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Now THAT was the Jarrett Stidham that Auburn fans hoped they’d see in 2017.

He was decisive, mobile, accurate, and most of all he was clutch. The Tigers’ signal-caller needed to be all of those things to do something that nobody had done in more than two years: Beat Alabama in a regular-season game.

So what did that mean for Stidham in these rankings? Should he be No. 1? A case could be made for that.

All I can say is you’d be hard-pressed to find many quarterbacks in America who are playing better than the sophomore right now:

14. Jarrett Guarantano, Tennessee

The good news with Guarantano is that in his final two games of the 2017 season, he looked much tougher than he did early on. If he is the guy with Tennessee’s new coach, at least he got his licks in before 2018. The bad news with Guarantano is that he failed to lead the Vols to a single SEC victory. Even in arguably his two best games of the season, the offense still only averaged 17 points. Whoever takes over this program has major work to do on offense, to say the least.

13. Feleipe Franks, Florida

Was that the last game we see Franks in a Florida uniform? Possibly. I know that if I was a quarterback who struggled like that, I’d want to stick around with a guy like Dan Mullen. Is Franks mobile enough for him? Or will Mullen look elsewhere to build his next Dak Prescott/Nick Fitzgerald type?

12. Stephen Johnson, Kentucky

In the 2016 and 2017 seasons, Stephen Johnson's yardage (2,037 last year, 2,048 this year), yards per attempt (7.7 to 7.3) and rating (130.9 to 131.1) are nearly identical.

Want a troubling stat on Johnson? In his final six games, he threw just one touchdown pass. One! Though Johnson is a dual-threat guy, that number isn’t good enough, especially when he only ran for one TD during that stretch. His play in the latter half of the season declined significantly while others in the SEC improved. That, more than anything, was why he fell so drastically on this list.

11. Austin Allen, Arkansas

Allen didn’t win his last game in an Arkansas uniform but he still produced arguably his best game of the season. His 313 passing yards against Missouri were easily a season high and his three total touchdowns (two passing, one rushing) matched his best game of 2017. It’s too bad that Allen couldn’t have played with more talent around him. He’ll be interesting to evaluate in the pre-draft period given how limited the Hogs were across the board on offense.

10. Jake Bentley, South Carolina

I defended Bentley for a while in these rankings. I gave him the benefit of the doubt for not having Deebo Samuel. But Bentley regressed in 2017. His deep ball didn’t improve, nor did the Gamecocks’ intermediate passing game. The numbers show that, too.

Credit: Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

In Bentley’s final three games against Power 5 opponents, he averaged 6.47 yards per attempt and threw seven interceptions. Sure, Clemson and Georgia have elite defenses, but not all of Bentley’s struggles were a product of playing top-flight units. He’ll get Samuel back in 2018, and South Carolina fans will hope that makes the difference.

9. Nick Starkel, Texas A&M

I don’t know what the future holds for Starkel in College Station, but I think he’s a legitimate SEC starting quarterback. The three interceptions against LSU was a rough way to end the season, but the Aggies found some offensive life with Starkel down the stretch in 2017. He averaged a solid 9.11 yards per attempt and the fact that he only took six sacks in six games was evidence that his decision-making was better than most freshmen. If Starkel gets a chance to be the guy with a new offensive-minded coach, there’s some serious potential there.

8. Kyle Shurmur, Vanderbilt

Kyle Shurmur is second in the SEC in passing with 2,823 yards and is sixth in yards per attempt at 7.4 among qualifying quarterbacks.

It was amazing what Shurmur looked like when the Commodores finally established some balance. But that effort came in Saturday’s finale against a Tennessee defense that all but gave up. Shurmur’s final 2017 numbers exceeded expectations (26 TDs, 2,823 passing yards, seven multi-TD games), but the seven interceptions in the two previous weeks hurt his chances of finishing on the top half of this list. Well, that and a lackluster running game and defense. Still, Shurmur will get some nice offseason buzz heading into his senior season.

7. Jordan Ta’amu, Ole Miss

Something tells me that Thursday’s Egg Bowl victory wasn’t the last we will see of Ta’amu. We don’t know what will happen with Ole Miss and the NCAA sanctions and whether certain high-profile quarterbacks choose to stay in Oxford. If Ta’amu gets a chance next year, one has to be encouraged by the way he finished 2017. In his final four games, Ta’amu posted 11 touchdown passes, three interceptions and 1,236 passing yards on 9.36 yards per attempt. The Rebels went 3-2 with him starting and those two losses were by one possession. That’s something to build on if Shea Patterson doesn’t stick around.

6. Danny Etling, LSU

Etling got a lot of criticism because he could not lead the charge against Alabama. I get that. But consider what he did in his non-Alabama games. He had a 14-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio, he averaged 191 passing yards, he averaged 9.71 yards per attempt (compared to 7.89 last year) and he led LSU to six wins after the Troy loss.

Credit: Stephen Lew-USA TODAY Sports

I know that everyone in Baton Rouge is ready to move on to the Myles Brennan era, but don’t slight the work that Etling did under offensive coordinator Matt Canada in his final season at LSU.

5. Jake Fromm, Georgia

With 12 regular season games in the books, Fromm’s body of work is impressive. In fact, why don’t we compare it to Jacob Eason’s true freshman regular season?

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Fromm has been the better quarterback. Period. What will be interesting is if Fromm struggles early in the SEC Championship. Would coach Kirby Smart turn to Eason, who has much more experience rallying from a deficit than Fromm does? Maybe, but Smart has a pretty good one to work with heading into a do-or-die scenario.

4. Nick Fitzgerald, Mississippi State

Man, what a brutal way for Fitzgerald to end his 2017 season. And to be clear, he didn’t drop strictly because he got injured or that his coach left for Florida. Two quarterbacks simply passed Fitzgerald in the final stretch of the season. In his final three full games, Fitzgerald had just two touchdown passes and was held to 5 yards per carry, less than his career average of 6.5. We don’t know what Fitzgerald will look like in the post-Mullen era, but one has to think the MSU signal-caller is more than a typical system quarterback by now.

3. Drew Lock, Missouri

Remember when all the talk was about Shea Patterson’s pursuit of the SEC’s single-season passing record? After he went down, Lock was busy setting a single-season SEC record of his own. His 43 touchdown passes are a new conference record for a Mizzou offense that averaged 51 points in its final six games.

Did the schedule get favorable? Yes, but Lock still threw for 25 touchdown passes in eight SEC games. The fact that he threw at least three touchdowns in every single game after September is quite the feat. Imagine if his receivers didn’t drop all of those passes. Will Lock return to Columbia for another year? I can’t blame him if he left.

2. Jarrett Stidham, Auburn

To answer the question from the intro, No. 2 was how high Stidham rose. He was brilliant in yet another “best game of his life.” What impressed me the most about Stidham’s performance against Alabama? It wasn’t that he completed 75 percent of his passes for 237 yards — that’s not a small feat against Nick Saban — or that he didn’t throw an interception. It was his rushing ability. Stidham knew precisely when to run and when not to run, which was monumental for the Tigers in pulling out an epic victory.

Yes, I get that he beat Jalen Hurts and Alabama’s vaunted defense. But this is still about the guy I’d want leading my football team to a victory in a game played tomorrow on a neutral site. Hurts is still the guy for that.

1. Jalen Hurts, Alabama

We kept waiting for Hurts to show up in winning time and for once, that didn’t happen on Saturday. But consider this: That was the first time in his college career that Hurts walked off the field after his final drive without a lead. That’s incredible. And let’s be clear. Besides his atypical fumble, he was the vast majority of Alabama’s offense. He still racked up 257 total yards and two touchdowns.

Should Hurts have gotten 17 carries in that game? Probably not, especially considering how good Damien Harris and Bo Scarbrough looked. But that was a reminder of how much trust Alabama has in Hurts. Better days are ahead for the sophomore after the first regular-season loss of his career. The question is if those better days will be in this year’s College Football Playoff.