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O’Gara: As SEC camps open, it’s not a coincidence that there’s not a single QB battle

Connor O'Gara

By Connor O'Gara

Published:


Cheers, friends. Fall camp has arrived.

You can smell football around the corner. You can see the offseason finish line. You can hear pads popping from coast to coast.

OK, maybe I’m speaking figuratively, but you get it. We made it to fall camp, where talkin’ season fades into the regular season.

If you look across the SEC, you might notice something. There isn’t a single quarterback battle in fall camp.

That’s not a coincidence.

(Don’t tell me that Vanderbilt has a quarterback battle. With all due respect to Utah transfer Nate Johnson, Diego Pavia will be the Commodores’ QB1 after transferring from New Mexico State, AKA Auburn’s kryptonite.)

It’s still July and we know who every single SEC quarterback will be. Shoot, 11 of the 16 SEC teams had a quarterback as 1 of their 3 player representatives at SEC Media Days. These were the 5 teams that didn’t:

  • Kentucky
  • South Carolina
  • Tennessee
  • Texas A&M
  • Vanderbilt

Don’t get it twisted. None of those teams have battles. Brock Vandagriff, LaNorris Sellers, Nico Iamaleava, Conner Weigman and the aforementioned Pavia will be QB1 for their respective teams. Barring injury, you can assume that they’re getting the vast majority of those first-team reps in fall camp without much discussion.

(On second thought, never put it past Clark Lea to tell us until the opener that it’s a true battle with Pavia, Johnson and probably a slew of others getting first-team reps. He cycles through quarterbacks like they’re air conditioning filters.)

That’s going to become the new norm in conferences like the SEC. The post-regular season transfer portal window forced more teams to be direct about the quarterback position. A team like Kentucky aggressively pursued Vandagriff to be its starter in the post-regular season window while the non-moves from programs like Auburn and Texas A&M spoke volumes about their respective starters.

It’s almost like how recruiting classes work. Ideally, you get your quarterback committed early in the cycle. He can then help recruit the rest of the class while establishing what the offensive identity is expected to be.

Coaches have realized that the post-spring portal window isn’t the time to address starting quarterback needs. That learning curve is too steep. It’s not to say that every future QB battle will be decided in spring. Lord knows there could be a 2023 Alabama situation, which saw Jalen Milroe win the job out of camp, only to lose it and retain it in the first month of the season.

Quarterback battles aren’t dead, but the majority of them are now operating under an expedited schedule. Good. If there’s a fear that being direct about the quarterback situation will result in backups hitting the portal, well, that can be a 2-way street. Also, the resistance to land a QB1 in the post-spring window could be why backups like Alabama’s Ty Simpson and Georgia’s Gunner Stockton weren’t enticed enough to leave, which those fan bases (and coaches) might’ve feared. It was entirely different to watch Julian Sayin leave Alabama for Ohio State after a new coaching staff arrived.

Speaking of the Buckeyes, they’re in the midst of the most high-profile quarterback battle in the country. They’re the exception to the rule having landed Kansas State transfer Will Howard to compete with bowl game starter Devin Brown after 2023 starter Kyle McCord left for Syracuse. Ryan Day is treating it like a true battle heading into what could be a make-or-break season for him in Columbus.

Everything about Ohio State screams “1 of 1 situation.” AD Ross Bjork told Yahoo Sports that the Buckeyes’ roster has “around $20 million” in NIL money that was distributed. It’s a program coming off its 10th consecutive top-10 finish, yet at the root of that increased spending was the (gasp) 2-game losing streak that capped 2023. Day is in “whatever it takes” territory with managing his quarterback room.

You could say the same thing about Arkansas coach Sam Pittman, albeit for different reasons. His decision to name Boise State transfer Taylen Green the starter in the spring and then bring him to SEC Media Days might’ve been considered a “bold” move, but why worry about being vague on the subject when Bobby Petrino handpicked him to run the offense in the post-regular season window? If Pittman is indeed coaching for his job — Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek gave him a vote of confidence at the end of a 4-8 season in Year 4 — then why mess around at the most important position? Who cares about hurting feelings?

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables might not be coaching for his job following his contract extension in June, but why would it have made sense to pretend that former 5-star recruit Jackson Arnold was in a battle to replace the departed Dillon Gabriel? After all, Arnold was the backup last year and he got his first career start in the Alamo Bowl. It made far more sense for Arnold to work with the first-teamers throughout the offseason to develop a rapport with a talented group of pass-catchers and new OC Seth Littrell.

Coaches who try to pull strings by “motivating” quarterbacks with battles are ignoring how college athletics have changed. Besides all the cliché motivators that should drive someone to become the face of a program, there’s never been more financial incentive to become an established, standout starting quarterback. Guys shouldn’t need some drawn-out battle to recognize that. If a battle is the only way a coach believes he can convince a quarterback to dig into his playbook and keep up with his offseason conditioning, he’s got a dated perspective.

It appears that perspective is dwindling. It should be. At other positions, that card can still be played. But at quarterback, fall camp battles should become less and less common. In the SEC, they’re already an endangered species.

Someone just forgot to tell Vanderbilt.

Connor O'Gara

Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.

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