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 | Week 10.

1. Jaxson Dart | Ole Miss

Last week, I started the rankings with a look at the league-wide decline in offensive production, especially at the top. Right on cue, Dart said “hold my water bottle.” In a must-win trip to Arkansas, he set school records for passing yards (515) and total yards (562), as well as personal bests for touchdowns (6), pass efficiency (284.1) and Total QBR in a 63-21 blowout — all of it coming with his top target, All-American wideout Tre Harris, sidelined for the second consecutive game. In Harris’ absence, Dart and WR Jordan Watkins connected on 3 touchdowns that covered 60+ yards, running up the score so effortlessly that Sam Pittman openly wondered aloud after the game if the Razorbacks were somehow tipping off their coverages.

In the process, Dart also hit a couple of career milestones, moving to No. 1 all-time at Ole Miss for total offense (10,805 yards) and wins as the starting quarterback (25). His place in school history is officially secure. As for his place in the Heisman race, or in a relatively underwhelming class of draft-eligible quarterbacks in 2025, not so much. At least, not yet. He still has a chance to make a big move on both of those fronts in the home stretch, but only if he opens a lot of eyes this weekend in a season-defining date against Georgia.
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Last week: 1⬌

2. Jalen Milroe | Alabama

Last year’s win over LSU in Tuscaloosa marked the beginning of Milroe’s emergence from wildcard to rising star: He accounted for a then-career high 365 total yards and 4 touchdowns (all rushing) in that game, our first glimpse of him in command on a big stage. That set off a November surge that culminated in a conference championship, a ticket to the Playoff and a 6th-place finish in the Heisman vote. This time, the jury is still out following a glitchy, turnover-prone October that often felt like a flashback to the early days of Milroe’s tenure as QB1. Coming off an open date, Bama’s borderline Playoff case hinges on him rekindling that spark Saturday night in Baton Rouge.
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Last week: 2⬌

3. Carson Beck | Georgia

The spike in Beck’s interception rate has officially graduated from a curiosity to a problem. His 3-INT outing against Florida was only the most conspicuous entry in an ongoing trend: Beginning with Georgia’s Week 5 loss at Alabama, Beck has thrown nearly twice as many picks in the past five games (11) as he threw all of last season (6).

It would be a lot easier to diagnose the problem if it could be reduced to a single factor like “pressure.” Like all quarterbacks, Beck’s production does suffer under duress — for the season, he’s posted a dismal 35.7 PFF grade on pressured drop-backs vs. a 90.3 grade when kept clean — but that doesn’t really explain the picks. Per PFF, 7 of his 11 interceptions have come from clean pockets. (That was true last year, too, when all 6 INTs were chalked up to clean pockets.)

There probably is something to the fact that he’s putting the ball in the air significantly more often: Beck has attempted at least 40 passes in all 5 of his multiple-INT games this year, a mark he didn’t hit a single time in 2023. That’s a reflection of the fact that Georgia is leaning more heavily on his arm to cover for a defense and ground game that (so far) aren’t quite up to the usual standards.

Regardless of the circumstances, though, Beck is just making some straight-up bad decisions. It’s one thing to serve up 3 picks in comeback mode after your team has fallen behind by 4 touchdowns on the road at Alabama. But he wasn’t playing from behind at any point in his 3-INT performance at Texas in Week 8, and despite a first-half deficit against Florida, the Dawgs were never in any serious danger of being out of the game in an eventual 34-20 win.

Still, some of Beck’s picks have been brutal. His 2nd interception against the Gators came on a routine, first-down throw over the middle in the second quarter that could have been picked off by 2 different UF defenders — safety Aaron Gates, who actually came down with, and linebacker Grayson Howard, whom Gates robbed of a pick that was aimed directly between the 1 and the 0 on Howard’s jersey. What could Beck have possibly been seeing here?

The reason the INT trend is merely a “problem” and not an all-caps CRISIS, of course, is that Beck is still generating a lot of positives and Georgia is still winning.

In the 4 games in which he’s thrown multiple picks, the Dawgs have won 3 by double digits and very nearly pulled off a historic comeback against Alabama in the 4th; they’ve scored 30+ points in all 4. For the season, Beck is accounting for just shy of 70% of the team’s total offense vs. Power 4 opponents. He remains a winning quarterback who gives the Dawgs a chance even on the rare occasions (not as rare as they used to be) when the defense wobbles. But even an outfit as talented and as capable of winning in as many different ways as this is, Georgia can’t go on dodging bullets at this rate forever.
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Last week: 3⬌

4. Quinn Ewers | Texas

The Longhorns are in fine shape health-wise, schedule-wise and stats-wise, especially on defense; they still represent the SEC’s best chance to win it all according to ESPN’s Football Power Index. But as badly as Steve Sarkisian wants to snuff out any hint of a controversy between Ewers and Arch Manning, Ewers’ mediocre performance since returning from injury has left the door open for nagging doubts to creep in. You know, he’s “entrenched,” right up until he’s not. Coming out of an open date, the next 3 games against Florida, Arkansas and Kentucky are an opportunity to either put the doubts to bed or reevaluate the situation before the stakes get too high.
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Last week: 4⬌

5. Garrett Nussmeier | LSU

Beating Alabama is a legacy-making proposition for an LSU quarterback. Only 4 Tigers QBs logged wins over Bama in the Nick Saban era — Matt Flynn in 2007; Jordan Jefferson in 2010 and ’11; Joe Burrow in 2019; and Jayden Daniels in 2022 — and all 4 went on to play for a national title or win a Heisman. (Or, in Burrow’s case, both.) Nussmeier isn’t on a Heisman track, and nobody is mistaking the current version of LSU for a national contender coming off a wipeout loss at Texas A&M in Week 9. But if there’s still time for either trajectory to change, this weekend is the last chance to achieve liftoff.
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Last week: 6⬆

6. Diego Pavia | Vanderbilt

The Commodores owe their turnaround largely to Pavia’s efficiency, so on some level the most satisfying part of Saturday’s 17-7 win at Auburn was the fact that, for once, they didn’t need him to be anywhere near his best to pull it off. In fact, in most respects it was his worst statistical outing of the season: 9-for-22 passing, minimal impact as a runner, negative EPA, 44.2 QBR. As a team, Vandy averaged a pedestrian 3.7 yards per play with more incomplete passes (14) than first downs (12) and a long gain on the ground of just 7 yards … and won, to secure bowl eligibility. For possibly the first time ever, it’s just been that kind of year for the ‘Dores.
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Last week: 5⬇

7. Nico Iamaleava | Tennessee

Vols fans are still waiting on Iamaleava to put together a complete game against real competition, but the midseason slump we covered a few weeks back appears to have been just that. This week, his stock is back on the rise. Saturday’s 28-18 win over Kentucky yielded season-highs for attempts (38), yards (292) and completion percentage (73.7%) vs. an FBS opponent, as well as one of Iamaleava’s better outings to date in terms of both efficiency (146.9) and QBR (78.0). It was also his first game without an interception or fumble since a Week 3 blowout over Kent State.

Up next: A major stat-padding opportunity against a Mississippi State defense that ranks 129th in total defense, 122nd in scoring D and 126th in pass efficiency, among other deficiencies. With a season-defining trip to Georgia on deck, he should be long-striding into Athens playing his best ball of his young career.
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Last week: 10⬆

8. Marcel Reed or Conner Weigman | Texas A&M

Reed returned to the starting lineup at South Carolina and went the distance, his first complete game since Week 5. Still, a week after he supplied the spark in A&M’s come-from-behind rally to beat LSU, a 44-20 blowout against the Gamecocks arguably reset the competition with Weigman back at square one. Reed was under duress early and often, serving up his first interception of the season under pressure and later as well as a fumble on a strip sack; altogether, he finished with a negative EPA as both a passer and a rusher and a middling 59.2 QBR.

Where do the Aggies go from here? They’re off this week, leaving the pecking order unsettled ahead of their next game against New Mexico State in Week 12. Despite the loss, they remain very much alive in the conference and Playoff races — in fact, they’re the only team in the league at the moment that still controls its fate to make the SEC Championship Game in every possible scenario.

Mike Elko said earlier in the year that the process of settling on a starter from one week to the next is “probably going to be a game-time decision for the rest of the season,” and, well, here we are. The stakes of that decision in the home stretch are about to get very high.
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Last week: 7⬇

9. Taylen Green | Arkansas

An open date is a godsend for Green, who suffered a knee injury in the first half of Arkansas’ loss to Ole Miss and didn’t play in the second after briefly trying to gut it out. It was his second knee injury in less than a month, coming just as he was getting back to full speed from the injury that sidelined him during the Razorbacks’ Week 6 upset over Tennessee — which was also immediately followed by an open date. Green was back in time to start against LSU in Week 8, albeit at visibly less than 100% in the Hogs’ lowest-scoring outing of the season.

For a dual-threat whose game begins and ends with his mobility, there’s not much upside to attempting to rush him back for the sake of clinching a spot in the Music City Bowl. Reserve Malachi Singleton has been cromulent in relief against the Rebels and Vols. Fortunately, they’ve got a week to rest up before they have to begin thinking in earnest about how well Green is likely to hold up against Texas.
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Last week: 8⬇

10. Brady Cook | Missouri

No quarterback in the country needed a week off more than Cook, who’s dealing with ankle and hand injuries that forced him to miss the majority of the Tigers’ past 2 games against Auburn and Alabama. Eli Drinkwitz said last week that he expects Cook to return this season, but didn’t elaborate on a timetable; with his status still in doubt for this weekend’s date against Oklahoma, bettors have already moved the line by a full touchdown in the direction of the Sooners, from Mizzou –4 to open to Mizzou +3 as of Tuesday evening. That’s how little faith they have in backup Drew Pyne, and given Pyne’s dismal performance in Cook’s absence, they’re probably on to something.
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Last week: 9⬇

11. LaNorris Sellers | South Carolina

If South Carolina fans were on the fence about Sellers’ long-term potential, his breakout performance against Texas A&M went a long way toward winning them over. Despite completing just 13-of-27 passes, he delivered his most complete game yet in , setting career highs for passing yards (244), rushing yards (106), total touchdowns (3) and Total QBR (86.5); he also finished without a sack or a turnover for the first time as a starter. All but 1 of his completions went for a first down or touchdown.

Most impressively, Sellers looked every bit of 6-3, 242 pounds with the ball in his hands. Per PFF, he forced 12 missed tackles on 15 carries, not including the play where he trucked an A&M defender at the end of a 3rd-down scramble to pick up the first down. That number more than doubling his total MTFs on the year, and also matched the most missed tackles forced by any FBS player against a Power 4 defense this season. Combined with his legitimate breakaway potential in the open field, he has the makings of a full-service workhorse even as his development as a passer remains a work in progress.
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Last week: 14⬆

12. DJ Lagway | Florida

Are we going to see Lagway again this season? It didn’t look good on Saturday, when he was carted off the field in the first half of Florida’s loss to Georgia and spent the second half on crutches. But Billy Napier told reporters on Monday that the injury was “less significant than we anticipated,” and wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Lagway could be back as soon as this weekend at Texas. I wouldn’t bet on it, but as long as there’s a chance, I will continue to rank him here as the Gators’ starter.

More likely, the nod against the Longhorns will fall to redshirt freshman walk-on Aidan Warner, a transfer from Yale who was thrown into the fire against UGA in the first significant action of his career. Warner was predictably out of his depth, averaging 3.0 yards on 7-of-22 passing, and doesn’t bring much to the table in an upset bid against another top-5 opponent. Someday, the SEC should introduce an option for teams down to their third-string quarterback in November to sim to the end of the season. Until then, the best the Gators can hope for is just getting through it with as few turnovers and as little speculation over Napier’s job security as possible.
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Last week: 11⬇

13. Michael Van Buren Jr. | Mississippi State

Van Buren earned his first win as a starter Saturday in a 45-20 romp over UMass, accounting for 3 touchdowns in the process. Barring a stunner over the coming weeks against Tennessee, Missouri and Ole Miss, it’s likely to be his last for a while, but State fans should still be passing the collection plate to ensure he’s back in the fold in 2025.
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Last week: 12⬇

14. Payton Thorne | Auburn

Thorne has largely curbed his early interception issues, throwing just 1 INT in 4 games since the pick-6 that doomed the Tigers in their Week 5 loss to Oklahoma. But that hasn’t translated on the scoreboard, in large part due to their struggle to finish drives. In the same span, Auburn has scored just 3 touchdowns on 13 trips in the red zone and missed 7 field goals.
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Last week: 14⬌

15. Jackson Arnold | Oklahoma

The Sooners scored 8 offensive touchdowns Saturday in a 59-14 blowout over Maine, with Arnold personally accounting for 3. Which, sure, it’s just Maine. Considering Oklahoma’s offense had managed a grand total of 7 touchdowns over its previous 5 games, at this point they’ll take it anywhere they can get it.
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Last week: 15⬌

16. Brock Vandagriff or Gavin Wimsatt | Kentucky

Vandagriff was knocked out of the Wildcats’ loss at Tennessee on one of the most violent hits you’re going to see in the modern “protect the QB at all costs” era.

https://twitter.com/awfulannouncing/status/1852878585805340851/

No, no. The other one.

Yeah, that’ll do it. Vandagriff limped off and didn’t return, yielding to Wimsatt for the rest of the night. No update as of this writing of his status, but with the season dwindling fast it’s about time for the Wildcats to start looking ahead to what the position is going to look like in 2025 — that is, once they settle whether Marks Stoops is still going to be the head coach.
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Last week: 16⬌