SEC QB Rankings, Week 10: Vanderbilt needs Diego Pavia at his best to turn its Playoff dream into reality

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.

1. Ty Simpson, Alabama

Bama fans might feel differently, but for entertainment value, give me the Crimson Tide’s weekly battles against inertia over all those years they spent ritually stuffing opponents into lockers before halftime any day. Saturday’s come-from-behind, 29-22 win at South Carolina was their 3rd straight road win by a touchdown or less, and the first in which they trailed in the 4th quarter. It’s hard not to be reminded of Kalen DeBoer‘s remarkable track record in close games at Washington, especially in 2023, when the Huskies went 8-0 in games decided by single digits en route to the CFP Championship Game. Simpson is not putting it in the air as often as Michael Penix did for that team, but so far he is (narrowly) eclipsing Penix’s 2023 production in terms of touchdown percentage, interception percentage, adjusted yards per attempt and overall efficiency. Penix was the runner-up in that year’s Heisman vote; as long as Bama keeps coming out ahead, Simpson’s own Heisman chances are shaping up nicely.

Last week: 1⬌

2. Gunner Stockton, Georgia

I don’t know to what extent Stockton has captured the hearts and minds of the locals, but statistically he’s been stellar: Second nationally in Total QBR, 3rd in EPA, 5th in success rate. If there’s a disconnect between the stats and the eye test, it’s largely due to the fact that Georgia relies so heavily on screens and flares as an extension of its running game; a little more than 30% of Stockton’s attempts to this point have fallen behind the line of scrimmage, easily the highest rate of any SEC starter. Even Carson Beck and Stetson Bennett IV weren’t asked to play it that safe, and unlike Stockton they were almost always playing with a comfortable lead. But given how well he’s responded with the team’s back against the wall — especially in come-from-behind, shootout wins over Tennessee and Ole Miss — Stockton has been the Bulldogs’ most valuable player over the first two seasons and the main reason they remain on track despite the defense’s descent into mediocrity.

Last week: 3⬆

3. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt

Based strictly on the box score of Vandy’s 17-10 win over Missouri, the offense laid an egg. It was Pavia’s worst outing of the year, by far, resulting in season-lows for total offense, completion percentage, yards per attempt, passer rating, EPA and Total QBR. He finished with a higher number in the INT column (1) than the touchdown column (0) for the first time as a Commodore. The ‘Dores struggled to sustain drives, decisively lost the battle for time of possession, ran just 45 plays, and finished nearly 200 yards below their season average coming in. 

Then again, the fact that it’s now possible to watch Vanderbilt – which, I remind you, is Vanderbilt – knock off a ranked opponent with College GameDay on campus and come away with any quibbles at all pretty much speaks for itself. In a way, there was something just as reassuring about the ‘Dores winning ugly as there is on the days when their star quarterback is striking the Heisman pose, which is at some point a test every team thinking bigger than any given Saturday has to pass. When it was the defense’s turn to keep the season afloat, it held up its end of the bargain.

Anyway, for a serious Playoff contender – which, I remind you, Vandy very much is hitting the November stretch – that line works exactly once before it starts to sound like whistling past the graveyard. Pavia is the main reason the Commodores are in any position to think big in the first place, and they cannot afford for him to turn into a pumpkin with a golden ticket nearly within reach. The most reassuring result in this weekend’s road trip to Texas would be their face-of-the-program QB looking like his best self.

Last week: 2⬇

4. Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss

Chambliss is the rare quarterback whose production doesn’t plummet under duress. Per Pro Football Focus, his grade on pressured drop-backs (78.4, easily the best in the SEC) is nearly identical to his grade when kept clean (79.9), and he’s averaging exactly 8.9 yards per attempt either way. But he also has not spent much time in the crosshairs, facing pressure on an SEC-low 22.3% of his total attempts on the year. Oklahoma, which came into the weekend tied for the national lead in sacks, barely ruffled on Chambliss’ feathers on Saturday, managing only a dozen pressures, 1 sack, and a penalty for roughing the passer on his 47 drop-backs. If not for Lane Kiffin‘s strange insistence on taking the ball out of Chambliss’ hands in a couple of pivotal situations, the margin in a 34-26 decision at Oklahoma might have been more comfortable.

If anything, the (officially) 6-foot Chambliss seems less bothered by opposing rushers bearing down than by hands in his face. Oklahoma swatted 3 passes at the line; that brought Chambliss’ total to 10 batted passes on the year, tied for most in the FBS with a couple of guys who have significantly more attempts. Subtract just those 10 throws from the ledger, and suddenly his marginal completion percentage makes the leap to respectability.

Last week: 5⬆

5. Marcel Reed, Texas A&M

It’s obviously a stretch to imply any opposing player singlehandedly got an opposing coach fired. But if you’re ranking the culprits in Brian Kelly‘s demise at LSU, Reed’s name ranks high on the list. Last year, he memorably came off the bench in the second half to lead a 31-6 rally in College Station, the first entry in a 3-game LSU skid that put Kelly on the hot seat in the first place. On Saturday, he accounted for 310 yards and 4 touchdowns in another second-half romp that cemented Texas A&M’s status as a contender and LSU’s status as pretender. Kelly was shown the door less than 24 hours later. Reed’s QBR scores in those 2 games — 99.8 last year, 92.4 on Saturday night — are the 2 best single-game performances of his young career.

Last week: 6⬆

6. Joey Aguilar, Tennessee

Vols fans spent 2 years watching a couple guys with military-grade arm strength, Joe Milton III and Nico Iamaleava, fail to move the needle downfield. Enter Aguilar, a former JUCO product with no profile whatsoever as a next-level specimen, and the bombs are raining at an unprecedented rate. Aguilar’s performance in a 56-34 win at Kentucky was one for the books: Per PFF, he was a perfect 7-for-7 on attempts of 20+ air yards, accounting for 287 of his 396 passing yards on the night (72.5%) and 2 of his 3 touchdowns.

For context, no other quarterback this season has attempted more than 5 downfield shots this season season without at least 1 incompletion, and no other quarterback has thrown for as many yards on those shots against an FBS opponent since Pittsburgh’s Kenny Pickett torched NC State for 321 yards in a losing effort in October 2020.

Aguilar is not throwing deep at an especially high rate, but maybe he should be. For the season, he ranks 3rd nationally in completion percentage (56.8%), 2nd in yards (834) and No. 1 in touchdowns (11) on downfield attempts. That already tops both Milton’s downfield output in 2023 and Iamaleava’s in ’24. It’s easily on pace to top Hendon Hooker’s in 2022, when he finished 5th in the Heisman vote. If he accomplishes nothing else in his lone season as a Vol, at least he can say he let it rip.

Last week: 9⬆

7. Taylen Green, Arkansas

The Razorbacks seemed well on their way to their first conference win in Week 9, taking a 24-16 lead into the 4th quarter against also-winless-in-SEC-play Auburn. Then they seemed to remember what year this is and who they are.

https://twitter.com/AuburnFootball/status/1982168158304633178

For once, Green can’t pass the buck. His first pick-6 of the season kicked off a flurry of 4 consecutive Arkansas giveaways in the span of 13 plays, including back-to-back INTs on the Hogs’ last 2 offensive snaps in a 33-24 defeat. With that, they fell to the bottom of the SEC for the season in both turnovers (15) and turnover margin (-8), finishing in the red for the 5th time in their ongoing 6-game skid.

Last week: 4⬇

8. John Mateer, Oklahoma

Mateer has been ice-cold throwing downfield since rushing back from an injury to his throwing hand. Per PFF, he was a dreadful 1-for-9 on attempts of 20+ air yards in Oklahoma’s loss to Ole Miss, and was badly off-target on a couple of gotta-have-it downs in the 4th quarter. That was actually a slight improvement over the previous 2 games, in which he was a combined 0-for-5 against Texas and South Carolina. Prior to the injury, Mateer was a respectable 10-for-19 on downfield attempts with 2 touchdowns and no picks in September. Whether that has anything to do with his surgically repaired hand or not, the Sooners badly need him back to looking like the guy who generated early Heisman buzz if they stand a chance of salvaging their Playoff hopes this weekend against Tennessee’s bombs-away attack in Knoxville.

Last week: 7⬇

9. LaNorris Sellers, South Carolina

There was one silver lining in Carolina’s loss to Alabama: A 54-yard touchdown pass from Sellers to the equally hyped — and equally disappointing — Nyck Harbor, their first downfield connection since the opener against Virginia Tech. Otherwise, it was more of the same. The Gamecocks’ only other touchdown came as the result of a short field in the 4th quarter; in the meantime, Sellers was pressured at a typically high rate, struggled with his accuracy, and committed two killer turnovers. The first, a tip-drill pick-6 on Carolina’s second possession of the game, got the Tide on the board while their offense struggled to get untracked. (That one, at least, you can conceivably blame on some combination of the o-line forcing Sellers to ditch the ball in a panic and his target for deflecting it directly to a Bama defender.) The second, a crucial fumble with the game tied in the final 2 minutes, set up the game-winning touchdown.

That’s 5 losses in the past 6 for a team that opened at No. 13 in the preseason poll, with back-to-back road trips to Ole Miss and Texas A&M on deck. This is about the point on the calendar when South Carolina, and Sellers personally, hit the gas last year en route to a surprising 6-game win streak to close the regular season. At this point, pulling off a repeat would be an even bigger surprise because there is no momentum in Columbia to speak of.

Last week: 11⬆

10. Garrett Nussmeier, LSU

I watched the entirety of LSU’s wipeout loss to Texas A&M from the kickoff to the home crowd streaming out of Tiger Stadium in disgust, and even I find it difficult to believe that as late as halftime Nussmeier was holding up just fine. It’s true: LSU scored on its last 2 turns with the ball in the first half and led at the break, 18-14. After halftime, he was buried beneath the A&M pass rush with such frequency and authority that it quickly rendered whatever happened prior to that irrelevant. The Aggies abused a banged-up offensive line, dropping Nussmeier 5 times on the night and his backup, Michael Van Buren, twice more in garbage time. Nussmeier finished with career-lows for passing yards (168), yards per attempt (4.8), and QBR (53.3) and a season-low for efficiency (112.6).

Interim head coach Frank Wilson affirmed this week that Nussmeier remains QB1 heading into an open date ahead of a Week 11 trip to Alabama, a sentence which tells you all you need to know about how the past month has unfolded. At least some NFL scouts are still on board with Nussmeier’s stock for 2026, which hey, it’s something to play for. Locals, on the other hand, are ready to turn the page to Van Buren, a Mississippi State transfer who led a garbage-time touchdown drive against the Aggies and could benefit from a live audition before the new coaching staff arrives in December. Here’s betting the latter winds up looking more prescient than the former.

Last week: 10⬌

11. DJ Lagway, Florida

Lagway was off to a good start against Georgia last year before a hamstring injury ended his afternoon in the 2nd quarter. The injury wasn’t as severe as it initially looked, but it did derail a nascent upset bid; Florida led at the half, 13-6, but went on to lose 34-20 behind a 3rd-string walk-on, Aidan Warner. This year’s edition of the Cocktail Party arrives with even stranger vibes following Billy Napier‘s ouster in Gainesville. But no one has ever doubted the potential of Lagway or his gifted young wideouts to inflict damage when they’re on the same page, and the way Georgia’s secondary has played this season, there could be plenty there to inflict.

Last week: 12⬆

12. Arch Manning, Texas

As battered as Manning has been this season, it was only a matter of time before he took one that left him seeing little cartoon birds orbiting his head. It came on the first play of overtime at Mississippi State, on the heels of a dramatic 4th quarter in which Texas had just rallied from a 17-point deficit to force overtime for the 2nd time in as many weeks against one of the league’s alleged scrubs. At the end of an awkward scramble, Manning left his feet to dive across the first-down line, leaving himself vulnerable to a hit in midair; the subsequent shot bounced his head off the turf, forcing him out of the game and into the concussion protocol. His status for the Longhorns’ must-win date against Vanderbilt — they’re all must-win at this point — is officially TBD.

If he hasn’t been cleared by Saturday, the fate of the ‘Horns’ fading Playoff hopes falls to Matthew Caldwell, a journeyman on his 4th school in 5 years. (The previous 3: Jacksonville State, Gardner-Webb and Troy, where he turned in 3-3 record as a part-time starter in 2024.) In keeping with the old cliché about the popularity of the backup quarterback, Caldwell has generated some minor intrigue among Texas fans based on two throws: A 26-yard strike that kicked off Texas’ last-gasp drive at Florida after Manning lost his helmet on the previous play; and a 10-yard touchdown pass in Starkville after Manning left the game, the eventual winner in a 45-38 escape. Those are Caldwell’s only meaningful attempts of the season. If he gets the call against Vandy, he has a chance to take the Arch Discourse to a whole new level.

Last week: 13⬆

13. Blake Shapen, Mississippi State

Another week, another heart-breaking entry in the Bulldogs’ ongoing SEC losing streak, now at 16 games and counting. Shapen did everything he could have realistically been asked to do against Texas, dropping back 50 times, averaging 9.1 yards per attempt, and throwing 4 touchdown passes without an interception. Those numbers don’t account for sacks (7) or drops (6, per PFF), which only added to the feeling that he was rolling yet another boulder up an even steeper hill, only to watch it roll all the way back down again because his punter inexplicably kicked the ball to Ryan Niblett. Up next on their Sisyphean journey: A trip to Arkansas for a game that, by law and custom, somebody actually has to win.

Last week: 15⬆

14. Cutter Boley, Kentucky

The Wildcats fell behind 28-7 against Tennessee – in part due to a pick-6– and never seriously threatened to close the gap en route to a 56-34 defeat. But they made garbage time more interesting than it had any right to be. Defying his lo-fi rep, Boley let it rip, finishing with a career-high 330 yards and 5 touchdowns on 26-for-35 passing in a rare display of fireworks under Mark Stoops. 

https://twitter.com/UKFootball/status/1982251015161139646

Five touchdowns set a Stoops-era record, give or take an asterisk for empty calories. For a redshirt freshman with some promising traits (read: he’s tall), that ain’t nothing. Assuming Kentucky has a new head coach in December, Boley has a chance between now and then to give him a lot to think about.

Last week: 16⬆

15. Jackson Arnold or Ashton Daniels, Auburn

Arnold has not been dumped on the curbside yet, but the writing is on the wall. His last pass in Saturday’s win over Arkansas was his worst in an Auburn uniform, resulting in a 90-yard pick-6 for the Razorbacks with less than a minute to play in the first half and a cold seat on the bench for Arnold for the rest of the afternoon. Daniels, a Stanford transfer with 20 career starts under his belt for the Cardinal, came off the bench to preside over the Tigers’ second-half comeback in his first meaningful action of the year. He was fine, finishing 6/8 passing and accounting for 112 total yards; more important, he didn’t do anything to screw things up while being gifted a flurry of turnovers from a self-destructing Arkansas offense. Five second-half possessions on Daniels’ watch yielded 5 field goals.

Hugh Freeze was noncommittal about the pecking order for this weekend’s home date against Kentucky, declaring an open competition. Daniels reportedly took first-team reps during Monday’s practice, for what it’s worth. But Freeze has more to consider than just the Tigers’ upcoming games against Kentucky and Vanderbilt — namely, who gives them the best chance to beat Alabama in the Iron Bowl? One reason Auburn pursued Arnold in the first place was his performance (primarily as a runner) in Oklahoma’s 24-3 upset over Bama last November. That was his best game by far at OU after returning to the lineup from a midseason benching. It’s no secret that Freeze’s job could hinge on the Iron Bowl, or that the Tigers always expect to give the Crimson Tide all they can handle in their odd-year trips to the Plains. Unless Daniels is a revelation over the next couple weeks, Auburn fans have probably not seen the last of Arnold, much as many of them may wish they had.

Looking beyond the home stretch, the other variable where Arnold’s status is concerned is 5-star freshman Deuce Knight. The gem of the 2025 recruiting class, Knight has not been a factor this year, his only action to date having come in garbage time of a Week 2 blowout over Ball State. But he certainly will be next year, when his mere presence stands to make Arnold expendable. (Daniels is in his final year of eligibility.) Not that there’s any point in attempting to handicap the situation in ’26 when we don’t even know who’s going to be the head coach. But the odds of Arnold remaining in the fold are looking like an increasingly bad bet.

Last week: 14⬇ | n/a

16. Matt Zollers, Missouri

Beau Pribula‘s season is likely over due to an ankle injury. (A miraculous postseason return has not been ruled out, but that would require Mizzou to make an equally miraculous run without him.) The top backup, Sam Horn, is done for the year after suffering a broken leg in the opener. 

That leaves Zollers, a true freshman who will have 2 weeks to prepare for his first career start against Texas A&M in Week 11. Zollers was a consensus top-100 recruit according to the recruiting sites, a relatively big fish by Mizzou standards, and acquitted himself well enough in the Tigers’ loss at Vanderbilt in his first meaningful action. Earlier in the year, Eli Drinkwitz called Zollers “the future of Missouri football.” When he said that, though, presumably he was not imagining that future arriving with their CFP hopes still hanging by a thread.

Last week: n/a