There was a decorated quarterback of the future who flashed promise while making his first career start in the bowl game. It has fans optimistic about their team’s SEC outlook in 2024.

Check that. More than 1 SEC team experienced that.

You could say that about 3 SEC programs. One was LSU, who watched Garrett Nussmeier lead a comeback victory after Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels opted out of the ReliaQuest Bowl. Another was Tennessee, who watched 5-star freshman Nico Iamaleava lead Tennessee to a blowout victory after Joe Milton “opted out” of the Citrus Bowl.

SEC fans have already heard plenty about those 2 signal-callers. But “Jackson Arnold” might not be a household name for them yet. To be fair, that’s probably true for the vast majority of the returning players for Texas and Oklahoma as they join the conference in 2024.

Arnold also didn’t celebrate a bowl game victory. He showed promise but ultimately had an up-and-down showing in an Alamo Bowl loss to Arizona (2 of his first 8 pass attempts were interceptions). The reason why Arnold got the start was because ageless multi-year Oklahoma starter Dillon Gabriel hit the transfer portal and replaced Bo Nix at Oregon.

Now, Arnold is set to take over as Oklahoma’s new QB1. Here’s what SEC fans should know about him.

In that 2023 QB class, Arnold was right there with the headliner names

In the 247sports composite rankings, Arnold ranked No. 8 overall in the 2023 class. He was the No. 4 quarterback behind only Arch Manning, Iamaleava and Dante Moore. It was one of the more highly regarded quarterback classes in recent memory, which is probably something that could’ve helped temper some of those early expectations for Arnold, unlike Manning.

Arnold didn’t really fit the mold of your typical 5-star quarterback because he was 6-1, 205 pounds. Depending on who you ask, they’ll tell you that “6-1” was a bit of an exaggeration. At that size, his mobility was seen as an equalizer. In 2 seasons as a high school starter, he had 1,580 rushing yards and 36 rushing touchdowns. Combined with his 67 passing touchdowns, he had 103 touchdowns in 2 seasons as a starter.

That’s how you become the Gatorade National Player of the Year, the highest-rated recruit in ESPN rankings ever at Oklahoma and the top high school recruit in Texas.

Speaking of those Texas roots …

Like all great Oklahoma QBs, he’s a Texan

OK, maybe not all great Oklahoma QBs are Texans — I conveniently ignored the fact that Heisman Trophy winners Jason White and Sam Bradford are both Oklahoma natives and Josh Heupel was born and raised in South Dakota — but recent history suggests that it’s a thing.

Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray and Jalen Hurts were all Texans who eventually found their way to stardom in Norman. Unlike those 3, Arnold started his career at Oklahoma. Unlike Oklahoma’s past 3 starters who came from outside the state — Spencer Rattler, Caleb Williams and Gabriel — Arnold has a chance to finish his college career in Norman.

Want a weird stat? The last Oklahoma QB1 who started and finished his career in Norman was Blake Bell back in 2014.

Once upon a time, Arnold was a backup to former Texas A&M QB/TE Eli Stowers

At Guyer High School (Denton, Texas), Arnold had to wait his turn behind Stowers, who was a prolific 3-year starter. Stowers was 2 years older than Arnold, and by the time he signed at A&M, he was the No. 20 quarterback recruit in the 2021 class. But Stowers was converted to tight end as a freshman to help A&M add some much-needed depth there. Eventually, he transferred to New Mexico State where he played quarterback and tight end.

Arnold actually got to play in a Texas 6A Division-II High School State Championship as a freshman in 2019 because Stowers got hurt, though it was a 24-3 loss. The backup quarterback on the Westlake team that Arnold lost to was future Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik, who was a sophomore at the time.

Two years later, Arnold led Guyer back to the 6A title game for a rematch with Westlake, but Klubnik’s squad prevailed. Both were named Elite 11 MVPs in their respective classes and left Texas as 5-star recruits.

Maybe we’ll get an Oklahoma-Clemson showdown in the 12-team Playoff?

Arnold didn’t take a redshirt in 2023, which I’d argue was a positive

I think the redshirt discussion is a bit overblown for some guys who don’t plan on sticking around for 4 years, anyway. So no, I don’t think it’s a big deal that Arnold technically “burned” a year of eligibility by playing in 6 regular-season games. Including the bowl game, Arnold got 181 offensive snaps in 2023 (87 came in the bowl game). He attempted 69 passes, including 54 against Power 5 competition.

The initial plan appeared to be for Arnold to take a redshirt, but that changed in the BYU game when Gabriel was knocked out for the second half with an upper-body injury. Unlike when he took over for Stowers in the state championship as a freshman at Guyer, Arnold was able to step and close out a victory that kept Oklahoma’s Big 12 Championship hopes alive. He didn’t set the world on fire on a rainy night (5-for-9, 33 yards and 24 rushing yards), and it helped that Oklahoma’s defense forced 3 turnovers that night.

Those were still meaningful reps. Like, more meaningful than stepping in and dominating Arkansas State during a 73-0 victory. Brent Venables praised how in the latter half of the season, Arnold didn’t prepare like a guy who assumed he’d stick to that 4-game redshirt threshold.

It paid off.

He has a good group of pass-catchers

One of the sneaky transfer portal additions in the SEC was Deion Burks from Purdue. He had a breakout Year 3 with 47 catches for 629 yards and 7 touchdowns, which earned him second-team All-Big Ten honors. Burks has NFL speed and will be a major YAC (yards after catch) guy for Arnold.

Burks will join a receiver room that already has a couple of established weapons Jalil Farooq and Nic Anderson. Farooq took another step in 2023 and had an impressively low 8.2% drop rate (H/T Eli Lederman) while Anderson established himself as one of the nation’s top big-play threats with 7 catches of 40 yards (No. 7 in Power 5) as a redshirt freshman.

All 3 played the vast majority of their snaps on the outside, as did fellow returner Andrel Anthony, who was the team leader in receiving yards until he suffered a season-ending injury. The only big loss was slot receiver Drake Stoops, who exhausted his eligibility. Who replaces him remains to be seen. One would think that Burks and Farooq could share those duties.

Whatever the case, Arnold might have 4 legitimate playmakers on the outside to make his job easier.

So what’s his potential in 2024?

It’s not a knock on Arnold that he won’t enter 2024 among the top SEC quarterbacks. It’s a conference that returns 5 quarterbacks who started in New Year’s 6 bowl games (Carson Beck, Quinn Ewers, Jalen Milroe, Jaxson Dart and Brady Cook). That’s not including the aforementioned Iamaleava and Nussmeier. In other words, it might not be fair to say that an All-SEC season is imminent.

If you watched Arnold in the bowl game, you saw what you’d expect from someone in that spot. He’s got great poise in the pocket, he doesn’t have happy feet, he can cut it loose downfield and he’s tough for a guy his size. At the same time, the decision-making is still a work in progress. Oklahoma turned the ball over 6 times against Arizona, not all of which were on Arnold. Still, though. There’ll be some growing pains.

The good news for Arnold is that this is his team now. He’ll get the offseason to work with new OC Seth Littrell and the first-teamers to prepare for a slate that’s daunting overall, but starts with 4 home games (2 of the first 3 games are against teams with new coaches). He won’t have to play mistake-free football in September. Even that first SEC game will come against a Tennessee team that has major questions in the secondary after a mass exodus in the portal.

There’s a world in which Arnold is the breakout star in the SEC. There’s also a world in which the insanely high standard of Sooner quarterbacks proves to be too challenging to live up to and calls for former Texas/Nebraska/FAU quarterback Casey Thompson echo in Norman.

Somewhere in the middle, likely, the intriguing new era of Arnold awaits.