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 1-14 according to highly scientific processes and/or pure gut-level instinct. Previously: Week 1.

1. KJ Jefferson, Arkansas

You’re Western Carolina linebacker Va Lealaimatafao. You’re 6-1, 235 pounds, you’re an entrenched starter, and you’ve spent all offseason lifting, studying, and psyching yourself up for your team’s season opener against an SEC opponent. The day arrives. Midway through the first quarter, the opposing quarterback drops back to pass, and everything aligns perfectly: You read the protection, wait for an opening, and find yourself with a free run at the QB in front of SEC Network cameras and pro scouts alike. You seize the moment, close in for the kill, size up your target for one of the cleanest, hardest hits of your life, and …

Ah, well. Good job, good effort, as they used to say. Jefferson accounted for 257 yards and four touchdowns in a 56-13 Arkansas win.
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(Last week: 1⬌)

2. Jayden Daniels, LSU

Daniels isn’t budging from No. 2 after accounting for 411 total yards against Florida State, especially on a weekend when most of the rest of the names here were in stat-padding mode in glorified exhibitions. He made plays with his arm and his legs, and was nowhere near the top of the list of reasons Brian Kelly deemed the loss “a total failure.” As far as the quarterback was concerned, it was only kind of a failure, born largely of the fact that he has to shoulder so much of the burden for an offense that seems to have abandoned the notion of a conventional ground game.

Daniels’ status as a preseason Heisman favorite, on the other hand, is harder to defend. For all his dual-threat potential, the big question mark in Daniels’ skill set coming into the season concerned his willingness and ability to stretch defenses deep, and after Sunday it looms as large as ever. Per Pro Football Focus, his only completion on attempts 20+ yards downfield came on his last throw of the night, a desperation heave that WR Brian Thomas broke for a 75-yard touchdown to cut the final margin of defeat from 28 points to 21; prior to that, Daniels was 0-for-2 on deep shots, consistent with his reluctance to stretch the field in 2022. (Only one other SEC starter last year, Will Rogers, went deep with less frequency.) Remove the garbage-time bomb from the ledger, and his stat line up to that point looks a lot more ordinary.

For exactly that reason, the small but vocal subset of the fan base has been pining for backup Garrett Nussmeier to overtake Daniels ever since Nussmeier came off the bench to throw a couple of long touchdown passes against Georgia in last year’s SEC Championship Game is about to get even louder. Given that Daniels was arguably the main reason LSU was in the SEC Championship Game, that remains a distant possibility. (The old koan about the backup quarterback being the most popular player on the team after a loss applies.) But given how high the Tigers set the bar for this season, and how far short they fell their first time out, it’s not quite as distant as it was over the past 8 months.
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(Last week: 2⬌)

3. Joe Milton III, Tennessee

A man who will never be accused of being reluctant to go deep, “Bazooka Joe” attempted 6 passes of 20+ yards in a blowout win over Virginia, with an average depth of target on those throws of 36.3 yards. He completed … just 1, a 41-yard gain to the Vols’ new resident deep threat, Ramel Keyton. But! In addition to the misses, the incompletions also included a couple of drops, including a dead-on, 60-yard beauty that clanged off Keyton’s hands in the early going.

The upside of the Bombs Away lifestyle is that no matter how many you miss, if you’re really committed to keep on chuckin’, you only need to hit a few. Looking forward to Milton continuing to put this logic to the test throughout the system.
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(Last week: 5⬆)

4. Will Rogers, Mississippi State

One game against an FCS patsy is probably not the best indicator of what Mississippi State’s offense will look like against real competition, but the Bulldogs’ 48-7 win over Southeastern Louisiana was confirmation that the Air Raid days are over. Rogers’ 29 pass attempts represented a career low in a start, and the offense as a whole finished with more rushing yards (298) than passing (227) for the first time since the 2019 Egg Bowl.
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(Last week: 3⬇)

5. Jaxson Dart

Dart settled the Rebels’ QB competition in a matter of minutes, hanging 237 yards and 3 touchdowns on poor, defenseless Mercer in the first quarter alone. His final line: 18-for-23, 334 yards, 4 TDs, 0 INTs, zero asterisks next to his name going forward. “He’s the starting quarterback,” Lane Kiffin confirmed on Monday, officially consigning touted transfers Spencer Sanders and Walker Howard to the clipboard. Given the rest of the schedule, garbage-time opportunities from here on out are likely to be few and far between.
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(Last week: 6⬆)

6. Spencer Rattler, South Carolina

When the ball actually left his hands, Rattler was fine against North Carolina, turning in a perfectly cromulent 153.0 passer rating on 39 attempts. At least a couple of those throws were ones for the highlight reel. The major theme of the evening, though, was the alarming number of times that it didn’t leave his hands: In all, Rattler absorbed 9 sacks, a career high and the most of any FBS quarterback in Week 1. The Gamecocks’ offensive line was frequently overmatched and, at times, visibly lost against a defense that ranked last in the ACC in 2022 with 17 sacks for the entire season.

By PFF’s accounting, responsibility fell on the o-line (as opposed to Rattler himself) on 19-of-20 pressured drop-backs, with six individual linemen getting rung up for multiple pressures allowed. Obviously, that is not sustainable — especially for a not-very-elusive QB who ranked among the nation’s lowest-graded passers under pressure last year. All the arm talent in the world is worthless if the sirens start going off as soon as the ball is snapped.
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(Last week: 4⬇)

7. Jalen Milroe, Alabama

It’s going to take more than an encouraging night against Middle Tennessee for the rankings to go all-in on a first-time starter, but woo, yeah, Milroe’s debut as QB1 was very encouraging, to say the least. After an angsty offseason, he made the transition from the Bryce Young era look easy.

Altogether, Milroe was 13-for-18 passing against the Blue Raiders, with TD strikes covering 47, 48 and 29 yards on 3 consecutive possessions to end the first half and open the second, easing doubts about his capacity to throw accurately downfield. Earlier in the first half, he also flashed his A+ athleticism on scoring runs of 21 and 13 yards. (Not that anyone needed to be convinced of his mobility.) His passer rating and Total QBR score both ranked in the top 10 nationally among Week 1 starters.

Sure, Conference USA opponent, Texas on deck, etc. Duly acknowledged. As always, though, torching lightweight competition is a much better sign than not torching lightweight competition, and the fact that Milroe did it while checking the two boxes that have generated the most skepticism about his game — multiple deep shots, zero turnovers — made it as promising a start as Bama could have asked for. Much bigger stages await, beginning this Saturday against the Longhorns. All Milroe needed to accomplish in the opener was reassuring himself and the rest of the locker room that he’s good enough to own them, and by that standard he passed with flying colors.
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(Last week: 9⬆)

8. Conner Weigman, Texas A&M

Weigman, too, showed A&M fans all they wanted to see against hopelessly outgunned opposition, bombing New Mexico for 236 yards and 5 touchdowns on 25 attempts. All 5 TDs went to a couple of fellow sophomores, Evan Stewart and Noah Thomas, reaffirming (for now) that the core of the Aggies’ massively hyped 2022 recruiting class remains on schedule despite some high-profile departures. A big Week 2 showing at Miami would extend the optimism a whole lot further.
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(Last week: 10⬆)

9. Carson Beck, Georgia

Beck’s first start for the defending champs flew completely below the national radar, which considering it came against UT-Martin was for the best. On the Hot Take Spectrum, his final line (21-for-31, 294 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs) was about as flame-resistant as they come. Get used to it. Barring a meltdown between now and then, the Bulldogs should be in cruise control until well into November.
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(Last week: 8⬇)

10. Devin Leary, Kentucky

Leary underwhelmed in his UK debut, finishing 18-for-31 for 241 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT against Ball State; that was good for 11th among SEC starters in Total QBR and 14th (last) in pass efficiency. Although you wouldn’t know it from the final score: The Wildcats found the end zone on defense, special teams and in the closing seconds of the game to run the final margin to 44-14. (Consider this your weekly reminder as to why it takes courage to bet on college football.)
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(Last week: 7⬇)

11. Payton Thorne, Auburn

Another “no news is good news” performance from Thorne, who hit his marks (10-for-17, 141 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs) in a run-oriented blowout of UMass to kick off the Hugh Freeze era. A road trip to Cal ought to give the Tigers a better idea of what he brings to the table — or doesn’t.
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(Last week: 12⬆)

12. Brady Cook, Missouri

Cook made predictably light work of South Dakota, going 17-for-21 for 172 yards and 2 touchdowns (1 passing, 1 rushing). Next week we can compare his output against Mizzou’s Week 2 sparring partner, Middle Tennessee, to Jalen Milroe’s in Week 1.
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(Last week: 13⬆)

13. Graham Mertz, Florida

Mertz was an easy scapegoat in the Gators’ 24-11 flop at Utah, presiding over an offense that failed to score a touchdown until the game was all but decided. His subpar passer rating (137.0), middling PFF grade (63.0) and abysmal QBR score (30.4) all back that up.

In his defense, though, he didn’t exactly have a lot of help: Florida’s ground game was non-existent, and his lone interception — a tip-drill pick that set up a short-field touchdown for the Utes — wasn’t his fault.

Maybe you can argue the ball got on top of the receiver there a little too quickly. At any rate, whatever hope there was before the season that Mertz might prove to be a steady hand hinged on the prospect of a balanced attack that featured the running backs, Montrell Johnson Jr. and Trevor Etienne, more than it did his arm. Instead, Johnson and Etienne combined for just 10 carries in the opener with a long gain of 8 yards, while Mertz wound up putting the ball in the air 44 times strictly out of necessity. If the Gators can’t get their backs going, they’re in for a loooong year.

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(Last week: 11⬇)

14. AJ Swann, Vanderbilt

The Commodores are 2-0 for the 2nd year in a row with a couple of routine decisions — and a couple of routine outings from Swann — over Hawai’i and Alabama A&M. This weekend’s upset bid at Wake Forest is an opportunity to level up, and a must-win if Vandy is going to have a shot at bowl eligibility.
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(Last week: 14⬌)