The “best” quarterback, especially in a game as fickle as college football, can mean many things. Some quarterbacks are better at the start of games than others, but worse toward the end of them. I should know. I live in Arkansas, follow the Hogs and have watched almost every Brandon Allen has played for the last three years.

More often than not, Allen looks All-SEC in the first halves of games but barely All-SWAC at the end of them. The Razorbacks’ performances, of course, are a team thing, but still — Allen’s almost clockwork predictability when it comes to fourth-quarter wanes made me wonder what stats best show whether quarterbacks are “clutch” or not over the course of college football season.

Numbers usually tell a truer story than our ragingly non-rational fan biases, so one way I decided to frame this search was by looking at where Allen ranks among all Power 5 quarterbacks who have played heavy minutes in terms of first-half-to-fourth-quarter QB rating performance.

He ranks highly, as you can see here.

In the SEC, he ranks second and first among quarterbacks who have started every game this year:

Name School Diff b/t 1st Half and 4th quarter
1 Treon Harris Florida -114.91
2 Brandon Allen Arkansas -68.52
3 Maty Mauk Missouri -44.84
4 Will Grier Florida -37.01
5 Chad Kelly Ole Miss -36.27
6 Drew Lock Missouri -34.79
7 Sean White Auburn -26.34
8 Kyle Allen Texas A&M -23.23
9 Dak Prescott Mississippi State -21.47
10 Greyson Lambert Georgia -15.57
11 Jake Coker Alabama -14.77
12 Johnny McCrary Vanderbilt -7.88
13 Patrick Towles Kentucky -7.43
14 Joshua Dobbs Tennessee 0.07
15 Perry Orth South Carolina 5.72
16 Jeremy Johnson Auburn 59.36

To look at the original numbers from which these disparities were calculated, check these first-half rankings:

Name School 1st Half QB Rating
1 Treon Harris Florida 237.22
2 Brandon Allen Arkansas 179.84
3 Will Grier Florida 172.58
4 Chad Kelly Ole Miss 170.79
5 Kyle Allen Texas A&M 165.69
6 Dak Prescott Mississippi State 156.42
7 Sean White Auburn 155.56
8 Greyson Lambert Georgia 146.47
9 Jake Coker Alabama 133
10 Drew Lock Missouri 132.52
11 Patrick Towles Kentucky 130.59
12 Joshua Dobbs Tennessee 128.48
13 Maty Mauk Missouri 111.78
14 Johnny McCrary Vanderbilt 111.01
15 Perry Orth South Carolina 98.89
16 Jeremy Johnson Auburn 76.11

Now glimpse at these fourth-quarter ratings:

Name School 4th Qter Rating
1 Kyle Allen Texas A&M 142.46
2 Will Grier Florida 135.57
3 Jeremy Johnson Auburn 135.47
4 Dak Prescott Mississippi State 134.95
5 Chad Kelly Ole Miss 134.52
6 Greyson Lambert Georgia 130.9
7 Sean White Auburn 129.22
8 Joshua Dobbs Tennessee 128.55
9 Patrick Towles Kentucky 123.16
10 Treon Harris Florida 122.31
11 Jake Coker Alabama 118.23
12 Brandon Allen Arkansas 111.32
13 Perry Orth South Carolina 104.61
14 Johnny McCrary Vanderbilt 103.13
15 Drew Lock Missouri 97.73
16 Maty Mauk Missouri 66.94

These ratings do provide a glimpse of at least one facet of what most fans would agree constitutes “clutch” performance, but it’s important to keep in mind the QB rating is a pretty limited stat that dates back to the 1960s and was adopted by the NFL in the early 1970s. The rating doesn’t take into account a quarterback’s rushing yards, fumbles or whether a dropped pass was the fault of a wide receiver.

Still, with all these limitations, it’s just about the best the public has for free. At the least it provides a starting point for a discussion about what “clutch” should mean.

Here are two other “clutch”-related rankings:

Name School 3rd Down Rating
1 Treon Harris Florida 153.69
2 Brandon Allen Arkansas 143.65
3 Will Grier Florida 138.88
4 Dak Prescott Mississippi State 138.69
5 Kyle Allen Texas A&M 127.28
6 Patrick Towles Kentucky 126.81
7 Perry Orth South Carolina 121.25
8 Joshua Dobbs Tennessee 117.3
9 Maty Mauk Missouri 117.06
10 Sean White Auburn 114.19
11 Johnny McCrary Vanderbilt 107.43
12 Chad Kelly Ole Miss 103.14
13 Greyson Lambert Georgia 100.22
14 Jake Coker Alabama 85.33
15 Jeremy Johnson Auburn 70.78
16 Drew Lock Missouri 55.34

Fourth down rating

Name School 4th Down Rating
1 Will Grier Florida 372.64
2 Perry Orth South Carolina 305.47
3 Joshua Dobbs Tennessee 302.67
4 Treon Harris Florida 250.8
5 Patrick Towles Kentucky 199.9
6 Kyle Allen Texas A&M 193.47
7 Johnny McCrary Vanderbilt 156.11
8 Jake Coker Alabama 52.57
9 Dak Prescott Mississippi State 22.13
10 Maty Mauk Missouri 0
11 Sean White Auburn 0
12 Greyson Lambert Georgia 0
13 Jeremy Johnson Auburn 0
14 Drew Lock Missouri 0
15 Chad Kelly Ole Miss -12.2
16 Brandon Allen Arkansas -66.67

To see where your favorite SEC quarterback ranks nationally, go here.