There are headline-grabbers, and there are guys that usually don’t get that special treatment.
None of these players went unnoticed by the fans of their teams, but they did go relatively unnoticed to the rest of the conference. Some of them were well-recognized within the SEC but not so much nationally.
Here’s a look at each team and one of their players that didn’t get quite the acclaim he deserved.
ALABAMA: C RYAN KELLY
Many times the question surrounding a defending national champion is whether it can overcome the loss of several key players. The story with Alabama is much more about who decided to stay with Heisman-winning RB Derrick Henry and DE A’Shawn Robinson being the only underclassmen declaring for the NFL draft, while SS Eddie Jackson, DE Jonathan Allen and linebackers Tim Williams and Ryan Anderson are all returning.
Still, one player who will be missed is center Ryan Kelly. If it’s possible for a player to win the Rimington Trophy Award for nation’s top center and be a second-team All-American and still be underappreciated, Kelly is that player. Casual fans and even knowledgeable fans outside of Tuscaloosa don’t comprehend how good he was in 2015.
The three-year starter didn’t allow a sack in any of the 15 games last season. In fact, he only allowed four hurries. He also committed just one penalty, which wasn’t a holding call.
Oh yeah, and he was the SEC Scholar Athlete of the Year.
ARKANSAS: LG SEBASTIAN TRETOLA
Our next guy on here is also an offensive lineman because let’s face it, these guys don’t get their due. Left guard Sebastian Tretola will be playing on Sundays next fall after a season that earned him second-team All-America honors. The 6-foot-5, 334-pounder helped lead one of the most balanced offenses in the entire country, one that ranked 32nd in passing (268.2 yards per game) and 34th in rushing (197.3 yards per game).
Meanwhile, Arkansas only allowed 14 sacks to rank second only to Indiana (13) among Power 5 schools. Tretola himself only surrendered a half-sack in 26 career games.
AUBURN: LB CASSANOVA McKINZY
Auburn’s linebacker corps will take a hit with the loss of senior linebackers Cassanova McKinzy, Kris Frost and Justin Garrett. McKinzy was third on the team with 74 tackles and led the squad with 5 sacks. He was also tops on the team by a wide margin with 10 tackles for loss, 5.5 more than any other Tiger, and a whopping 20 quarterback hurries.
Auburn fans know how important the versatile McKinzy was to the team’s defense last season, but his value escapes many outside The Plains as he was overshadowed by many other linebackers in the SEC in 2015. He’s projected as a seventh-rounder or undrafted free agent in this year’s draft. After spraining a medial collateral ligament in his right knee in the team’s win over Memphis in the Birmingham Bowl, McKinzy told reporters at Auburn’s Pro Day earlier this month that he’s still recovering from a hamstring injury.
FLORIDA: S KEANU NEAL
The hardest hitter on the team and a ball hawk, safety Keanu Neal will be hard to replace. Neal was third on the team with 96 tackles despite missing the first two games of the season due to injury. Neal paced the team in tackles in five separate games last season, and he posted double-digit tackles in three games: 14 vs. Tennessee, 14 at LSU, 11 vs. Michigan.
Neal also had 3.5 tackles for loss and 2 sacks while displaying an incredible knack for being around the football. He decided to forgo his senior season and enter the NFL draft.
GEORGIA: RT KOLTON HOUSTON
While left tackle John Theus got a lot of the acclaim, and rightfully so, Kolton Houston leaves Georgia having started on the Bulldogs’ offensive line for each of the last 26 games. Houston, a member of Georgia’s 2010 recruiting class, just got done playing his sixth season in a Georgia uniform.
Georgia benefited from Houston’s versatility as he played every position on the offensive line except center. Last season, he started at right tackle for the first eight games before switching to left guard for the last five.
KENTUCKY: S A.J. STAMPS
The Wildcats will be losing a player that proved himself when it came to playing the ball in the air. Stamps led Kentucky with 4 INTs in 2014, then tied for the team lead with 8 pass breakups last season, recording one in all but four games. He was also tied for second on the team with 67 tackles in 2015.
In his two-year career in Lexington, Stamps had 5 INTs and 123 tackles.
LSU: P JAMIE KEEHN
Keehn was a three-year starter at LSU and averaged 42.8 yards per punt over that span, which is fourth in LSU history. For his career, he downed 64 punts inside the 20-yard line with only 13 touchbacks. Last season against Alabama, he downed two punts inside the 20-yard line. He did that 2 of 3 tries against Auburn and 5 of 9 times against Mississippi State.
In 2014, Keehn averaged 44.9 yards per punt, second-best in the SEC and 9th-best in the FBS. That landed him second-team All-SEC honors. A reliable punter can’t be underestimated.
MISSISSIPPI STATE: CB TAVEZE CALHOUN
The Bulldogs will have to replace the productivity of outgoing senior cornerback Taveze Calhoun, who was the team’s leader in the secondary. Calhoun had team highs in passes defended (10) and passes broken up (8) while leading the secondary with 6.5 tackles for loss. No Mississippi State defensive back had posted that many tackles for loss since Jonathan Banks in 2011 (8.0). Calhoun also intercepted two passes, both against Kentucky on Oct. 24.
Calhoun started at cornerback for three years, appearing in 50 games and starting in 36 of them. Aside from his exploits on the field, Calhoun also served as a shining example of a good student-athlete. He’s one of only four MSU players in history to be named a finalist for the Campbell Trophy, the most prestigious academic award in all of college football. He had already graduated before the 2015 season even started, earning a master’s degree in teaching last May.
MISSOURI: K ANDREW BAGGETT
A reliable kicker doesn’t come around all the time. Just ask Florida fans. Baggett leaves Missouri with more field goals made than any kicker in school history (66) and finished just 8 points shy of being the school’s all-time leading scorer (355). Only former kicker Jeff Wolfert had more (362 from 2006-08).
Last season, he went 16-for-20 on field goals for a rate of 80 percent that ranked third in the SEC. He also made all 15 extra points. If you recall, Baggett drilled two 50-yard field goals against South Carolina in 2014 to help Mizzou clinch the SEC East title. No kicker in Tigers history had ever made two kicks of 50-plus in the same game.
OLE MISS: S MIKE HILTON
The Rebels got hit with a lot of early departures to the NFL, but one senior goes more unnoticed than the others. Safety Mike Hilton, who led the team with 71 tackles in 2014, was tied with Trae Elston for second on the team in tackles (70) and was alone at second in tackles for loss (12.5) in 2015. In fact, no SEC defensive back had as many tackles for loss as Hilton was involved in a tackle behind the line of scrimmage in seven of the team’s last nine games.
He also excelled at playing the ball in the air, breaking up 13 passes, a mark only exceeded by his teammate Elston and Florida’s Jalen Tabor. Hilton was as versatile as they come, having played cornerback before moving to safety in his senior season.
SOUTH CAROLINA: TE JERELL ADAMS
The Gamecocks have to find a way to replace standout receiver Pharoh Cooper, but tight end Jerell Adams’ absence may be felt just as much next season. That’s because South Carolina’s tight end situation isn’t looking so great at the moment as backups Kyle Markway (sophomore) and Jacob August (redshirt sophomore) combined on just 7 catches for 95 yards last season, and the position lacks experience in general. Making matters trickier for first-year coach Will Muschamp is the fact that they didn’t get a commitment from a tight end in this year’s class.
In 2015, Adams finished second on the team with 28 catches for 421 yards and 3 TDs. He improved every season he was in Columbia, working himself into a position to be taken in the third or fourth round of the NFL draft while being rated as the No. 4 TE available, according to CBS Sports.
TENNESSEE: LT KYLER KERBYSON
The 6-foot-4, 317-pounder started each of the last 26 games for Tennessee, mostly at left tackle but also at right tackle and left guard. In his final year as a redshirt senior, the Vols ran for 2,908 yards, the second-best total in school history.
Kerbyson was named SEC Offensive Lineman of the Week twice last season after his performances against Bowling Green in the season-opener and against Vanderbilt in the regular-season finale. He was named to the second-team All-SEC squad at season’s end.
TEXAS A&M: P DREW KASER
Drew Kaser wasn’t just one of the best punters in the SEC, but in the nation as well. Kaser was second among Power 5 punters with an average of 47.5 yards per punt, trailing only Utah punter Tom Hackett’s average of 47.9. Kaser was not far off the career FBS record for average yards per punt as his mark of 46.30 was just shy of former West Virginia punter Todd Sauerbrun’s mark of 46.31, but Kaser couldn’t surpass it in the team’s final game against Louisville in the Music City Bowl.
Kaser’s stellar career saw him become a finalist for the Ray Guy Award in 2013 (nation’s most outstanding punter) as a sophomore, then set Aggies single-season records with 47.4 yards per punt and 22 punts downed inside the 20 in 2014 before putting together yet another remarkable campaign in 2015. He has a real chance of being drafted as a punter.
VANDERBILT: C SPENCER PULLEY
A starter in each of the team’s last 37 games, Pulley moved to the center position last spring. His teammates voted him as the club’s permanent offensive captain.
Pulley helped pave the way for running back Ralph Webb, who rushed for 1,152 yards, which was just 41 yards short of Zac Stacy’s single-season school record.
Born and raised in Gainesville, Talal joined SDS in 2015 after spending 2 years in Bristol as an ESPN researcher. Previously, Talal worked at The Gainesville Sun.
