First and 10: One player holds the key to SEC putting two teams in the Playoff
By Matt Hayes
Published:
1. I don’t want to get on a soapbox, but …
It’s time for the SEC to regain what it lost, to recapture what was taken, to become the elite conference in college football once again.
How, you ask? Two words: Jarrett Stidham.
If the SEC is to move beyond what is now painfully clear — and become more than just Alabama and the 13 Dwarfs — it’s time to rally around the one player who never dreamed of playing in the league in the first place.
Because if Stidham can become the player many – Auburn coach Gus Malzahn, opposing SEC coaches, NFL scouts – believe he can be, it will do more than just elevate the SEC back to the top of the college football world.
It will put two SEC teams in the College Football Playoff.
“Two? I don’t know about that,” Malzahn told me in July at SEC Media Days when asked if the SEC – or any league – would ever get two teams in the CFP. “It would have to be a special set of circumstances.”
Welcome, everyone, to that special set of circumstances – with a special talent at the most important position on the field.
Don’t take Malzahn’s word for it that Stidham, the Baylor transfer, has elite skills (remember the Jeremy Johnson/Cam Newton comparisons?), and don’t listen to every bobblehead on television talking about Malzahn finally having a true thrower at quarterback.
Soak in what an NFL scout, who has seen Stidham from his time at Stephenville High School (yep, believe it), to Baylor, to Auburn’s spring practice and fall camp, told me this week:
“This is real arm talent, a guy who knows where to go with the ball,” the scout said. “This will open up everything (Auburn) does on offense. They can pound away with those two hammers at tailback, and throw off play-action with a guy that can put it wherever he wants. What team does that sound like?”
A whole lot like the team that has sucked suspense from the past three SEC seasons and separated from the pack, and in the process, dented the league’s reputation. That is, until this fall.
We’ll know more about where we stand with the idea of two SEC teams in the CFP after the first two weeks of the season. If Alabama beats Florida State this weekend, and Auburn goes to Clemson and wins in Week 2, the plan will be set in motion.
Unbeaten or one-loss Auburn winning the Iron Bowl in late November over unbeaten (and No.1-ranked) Alabama puts the SEC in position to get two spots in the CFP. Alabama will have the resume (wins over FSU, Colorado State, 7-1 SEC record) as the best one-loss team; Auburn will have the SEC title.
The key to this SEC is nirvana is Stidham, whose throwing ability – on all levels of the field – will be more complete than anything Malzahn has had at Auburn (including Newton and Nick Marshall), and his most complete throwing quarterback since David Johnson at Tulsa in 2008.
As dangerous as Malzahn’s offenses were at Auburn in 2010 and 2013, they weren’t close to what Tulsa accomplished in 2008 when Johnson threw for 4,059 yards and 46 TDs. Johnson threw 400 passes that season, but Tulsa was still at an unthinkable 61-39 percent run-to-pass ratio.
Imagine what Malzahn’s power run based offense will do with punishing tailbacks Kamryn Pettway and Kerryon Johnson now that Stidham can keep defenses from loading up to stop the run.
The Auburn offense was predictable and limited the past two seasons with average play at quarterback. Sean White and Jeremy Johnson combined to throw 21 TDs against 16 INTs, and completed less than 60 percent of their passes.
That’s how you go 15-11 and fall further behind Alabama with everyone else in the SEC.
But Stidham, who hasn’t played since November 2015 when he injured his ankle on a cold night in Stillwater, Okla., will change all of that. Earlier this week, Stidham addressed the media at Auburn and said of his 22-month layoff, “You don’t really know what you have until you don’t have it anymore.”
The same can be said for the SEC’s conference superiority. They’re no longer king.
But they’re not that far away.
2. Brutal truth
Who says college football gods don’t have a sense of humor?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Texas A&M at UCLA – just part of a handful of prove-it games on opening weekend.
One of the two coaches in that game – Kevin Sumlin of Texas A&M or Jim Mora of UCLA – will be one step closer to unemployment Monday morning in the multi-million dollar win or walk profession that is coaching college football.
3. All about the quarterback
Jim McElwain walked on campus in Gainesville three years ago and boldly declared he could win games with his dog Clarabelle playing quarterback.
Here’s the best part of that joke: Heading in to McElwain’s third season at Florida, we have no idea if this year’s group of quarterbacks is any better than Clarabelle.
“We feel pretty good about where we are right now,” McElwain insists.
Florida begins this season Saturday against Michigan with a double transfer (Luke Del Rio, by way of Alabama and Oregon State), a transfer (Malik Zaire, Notre Dame) and redshirt freshman (Feleipe Franks, below) all likely to play against the Wolverines.
That’s one quarterback who last year was decent but limited physically as the starter, another who lost his starting job at another school and a redshirt freshman who has never played.
Want to know why Florida tanked after Tim Tebow left following the 2009 season?
Here’s your answer:
John Brantley, Jordan Reed, Trey Burton, Jeff Driskel, Jacoby Brissett, Tyler Murphy, Skyler Mornhinweg, Treon Harris, Will Grier, Austin Appleby and Del Rio.
The post-Tebow experiment at quarterback has included two players who changed positions, six who eventually transferred and two who transferred in. That’s staggering for a program in the middle of the most talent-rich state in college football, and with a history of Heisman Trophy-winning and record-setting quarterbacks.
That post-Tebow group has combined to throw 105 TDs and 78 INTs (an average of 15 TDs a season), and the Gators’ passing offense over that span has been ranked nationally at 88th, 89th, 118th, 109th, 106th, 86th and 79th.
Now Del Rio, Zaire and Franks get their chance to lead a team McElwain calls his most complete in three years in Gainesville. The first two played in the SEC Championship Game.
His third — no matter how good he thinks they are – won’t go further without one of the three quarterbacks playing differently than the past seven years.
4. The Show has returned
Let’s all welcome Terry Beckner Jr. back to the fold.
Two years, two seasons cut short by ACL injuries: on his right knee in 2015, and on his left knee in 2016.
Missouri’s one-time 5-star defensive tackle has shed nearly 20 pounds from last season, he’s chiseled and in the best shape of his career. A career that has included all of 15 games.
“Those 15 games,” one NFL scout told me. “are a highlight show. When he’s healthy, he has top 10 pick potential.”
Enjoy it while you can, Mizzou fans. If Beckner stays healthy this fall, that likely translates to a huge bounce-back season. And that means first-round money.
5. The Weekly Five
Five picks against the spread:
- Alabama (-7) over FSU
- Florida (+5) over Michigan
- UCLA (-4) over Texas A&M
- Georgia Tech (+3) over Tennessee
- South Carolina (+4.5) over NC State
6. Ask and you shall receive
Matt: Who is your sleeper team in each division in 2017?
Karen Fisher
Ft. Lauderdale
Karen: I’m all about the quarterback. Don’t care what level – Pop Warner, high school, college, pro – you win big games with a quarterback who can do the unusual.
I like South Carolina in the East, and Mississippi State in the West.
Listen to the First and 10 podcast and hear how Mississippi State QB Nick Fitzgerald has worked all offseason on becoming a more polished thrower. Here’s a guy who, if he played for any of the SEC heavyweights, would be a preseason media darling. As it is, he’s coming off a huge season and is poised for another significant jump in production.
South Carolina, meanwhile, has a quarterback who likely will be a high draft pick by the time he finishes his career. Just how good is Jake Bentley? When I asked Gamecocks coach Will Muschamp if he had a quarterback like Bentley when he was coaching at Florida, I couldn’t complete the rest of the question before he interrupted and said, “I’d still be there. No question.”
Jake Bentley to Deebo Samuel. Get used to it – you’re going to hear it over and over for at least two more years.
7. What could have been
This is what it has come to at Tennessee: a coach who has won nine games in each of the past two seasons is feeling heat to win in 2017.
Now Tennessee and coach Butch Jones begin this season against Georgia Tech, a team with a history of punishing opponents who aren’t ready for the triple option flexbone offense. Lose that game, and negativity begins immediately around the Vols program – a program that hasn’t been able to deflect it in more than a decade.
Think about this: If Jones doesn’t win enough this fall and gets fired, only one of Tennessee’s past four coaches will have not been fired. That guy’s name is Kiffin.
Earlier this summer, I asked new FAU coach Lane Kiffin about those tumultuous but successful 14 months in Knoxville, and if he ever regrets leaving Tennessee for USC – where he was fired midway through his fourth season.
“You can’t look back, you just can’t,” Kiffin said. “I know my dad said we should have stayed (at Tennessee). But I’m not one to look back like that. I’m not a coulda, woulda, shoulda guy. But we sure did do some good things when we were there.”
Kiffin took over a shell of a team at Tennessee in 2009 and went 7-6, losing three games (Alabama, Auburn, UCLA) by a combined 10 points. In fact, had it not been for a blocked field goal on the game’s last play, the Vols could have beaten eventual national champion Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
8. Stretching the field
Forget about who should play quarterback at LSU, and zero in on the guy coaching him.
The beauty of new LSU offensive coordinator Matt Canada isn’t so much his successful history of developing quarterbacks as much as it is his idea of throwing the ball downfield.
In this age of spreading the field with four and five wideouts and finding spots in coverage for short to intermediate throws, Canada still sees the value in stretching the field. That’s why LSU quarterback Danny Etling, who throws an accurate and catchable deep ball, will become Canada’s latest reclamation project.
In one year as OC at Pittsburgh, Canada increased QB Nathan Peterman’s numbers across the board, including a critical, often overlooked statistic: yards per attempt.
Peterman’s yards per attempt went from 7.28 in 2015 to 9.33 in 2016. An increase of 1 yard is significant; 2 yards is game changing.
Peterman completed 64 percent of his passes on 3rd-and- 7-9 yards to go, and his QB rating in that down and distance scenario was a phenomenal 211.74.
In the same situational distance last year, Etling completed less than 50 percent of his throws and had a QB rating of 89.26.
That’s where LSU games will be won and lost this fall.
9. Numbers game
7: Nick Saban is 7-0 in neutral site season openers at Atlanta and Dallas, quality games Saban says are critical to keeping his team focused and prepared in the offseason.
The victories – over Clemson, Virginia Tech (twice), West Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan and USC – have come by a combined 264-104. That’s plus-160 points, or an average margin of victory of 22.8 points.
One more number to keep in mind going into Saturday’s game against FSU at Mercedes-Benz Stadium: Alabama has never scored fewer than 33 points in any of those seven openers.
10. The final word
LSU tailback Derrius Guice, who led the SEC in rushing last season, on replacing star tailback Leonard Fournette : “I hear people say it’s ‘my time’ now (at LSU). I was out there grinding last year, wasn’t I? Wait until you see this year.”
Want a question answered in the weekly First and 10 column, email Matt at hayescfb@gmail.com, or tweet him at @MattHayesCFB
Matt Hayes is a national college football writer for Saturday Down South. You can hear him daily from 12-3 p.m. on 1010XL in Jacksonville. Follow on Twitter @MattHayesCFB
