over South Carolina. Two of the 3 Vandy games voters were most likely to have watched were both losses, to Alabama and Texas roughly a month apart. (The other was a Week 8 win over a visibly collapsing LSU.) The loss in Austin doomed the Commodores to spend November on the fringes of the Playoff chase, where they have remained. Meanwhile, Pavia’s 2 best games down the stretch, gonzo outings against Auburn and Kentucky, unfolded on the relative obscurity of the SEC Network.
Then came the Dores’ 45-24 romp at Tennessee, a hit in every column. Blowout win. Ranked, name-brand rival, on the road. Prominent position in a plum time slot. Two historical milestones: The first 10-win season in school history, punctuated by Pavia breaking Vandy’s single-season passing yards record. And another fat stat line for Pavia: 268 yards passing, 165 rushing, 2 touchdowns. As a team, Vandy hung more yards and points on the Vols than any opposing offense in 3 years, and more than any opposing offense in Neyland Stadium since Alabama’s legendarily stacked attack in 2020. On social media, you could almost feel the momentum for his campaign gaining steam in real time. A lot of people who’d never got around to updating their image of Pavia as the scrappy overachiever who’d had his 15 minutes after last year’s upset over Alabama suddenly clocked him as a real contender. Why not him?
And really: Why not? This year’s race is not very compelling, historically speaking. The frontrunners throughout the second half of the season, Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza and Ohio State’s Julian Sayin, are exactly what you’d expect from a boring Heisman race: A couple of freshly-scrubbed quarterbacks on teams entrenched atop the polls throughout the second half of the season. Both are efficient, largely pocket-bound technicians who consistently hit their marks; neither is any more of an awe-inspiring athletic specimen than the famously overlooked Pavia. They have had their moments: Mendoza leading a dramatic, game-winning drive at Penn State; Sayin throwing 3 touchdown passes in the snow to end the Buckeyes’ losing streak against Michigan. But they have not exactly captured America’s imagination along the way — at least, not yet.
The case for Sayin, especially, is largely on paper, where he leads the nation in most of the relevant efficiency stats, including Total QBR, pass efficiency and passing success rate. He’s on pace to set the single-season FBS record for completion percentage, connecting on just shy of 79% of his attempts for the year. He’s the nation’s highest-graded passer and overall quarterback per the film eaters at Pro Football Focus. For voters clued in to the metrics, Sayin looks like the clear favorite heading into this weekend’s showdown with Mendoza in the Big Ten Championship Game. But even on paper, he is not running away with it:
Beyond the numbers, though, one thing Sayin does not have is a compelling backstory. He is the baby-faced product of a well-oiled machine: The latest in an assembly line of blue-chip Ohio State quarterbacks dropping dimes to blue-chip Ohio State receivers behind a blue-chip offensive line operating in cruise control against overmatched Big Ten opponents. He has yet to encounter a significant deficit or find himself in a shootout opposite far and away the nation’s best defense, one allowing a meager 7.8 points per game. Between the opener against Texas and the finale at Michigan, how many Ohio State games this season were even worth tuning in to watch? With their internal clocks set for a 16-game slog, the Buckeyes left the distinct impression against Michigan that their real season is just beginning. And it’s hard not to come away with the impression that, as impressive as Sayin has been in his first year as a starter, a lot of other guys could have them in the same position that they’re in. Because a lot of other guys before him actually have.
You can’t quite say the same thing about Mendoza, who is having the best individual season in Indiana history at the helm of the best team in Indiana history. Barring a disaster against OSU this weekend, he’s going to be the Hoosiers’ first Heisman finalist since RB Anthony Thompson was runner-up in 1989. But he is not singlehandedly responsible for putting the program on the map. Mendoza portaled into a stable situation. Indiana was already on the upswing when he arrived last winter, coming off a stunning Playoff appearance in 2024 in coach Curt Cignetti’s first year on the job. The guy he replaced, Kurtis Rourke, finished 9th in last year’s Heisman vote, putting up very similar numbers in the same system before going on to become a 7th-round draft pick. The scouts like Mendoza a lot more, projecting him as a likely first-rounder, and potentially a candidate to go No. 1 overall. As far as his role in Indiana’s offense, though, he’s accounting for just 51.7% of the total output for an attack that averages nearly as many yards per game rushing (229.8) as passing (254.1).
The guys Diego Pavia replaced at Vanderbilt, the interchangeable tandem of AJ Swann and Ken Seals, combined to go 0-25 as starters vs. SEC opponents. Between them those guys routinely ranked dead last in these rankings for the better part of 4 years running. Coach Clark Lea once defended leaving one of them in the game (it doesn’t matter which one) to finish a blowout loss because “he gave us a chance to punt.” That was in November 2023, with Lea facing the firing squad at the end of a winless campaign in conference play, his second in three years. A few weeks later, Pavia arrived with zero fanfare from New Mexico State along with his offensive coordinator at NMSU, Tim Beck. Two years later, the Commodores are basking in the glow of a 10-win season, an offense that ranks in the top 10 nationally in yards and points per game, and sustained relevance in the Playoff race. Pavia is personally accounting for 71.2% of that output, the highest individual share in the SEC and significantly higher than Sayin or Mendoza. They just humiliated their in-state rival on national TV. Lea just signed a 6-year contract extension. Vanderbilt — Vanderbilt! — just flipped a 5-star quarterback recruit from Georgia.
None of that is possible, or even thinkable, without Pavia, a singular figure in the sport who has done as much to elevate his program as any player in the 21st Century, at least. He has made the quintessential doormat watchable, relevant, and, finally, a destination. His stats are worthy. His David vs. Goliath trajectory from obscurity to overachiever to bona fide star is compelling. His local impact might be unprecedented. Whatever success Vanderbilt goes on to have in the future can be traced directly to the energy he brought to the ‘Dores at their lowest point. How many players in your lifetime can stake a realistic claim to elevating a historical backwater out of the muck? Maybe Robert Griffin III at Baylor. RG3 won a Heisman. Pavia should, too.
Of course, Sayin and Mendoza will have the final word in their epic collision in the Big Ten title game while Diego is watching from home with the rest of us. Either way, the winner of a 1 vs. 2 showdown just hours before ballots are due is going to be very hard to deny, even if he looks pedestrian in the process. Ohio State and Indiana rank 1-2 nationally in scoring defense as well as in the polls. It might take a true defensive slog to give voters who haven’t made up their minds permission to consider the unorthodox candidate. Ultimately, though, the numbers and the politics are beside the point. Again, Pavia’s numbers are viable and competitive. But they don’t matter as much as what his career has meant for college football in an era of obscene spending and deep cynicism about the future of the sport. This is still a game where a zero-star, 5-foot-nothing juco scrub with the world’s biggest chip on his shoulder can emerge from the wilderness and get effin’ turnt against an 8-figure roster. When you consider where Pavia started, where he is now, and what it took to get there, the fact that he is on the stage at all should be all the proof necessary that he is the most outstanding player in 2025.
Last week: 1⬌
2. Gunner Stockton, Georgia
Stockton was a borderline nonentity in the Bulldogs’ win over Georgia Tech, finishing 11-for-21 for 70 yards in a 16-9 snoozer. He holds at No. 2 this week for 2 reasons: 1), his stellar 86.0 QBR rating for the season, good for 5th nationally; and 2), his season-defining performances in UGA’s biggest wins over Tennessee (92.3 QBR), Ole Miss (96.9) and Texas (94.5). Stockton has raised his game when the situation has required it, despite sometimes looking like a quarterback from the 1950s when it hasn’t. Every time out now falls into the former column, beginning with this weekend’s SEC Championship collision against Alabama.
Last week: 2⬌
3. Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss
With his head coach’s baggage hanging over the proceedings, Chambliss turned in arguably his best game of the season in the Egg Bowl, finishing with season highs for passing yards (359), touchdowns (4), QBR (93.3) and pass efficiency against an FBS opponent (195.2). It might not be possible to throw a football 35 yards with more atomic precision than his first-quarter touchdown strike to Harrison Wallace III:
Chambliss playing his best ball entering the postseason is good news for the Rebels’ chances of advancing in the CFP. Better news: Offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. will be back to call the plays after leaving aboard the plane that ferried Lane Kiffin from Oxford to Baton Rouge on Sunday amid an outpouring of vitriol from Ole Miss fans. Weis might not be the most popular guy in the building, but his feel for the offense is one of the most important ingredients in the team’s success, and his voice on the headset should ensure at least some degree of continuity amid the chaos. From a game-planning standpoint, at least, the Rebels should look like the Rebels.
Last week: 5⬆
4. Ty Simpson, Alabama
If you were surprised by the decision to forego a go-ahead field goal at the end of Saturday’s 27-20 win at Auburn, Bama fans were not – or shouldn’t have been. Simpson has specialized in the 4th-quarter dagger, especially on the road. His gutsy touchdown pass to Isaiah Horton was only the latest in a series of clutch 3rd- or 4th-down conversions that clinched each of the Tide’s previous road wins at Georgia, Missouri and South Carolina.
If you need one play to clinch a game on ice, Simpson might be the guy on this list you most want with the ball in his hands. The uneasy part as Bama’s Playoff fate hangs in the balance is just how often he’s found himself in that position.
Last week: 4⬌
5. Marcel Reed, Texas A&M
If Reed’s value wasn’t obvious before, the collective lump in the Aggies’ throats when he went down with what initially appeared to be a serious injury against Texas made it clear: The prospects of this team making a serious postseason run in his absence are grim. Fortunately for A&M, Reed went off under his own power and quickly returned to the game on the next series, limping slightly but still mobile. Unfortunately, he went on to throw 2 interceptions and post season lows by far for yards per attempt (5.6) and efficiency (97.3) in a 27-17 loss. In addition to extending their losing streak against Texas, the loss cost the Aggies a shot at their first SEC championship and a first-round bye. But if it ensures Reed is 100% for a first-round game in College Station, getting bounced from the SEC title game could turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
Last week: 3⬇
6. Arch Manning, Texas
You gotta hand it to Steve Sarkisian: The man is an effective propagandist. Full-court press notwithstanding, though, I’m not very sympathetic to Texas’ case to crash the Playoff with a 9-3 record. Yes, the Longhorns’ trio of quality wins over A&M, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt are impressive. And no, their opening-day loss at Ohio State should not be held eternally against them. However! Their midseason flop at Florida should be, and a 25-point loss at Georgia in Week 12 was more proof that they have not come as far on the field as they have in their rhetoric. In addition to their 3 losses on the road, the ‘Horns’ other 2 trips outside the state of Texas were down-to-the-wire overtime escapes against a pair of also-rans, Kentucky and Mississippi State, that very easily could have gone the other way. Sarkisian has referenced the fact that Texas outgained Ohio State in Columbus. Well, the Longhorns were outgained by more than 200 yards themselves in Lexington, and trailed by 17 points in the 4th quarter in Starkville.
Their overall point differential for the season (+118) is significantly narrower than any other bubble team. They rank 22nd in SP+, well below any other bubble team. If how you play matters as much as who you play, Texas has no Playoff case in a crowded field.
All that said, Lord help me, folks, I think I’m back on the bandwagon in 2026. One of the true parts of the argument is that Manning ended the season on an undeniable upswing. November wins over Vanderbilt, Arkansas and A&M represented his 3 best outings of the year in terms of QBR; he accounted for 10 touchdowns in those games with zero interceptions. After a shaky first half against the Aggies, he was in his comfort zone in the second, improving his accuracy and repeatedly moving the sticks with his legs. (It helped that Texas’ conventional ground game actually making some headway for a change.) Even factoring in a mediocre night in the loss to Georgia, anyone with eyes could see he was a more confident and productive quarterback down the stretch than he was when sirens were going off over his performance earlier in the year. The surrounding cast, a question mark for much of this year, is likely to return virtually intact. If he looks the part in whatever bowl game the ‘Horns land in, brace yourself for another offseason of Arch Madness.
Last week: 7⬆
7. Joey Aguilar, Tennessee
Tennessee embraced Aguilar in the wake of Nico Iamaleava’s departure like a jilted lover on the rebound. For a guy most SEC fans had never heard of before the season, Aguilar arguably exceeded expectations. Still, in the end he failed to lead a win over an opponent that finished with a winning record and went out with a whimper in a 45-24 loss to Vanderbilt. The Vols just dropped out of the Playoff rankings after 22 consecutive appearances dating to 2022. So just how enthusiastic are Vols fans about the prospect of another season with this guy atop the depth chart?
It’s not out of the question. Aguilar, a 24-year-old, 7th-year senior, recently added his name to a lawsuit spearheaded by Diego Pavia that would force the NCAA to end its policy of counting JUCO seasons against a player’s 4-year eligibility clock. Aguilar, who spent 4 years in the California JUCO ranks from 2019-22 (including a 2020 season canceled by COVID), has already benefited once from the same 1-time waiver that allowed Pavia to return to Vanderbilt. Now, he’s seeking a 4th year in D-I, and 8th overall. “I guess we will see,” Aguilar said after the loss to Vandy. “I’m not sure.”
With no timetable for a decision on Aguilar’s eligibility and no obvious heir apparent already on the roster, Tennessee could look to the portal for a quick fix. More intriguingly, there’s also the gem of the incoming recruiting class, 5-star Faizon Brandon, who’s expected on campus next month. If he is who the rankings says he is in the spring, by the time Aguilar’s fate is decided it might already be an afterthought.
Last week: 6⬇
8. John Mateer, Oklahoma
There are 2 ways to look at Oklahoma’s latest escape against LSU. One is alarm: Mateer was picked off 3 times in a must-win game for the Sooners’ Playoff hopes, a losing proposition for a team that is only in the race in the first place due to a +6 turnover margin in its previous 3 November wins. The other is acceptance: Winning ugly is just how this team rolls. Mateer was picked off 3 times and the Sooners still won, 17-13, on another stellar afternoon for the defense. All 4 entries in Oklahoma’s ongoing, 4-game winning streak have been dismissed as ugly or unsustainable in one way or another, yet they have sustained it all the way to an apparent Playoff bid. If they hold at No. 8 in the final committee rankings — there is no reason to think they won’t — they’ll host a first-round CFP game. They can’t go on surviving multiple giveaways a game against a Playoff-caliber opponent, obviously. Short of that, though, there is no mandate for Mateer to revive his injury-shortened September Heisman campaign. If he’s less than perfect, well, what else is new?
Last week: 8⬌
9. LaNorris Sellers, South Carolina
Sellers has been noncommital about his future, sticking to some version of “when it’s time to make a decision, I’ll make a decision” for the past few weeks. The time is nigh. If the next level beckons – his physical gifts alone likely ensure Sellers is at worst a Day 2 NFL Draft prospect – there’s probably not much South Carolina can do to persuade him. If he’s open to returning to campus, a couple factors will likely weigh heavily on whether it will be as a Gamecock. One is who Shane Beamer chooses to fill the vacancy at offensive coordinator after firing the scapegoated Mike Shula at midseason. The other is how much Carolina is willing to invest in upgrading the supporting cast, particularly a ramshackle, routinely outmanned offensive line. Sellers has spent too much of his tenure as QB1 under duress, winding up in the business end of 75 sacks over the past 2 years – easily the most of any FBS quarterback in that span.
Last week: 10⬆
10. Beau Pribula, Missouri
Mizzou gave Pribula’s arm the weekend off, calling on him to drop back just 10 times in a 31-17 win at Arkansas. He got in on the action with his legs instead, contributing 101 yards (excluding sacks) and a touchdown to a 378-yard rushing day for the offense as a whole. Per PFF, Missouri is the first SEC team with 3 different 100-yard rushers in the same game since Ole Miss in an October 2022 win over Auburn.
Thus ends a cromulent but relatively unremarkable year for Pribula, whose most memorable feat was returning to the lineup to close out the season less than a month after being carted off with a fractured ankle. He was 7-0 as a starter against opponents that finished with a losing record, 0-3 against winners, and fell squarely in the middle of the pack statistically. Presumably he will be back as QB1 in 2026. But first he should ask for a raise like the one they just gave his head coach, Eli Drinkwitz.
Last week: 11⬆
11. Taylen Green, Arkansas
Green spent most of the season putting up numbers in a bunch of shootout losses. He ended it on a sustained slide, eventually splitting reps with an understudy while costly turnovers mounted and production plummeted. Over the Razorbacks’ first 8 games, Green averaged just shy of 350 total yards and accounted for 23 touchdowns. In November, he failed to crack 250 yards in any game and accounted for just 4 TDs (3 of then rushing) as his passer rating declined by 50 points.
That’s it for Green, a 5th-year senior who never quite fulfilled his Kaepernick-like potential. He wouldn’t be the first mediocre college quarterback to sneak into the later rounds of the draft based on his combination of size and mobility, but he has some work to do over the next few months to bring the scouts around. Meanwhile, redshirt freshman KJ Jackson settles in as the de facto frontrunner in 2026 until his competition arrives via the portal.
Last week: 9⬇
12. Kamario Taylor, Mississippi State
Their team lost, but Mississippi State fans were vindicated in the Egg Bowl by Taylor’s long-overdue emergence in his first career start. A local product with all the tools, Taylor gradually became the focus of a base with not much else to look forward to other than the highest-rated QB recruit in school history finally supplanting 6th-year vet Blake Shapen. Saturday was the day, and Taylor seized it, accounting for 178 yards passing, 173 rushing, 2 rushing TDs, and a handful of highlight-reel runs that left no doubt about his status as a rising star in 2026.
It should have been Taylor’s offense the moment Shapen threw a game-losing pick to a defensive tackle with the Bulldogs within range of the winning field goal at Florida in Week 8. They might not have won any more games with the rookie, but at least the slog to the finish line would have been a lot more interesting.
Last week: n/a
13. Ashton Daniels, Auburn
Daniels acquitted himself well in a down-to-the-wire loss in the Iron Bowl – or would have, if his receivers could hold on to the ball. Altogether, 6 Auburn players combined for 7 dropped passes, per PFF, tied for the most drops by any team in an FBS game this season in the PFF database. Daniels’ lone interception was an accurate throw that caromed off his target’s hands. Then there was the game-ending fumble in the final minute by his best receiver, Cam Coleman, on what might have been Coleman’s last touch as a Tiger. (That was 1 of 5 Auburn fumbles on the night, including a muffed punt, but the only 1 recovered by Alabama.) It’s interesting to think about how the upset bid might have turned out with an extra application of Stickum.
Like everyone in this section of the list, Daniels’ future is uncertain. Although he essentially took over as the starter for the entire month of November, he only played in 4 games, preserving a redshirt and a 5th year of eligibility. If he spends it at Auburn, though, he’ll be a longshot to keep the job. The heir apparent, 5-star freshman Deuce Knight, went ham in his only extended appearance against FCS Mercer in Week 13, a sneak peek at his potential. Speculation is also rampant that the incoming head coach, Alex Golesh, might bring along his star quarterback at South Florida, dual-threat specimen Byrum Brown, who joined the rare 3,000-yards passing/1,000-yards rushing club in 2025. With 23 career starts (the first 20 coming at Stanford), Daniels would certainly be in demand enough to land a starting job somewhere further down the food chain. If he stays, he’ll likely have settle for going back to being the steady veteran insurance policy. Given how well he played that role this year, Auburn might be willing to make it worth his while.
Last week: 13⬌
14. DJ Lagway, Florida
After a rough sophomore campaign – rough is putting it mildly – Lagway does not sound like a guy looking for a way out. “I’m a Florida Gator and happy and blessed to be here,” he said after the Gators’ 40-21 win over Florida State. “That’s all I care about — the logo, the brand. The University of Florida has done so much for me and my family.”
There you have it.
Look, there’s no spinning this season as anything but a disappointment. In a handful of games, it was an outright disaster. Nobody is forgetting about the time he threw 5 interceptions at LSU or got benched in a blowout loss at Kentucky. In spite of everything, though, if he’s healthy and all-in, Lagway’s stock may be salvageable. His upside has never been in doubt. He rarely had the benefit of an intact receiving corps. (Notably, his best game, a Week 6 win over Texas, was one of the few in which he did; true freshman Dallas Wilson, in particular, balled out against the Longhorns in his first appearance in a Gators uniform, only to opt for a medical redshirt a few weeks later. Wilson and fellow freshman Vernell Brown III are both stars in the making.) The precocious gunslinger who showed such enormous promise as a freshman in 2024 is still in there somewhere. If new coach Jon Sumrall and his staff manage to bring him to the surface, there is no reason Lagway can’t still turn out to be the guy he was supposed to be yet.
Last week: 16⬆
15. Cutter Boley, Kentucky
As of Saturday, Boley was all in on returning to Kentucky in 2026, telling reporters after the Wildcats’ wipeout loss at Louisville “this is definitely where I want to be.” Less than 48 hours later, he was “trying to find the best place, wherever that may be” in the wake of Mark Stoops‘ dismissal as head coach. Kentucky wasted no time introducing Stoops’ successor, Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein, a Kentucky native who played quarterback at Louisville. Stein wont be full-time in Lexington until the end of Oregon’s Playoff run, but sorting out where Boley fits into the new plan (or doesn’t) will be one of the first orders of business for all parties.
Last week: 14⬇
16. Michael Van Buren Jr., LSU
Van Buren has said in no uncertain terms that he intends to remain in Baton Rouge, but based on his audition he’s an unlikely candidate to stick as QB1 under Lane Kiffin. In 3 starts in place of the injured/disgruntled Garrett Nussmeier, he averaged just 5.2 yards per attempt for an attack that averaged just 16.3 ppg against Arkansas, Western Kentucky and Oklahoma. A portal addition is inevitable; the only question is whether there will be any pretense of a competition in the spring.
Last week: 15⬇
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Matt Hinton, author of 'Monday Down South' and our resident QB guru, has previously written for Dr. Saturday, CBS and Grantland.
