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 … Week 2 … Week 3 … Week 4 … Week 5 … Week 6 … Week 7 … Week 8 … Week 9 … Week 10.

1. Jayden Daniels, LSU

Should the hit that knocked Daniels out of LSU’s eventual 42-28 loss at Alabama have been flagged for targeting? Many people are saying yes. Others disagree. After careful deliberation on the matter, I’ve concluded: What difference does it make?

For one thing, the hit was flagged, for roughing the passer; officials marked off 15 yards and an automatic first down, the same penalty that accompanies targeting. (The only distinction being that the defender who delivered the hit, Dallas Turner, was not ejected.) More to the point, no official verdict could have possibly had a significant effect on the outcome. The semantics of the rulebook did not prevent the collision and cannot reverse it.

The act of declaring “targeting” is not an incantation that can conjure up justice or catharsis, much less bring Daniels back from whatever dimension he was knocked into. LSU fans are free to gripe that it was a dirty play. (As the refs acknowledged when, again, they flagged it for a 15-yard penalty in real time.) Brian Kelly might be right when he complained that the hit “checked all the boxes” for targeting, and SEC officials, who are reportedly reviewing the play at LSU’s request, might ultimately agree with him. The league office can, and arguably should, enforce the ejection against Turner in Bama’s upcoming game at Kentucky. But it cannot retroactively un-concuss the nation’s most productive quarterback.

The frustration is understandable, because up to that point Daniels was having a dynamite game worthy of his dynamite season, accounting for 382 total yards (219 passing, 163 rushing) and 3 touchdowns in 3 quarters. Losing him likely did not change the result — LSU already trailed by 14 points in the 4th — but it was the moment that the game seemed to slip from the Tigers’ grasp, along with whatever hope remained for the rest of the season. Daniels’ status is “day to day,” according to Kelly, which technically leaves the door open to him playing this weekend against Florida.

Given how much he has at stake as an aspiring first-rounder in 2024, all the incentives would seem to run in the other direction. The SEC West crown is officially off the table. The Heisman is a long shot (see below). Redshirt sophomore Garrett Nussmeier is on deck, angling for a head start on his audition for top billing next year. At this point, if we see Daniels in an LSU uniform again it come with nothing less than a pristine bill of health and strict instructions to dial it back as a runner.
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(Last week: 1⬌)

2. Carson Beck, Georgia

Slowly but surely, Beck is climbing the charts in the Heisman race — an inevitable development, given that being the starting quarterback on a Playoff team may as well come with a stamped ticket to New York. Each week, SDS updates the Heisman pecking order by averaging the odds across multiple sportsbooks; this week, the top 6 candidates mirror the top 6 teams in the CFP committee’s weekly Top 25, with the starting QBs from Georgia, Michigan, Florida State, Washington and Oregon joining Ohio State WR Marvin Harrison Jr. at the top of the list. It’s such a reflexively QB-driven process at this point that Harrison, the highly decorated namesake of an NFL Hall-of-Famer, qualifies as a bona fide underdog.

Anyway, if you thought Stetson Bennett IV deserved his seat in NYC last year, it’s hard to argue against Beck, who has put up roughly identical numbers while presiding over a 9-0 start. The big difference, of course: Bennett already had a ring last year, having confirmed his big-game chops during Georgia’s 2021 championship run despite certain people (ahem) questioning his status as QB1 virtually all the way to the podium. It’s not a career award, but you know, it has to count for something to know that you’re voting to enshrine a guy with some skins on the wall. A guy who’s not subsequently going to diminish the distinction on the biggest stage, who when they cue up the highlights in 10 years people are not going to think to themselves, “huh, I don’t remember that guy being all that special.”

On that note, Beck still has a lot to prove. He has passed arguably his 2 biggest tests to date the past 2 Saturdays against Florida and Missouri — both with the Bulldogs’ actual best player, Brock Bowers, reduced to a spectator. The hill only gets steeper over the coming weeks against Ole Miss, Tennessee, and (presumably) Alabama in the SEC Championship Game. If Beck is still on top in a month, then the Heisman buzz can really begin in earnest.
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(Last week: 2⬌)

3. Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss

The consensus this week seems to trending toward calling the Rebels’ trip to Georgia the biggest game in school history, which might be a bit much for the nursing-home set. But it’s certainly right up there with any game anyone can actually remember. At 8-1, Ole Miss is effectively out of the running in the SEC West — Alabama would have to lose both of its remaining conference games to concede first place, not happening — but is still plausibly alive in a Playoff race that’s due to get a lot murkier over the next couple Saturdays before the dust settles. The Rebels can set off the ultimate chaos bomb by snapping the Bulldogs’ various winning streaks in Athens, running the table to finish 11-1, and laying claim to the most impressive head-to-head victory of the season as the CFP committee sits down to sort through the fallout.

Is Dart up to it? The arrow is pointing in the right direction coming off his best outing of the year, a 387-yard, 2-touchdown effort against Texas A&M that yielded season highs for passer rating, Total QBR and overall PFF grade vs. an FBS opponent. His supporting cast is as healthy as it’s been all year, and his connection with Louisiana Tech transfer Tre Harris, in particular, is a headline problem for any defense after Harris’ 11-catch, 213-yard breakout against the Aggies. Whatever lingering uncertainty existed at the beginning season about his grip on the starting job was put to bed a long time ago. By any measure, he’s arriving in Athens as one of the top dual-threat quarterbacks in the country.

Still, his success remains very much tied to the offense’s ability to establish the run. Dart has employed play-action on 45.8% of his total drop-backs this season, per PFF — not as high as last year, when he led the nation in play-action rate at 57.6%, but still the highest rate in the SEC. In that context, it’s telling that the Rebels’ only loss came in the only game in which they were truly stuffed: Their 56 rushing yards on 1.9 per carry against Alabama represent their worst performance under Lane Kiffin in both categories. (Their 10 points against the Tide also represented a Kiffin-era low outside of a 21-7 loss to Baylor in the 2022 Sugar Bowl, when face-of-the-program QB Matt Corral was memorably sidelined early in the game.)

Last year’s November fade following an 8-1 start coincided with a general dip in their output on the ground, too. Georgia’s defense, while not quite the impenetrable monolith against the run it’s been the past few years, still obviously ranks among the nation’s best across the board. If Dart is capable of carrying the offense with his arm when it counts, well, it has rarely counted more for Ole Miss than it will on Saturday.
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(Last week: 3⬌)

4. Jalen Milroe, Alabama

In one sense, LSU’s beleaguered secondary did exactly what it wanted to do against Milroe by taking away his most obvious strength: Throwing deep. Milroe was just 1-for-6 on attempts of 20+ air yards — the lone completion going for a gain of 21 yards — his most anemic downfield performance of the season. In every other sense, though, he was electric.

Altogether, Milroe accounted for a season-high 374 yards (219 passing, 155 rushing) and finished with an elite 96.4 Total QBR rating, well above his season average. Just as important, on a night where every possession represented a potential momentum swing: No fumbles, no picks. Alabama’s only punt came on its opening possession of the game; after that, the only possessions that didn’t reach the end zone resulted in two missed field goals and a kneel down to end the game.

So, yeah, what crisis? Since reinstating Milroe as the starter after the Week 3 dud at USF, the Tide are 6-0 in conference play, pulling within 1 win of clinching their 10th division title of Nick Saban’s tenure; barring a stunning development, that win will come this weekend at Kentucky, leaving only the Iron Bowl between Bama and its annual birthright in the SEC Championship Game.

A team widely acknowledged as the most underwhelming of the Saban dynasty era almost certainly controls its fate where the Playoff is concerned, behind a quarterback who has spent much of the season being cast as a weak link. Early on, there was a palpable sense that if this team won big, it would have be in spite of the quarterback, reverting to the defensively driven mindset of the first half of Saban’s tenure. That was visible in the string of games the Crimson Tide won at midseason without reaching 400 yards or 30 points on offense in any of them.

All the time, though, Milroe was growing into a quarterback increasingly capable of carrying his weight. Saturday was a milestone on that trajectory: A marquee, must-win game — for immediate reasons and existential ones — that the Tide would have had very little chance of winning without him. He’s not all the way there yet, but it’s clearer now we’re still much closer to the beginning of that story than to the end.
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(Last week: 5⬆)

5. Brady Cook, Missouri

For a minute there, it looked like the prolific connection between Cook and Luther Burden III was going to make life miserable for Georgia after they hooked up for a 39-yard touchdown on Mizzou’s first series of the game. (This is a thing with the Dawgs lately: 4 of their 6 SEC opponents this year have hit paydirt on their opening possession.) Thereafter, not so much: Georgia adjusted, Burden managed just 1 catch for 7 yards the rest of the game, and Cook finished with a season-low 103.7 passer rating in a 30-21 loss.

In general, Cook has cooled down considerably over the past month since his white-hot run from Week 3 to Week 6. In that span, he averaged 375 yards through the air with multiple TD passes in 4 consecutive games. Meanwhile, in his past 3 games, he’s topped out at 212 passing yards with as many picks (3) as touchdowns. He has been more effective as a runner, but not nearly enough to make up the difference. In retrospect, the pick-6 INT that sealed the Tigers’ first loss against LSU is beginning to feel like the exact moment his season turned into a pumpkin. We’ll see this weekend against Tennessee.
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(Last week: 4⬇)

6. Spencer Rattler, South Carolina

Rattler snapped out of an extended funk against Jacksonville State, throwing for a season-high 399 yards with a couple of touchdowns in a 38-28 win in the first-ever Collision of the Chickens. The majority of that total came via his top target, Xavier Legette, who — coming off a couple of no-show outings against Missouri and Texas A&M — accounted for 217 yards and both TDs against JSU. Easy pickings against a Conference USA defense, perhaps, but at 1-5 in conference play, Carolina will take what it can get. The struggle for bowl eligibility continues this weekend against Vanderbilt.
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(Last week: 6 ⬌)

7. Graham Mertz, Florida

Mertz ranks among the national leaders in completion percentage (73.9%) and fewest interceptions (2 in 299 attempts), but his efficiency is largely inseparable from his status as the reigning king of the checkdown. Per PFF, 31.2% of Mertz’s passes on the season have landed behind the line of scrimmage, the highest rate of any Power 5 quarterback, resulting in the lowest average depth of target (6.8 yards) in the conference. That’s more than a full yard per target below any other SEC starter except Spencer Rattler (7.4).
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(Last week: 7⬌)

8. Joe Milton III, Tennessee

Milton was on the field for all of 30 snaps against UConn, threw touchdown passes covering 60 yards and 83 yards, added a 3rd TD on the ground, and called it a day in a 59-3 massacre. The main takeaway: Heir apparent Nico Iamalavea has just 1 more appearance left on his sandwich card before he burns his redshirt. The Vols return to regularly scheduled business this weekend at Missouri, a game that will decide 2nd place in the SEC East and potentially a ticket to a New Year’s 6 bowl.
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(Last week: 8⬌)

9. Devin Leary, Kentucky

Leary started 5-for-6 for 62 yards and a touchdown on the Wildcats’ opening possession at Mississippi State, which was frankly all they needed on a night when the Bulldogs’ offense never seriously threatened to even the score. He finished 8-for-16 for 94 yards the rest of the way en route to a 24-3 decision, thus fulfilling Mark Stoops’ vision of a perfect football game. At one point, Mississippi State embarked on an epic 20-play, 88-yard drive that drained 12:24 off the clock, and still Kentucky somehow managed to finish with a slight edge in time of possession.
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(Last week: 9⬌)

10. KJ Jefferson, Arkansas

The last time we saw Jefferson, he was stinking up the joint in a 7-3 loss to Mississippi State that cost his offensive coordinator his job. With a week off to regroup and a new play-caller in his ear, Jefferson looked liked his old, imposing self Saturday for arguably the first time in 2023, turning in his best stat line of the season against Florida while finally flashing the effortless arm talent and brute strength as a runner Arkansas fans have been begging to see.

Oh, there was was plenty of the usual rust, too, including 5 sacks and an interception. With the game on the line late, though, Jefferson was at his best. On four scoring drives in the 4th quarter and overtime, he was 9-for-13 passing for 81 yards, rumbled for another 91 yards on the ground, and accounted for touchdowns as a runner and passer — the former, a 25-yard gallop to put the Hogs ahead late in regulation; the latter, a short, game-winning dart to seal the win in OT. Now he just needs to do it 3 more times in a row to get them back to a bowl game.
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(Last week: 10⬌)

11. Max Johnson, Texas A&M

Johnson turned in arguably his best game of the season at Ole Miss, setting season highs for attempts (42), yards (305), and completion percentage (73.8%) while taking just one sack. In keeping with the whole Aggie gestalt these days, it still ended in a heart-breaking defeat — A&M’s 10th consecutive loss on the road dating to October 2021. The countdown to the 2024 Conner Weigman hype cycle is officially underway.
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(Last week: 11⬌)

12. Payton Thorne, Auburn

At 5-4, Auburn is 1 win from bowl eligibility with last-place Arkansas and New Mexico State on deck, which given the circumstances all but ensures that Hugh Freeze’s debut season as head coach will go in the books as “fine” regardless of what happens in the Iron Bowl. In that sense, Thorne has more or less fulfilled his mission as a creaky but essentially functional bridge to whoever comes next. I still would bet on whoever that is arriving via the transfer portal before the end of the year.
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(Last week: 12⬌)

13. Will Rogers or Mike Wright, Mississippi State

Rogers is getting closer to returning from the shoulder injury that’s sidelined him for the past month. He was back at practice this week ahead of the Bulldogs’ trip to Texas A&M, and reportedly guaranteed to SEC Network’s Tom Hart that he’ll back in time for the Egg Bowl “if his arm fell off.” In the meantime, the offense has collapsed in his absence, managing a grand total of 2 touchdowns in Wright’s 3 starts. If Rogers is ruled out against the Aggies, expect to see plenty of true freshman Chris Parson, who came off the bench to finish last week’s 24-3 loss to Kentucky and accounted for Mississippi State’s longest gain of the night, a 34-yard completion, on just his 3rd career attempt.
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(Last week: 13⬌)

14. Ken Seals, Vanderbilt

Seals is an astounding 0-19 as a starter vs. SEC opponents, the kind of record that’s almost impressive in the sense that, on some level, you have to be doing something at least kinda right to continue getting that many opportunities over the course of a 4-year career. (Seals didn’t play in either of Vandy’s conference wins in 2022, redshirting the season.) In Seals’ case, chalk it up to an unusual combination of longevity and patience. The situation he inherited this year after a nearly 2-year absence from the starting lineup isn’t much better than the winless debacle he oversaw as a true freshman in 2020. This weekend’s date at South Carolina may be his last, best chance to crack that goose egg before he has a big decision to make about how he wants to spend his 5th and potentially final college season in 2024.
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(Last week: 14⬌)

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