With the Early Signing Period, college football recruiting kicked into gear before Christmas. And nobody gets analyzed more than QB recruits. The 2018 class looks loaded, but don’t we say that every year?

Guilty.

We went back through the SEC’s decade of QB recruiting. It’s pretty scary. We broke down the big name signees, class by class, and ranked them.

The good news is that the signees have gotten better. The bad news is that you may injure something in your head trying to remember some of these guys from the early 2010s.

Which class was the best?

Here’s the breakdown on the big names — and who made it and didn’t (all rankings used are from 247Sports).

8. 2010 class

  • 5-stars in SEC: None
  • 4-stars in SEC: Phillip Sims (Alabama), Tyler Bray (Tennessee)

How we’ll remember the class: The 2010 QB class is best remembered for being an absolute train wreck. CBS Sports noted that of the top 31 QBs of the group, 22 had transferred before their senior season. Michigan’s Devin Gardner was probably the best of the group, but it was a terrible group.

Neither of the SEC guys helped things much. Sims threw 28 passes at Alabama, transferred to Virginia, and then on to Winston-Salem State. He’s a high school football coach now. Bray at least played — he put up some solid numbers (7,444 passing yards and 69 touchdowns) at Tennessee, but never really seemed to live up to his potential and missed being drafted by the NFL.

7. 2014 class

  • 5-stars: Kyle Allen (Texas A&M)
  • 4-stars: David Cornwell (Alabama), Will Grier (Florida), Sean White (Auburn), Jacob Park (Georgia), Brandon Harris (LSU), Drew Barker (Kentucky), Rafe Peavey (Arkansas).

Biggest overachiever: A lowly 3-star signee named Nick Fitzgerald has done more at Mississippi State than the rest of the group combined to do for their SEC teams.

How we’ll remember the class: Again, we won’t. Grier is a star but was run off by Jim McElwain, and ended up at West Virginia. Kyle Allen was a bona-fide 5-star passer. He threw for 3,532 yards and 33 touchdowns in two season before transferring to Houston. At least he played. Cornwell never threw a pass at Alabama (transferred to Nevada), Jacob Park never played for Georgia (went to Iowa State), and Rafe Peavey ended up at SMU and not Arkansas.

Some of the others just wish they hadn’t played. Sean White was competent, but finds himself behind Jarrett Stidham at Auburn. Similarly, Brandon Harris didn’t cut the mustard at LSU, and Drew Barker has sat and watched at Kentucky.

6. 2012 class

  • 5-stars: None
  • 4-stars: Matt Davis (Texas A&M), Patrick Towles (Kentucky)

Biggest overachiever: An SEC guy who slid under the radar was Mizzou QB Maty Mauk, who wasn’t brilliant, but was probably the best SEC guy of the group before off-field issues ended his career.

How we’ll remember the class: Really, this was an incredibly non-descript group of SEC quarterbacks. The guy who everybody missed on was 2-star QB Paxton Lynch of Memphis. On the other end of things, Jameis Winston worked out pretty well at Florida State.

The two best SEC guys weren’t SEC signees, but were a pair of 4-star transfers: Chad Kelly, who signed with Clemson, but ended up starring at Ole Miss, and Trevor Knight, who signed with Oklahoma, but ended up starting at Texas A&M. On the other hand, Matt Davis never played at A&M, going to JUCO and then to SMU, and Towles was a very mixed bag at Kentucky. He passed for 5,099 yards and 24 touchdowns, but lost his starting job and finished his career at Boston College.

5. 2011 class

  • 5-stars: Jeff Driskel (Florida)
  • 4-stars: Christian LeMay (Georgia), Jacoby Brissett (Florida), Kiehl Frazier (Auburn), Jerrard Randall (LSU)

Biggest overachiever: There was a 3-star kid from Louisiana who Mississippi State nabbed who ended up being Dak Prescott. Think Florida, Georgia, Auburn, or LSU wished they’d ended up with him?

How we’ll remember the class: The best SEC QB of the group isn’t on this list, not because he wasn’t a 4-star recruit, but because his team wasn’t yet in the SEC. But Johnny Manziel, for everything that went later, was a great good college football player. It’s a shame the same can’t be said for the rest of the SEC guys. There were some good QBs here — Teddy Bridgewater, Marcus Mariota, Braxton Miller, Prescott, Brandon Allen. But the SEC’s top flight guys were strikeouts.

Driskell passed for just 3,411 yards and 23 touchdowns in parts of four seasons in Gainesville before having a successful fifth year at Louisiana Tech. LeMay threw two passes and rushed for 67 yards at UGA, before heading to Jacksonville State. Brissett threw 74 passes in two years at Florida, before moving on to N.C. State and the NFL. Frazier threw two touchdowns and 10 interceptions at Auburn, and Randall never took a snap at LSU and ended up at Arizona.

4. 2013 class

  • 5-stars: None
  • 4-stars: Bryce Ramsey (Georgia), Cooper Bateman (Alabama), Joshua Dobbs (Tennessee), Kohl Stewart (Texas A&M), Hayden Rettig (LSU), Connor Mitch (South Carolina), Jeremy Johnson (Auburn), Kenny Hill (Texas A&M), Anthony Jennings (LSU), Austin Allen (Arkansas), Damon Mitchell (Arkansas)

Biggest overachiever: 3-star Purdue signee Danny Etling ended up with a better SEC career at LSU than most of the highly ranked guys.

How we’ll remember the class: This was the Oprah class of 4-star QBs. You get a QB, you get a QB, everybody gets a QB. Seriously, nine SEC teams nabbed 4-star passers. But most didn’t work out. In fact, Dobbs at Tennessee, Allen at Arkansas, and Kenny Hill despite transferring to TCU are the only guys who ended up living up to their billing. So many of these guys rode the pine, disappointed the fan base, and ended up transferring out of town.

3. 2015 class

  • 5-stars: Blake Barnett (Alabama), Kyler Murray (Texas A&M)
  • 4-stars: Jauan Jennings (Tennessee), Drew Lock (Missouri), Quinten Dormady (Tennessee), Ty Storey (Arkansas), Sheriron Jones (Tennessee), Jason Pellerin (Ole Miss), Kyle Shurmur (Vanderbilt)

Biggest overachiever: It’s probably Shurmur. While a 4-star guy doesn’t sound like an underachiever, he certainly merits being ranked above the majority of the QBs ahead of him.

How we’ll remember the class: The 2015 class was one where the stars weren’t necessarily the most obvious guys. The two 5-star players had no impact. Barnett threw 19 passes at Alabama before losing the starting job in game one and ultimately moving to Arizona State. Murray threw 121 passes (five touchdowns, seven interceptions) as a freshman at A&M before leaving for Oklahoma. But 4-star Jarrett Stidham did little at Baylor before shining at Auburn in 2017.

Meanwhile, of the other 4-stars, Lock has played his way into an NFL prospect and Shurmur has fared relatively well. Tennessee managed to convert a trio of 4-star QBs into a talented but inefficient wide receiver (Jennings), a poor junior starter who was benched for a true freshman (Dormady), and a guy who threw one pass as a Vol (Jones). Meanwhile, 4-star Louisville QB Lamar Jackson and 3-star Clemson QB Kelly Bryant have won a Heisman (Jackson) and are vying for another national title (Bryant).

2. 2016 class

  • 5-stars: Shea Patterson (Ole Miss), Jacob Eason (Georgia)
  • 4-stars: Feleipe Franks (Florida), Jalen Hurts (Alabama), Brandon McIlwain (South Carolina), Jarrett Guarantano (Tennessee), Jake Bentley (South Carolina), Woody Barrett (Auburn)

Biggest overachiever: It’s early on this group, but Arkansas freshman Cole Kelley, who was a 3-star guy, showed some significant skills in 2017.

How we’ll remember this class: This class is largely the group when the SEC just threw up its hands and decided it was OK to play true freshmen. Hurts leading Alabama to the brink of a national title had a lot to do with that, but Eason, Patterson and Bentley all shone as freshmen too. Unfortunately, the NCAA issues have sent Patterson to Ann Arbor, and Eason seems unlikely to sit at Georgia behind Jake Fromm. Bentley is still solid, but fellow 4-star Brandon McIlwain transferred and is better at baseball. Franks is a wild-card at Florida — could Dan Mullen get him turned around?

1. 2017 class

  • 5-stars: Tua Tagovailoa (Alabama)
  • 4-stars: Jake Fromm (Georgia), Myles Brennan (LSU), Keytaon Thompson (Mississippi State), Kellen Mond (Texas A&M)

Biggest overachiever: Poor Will McBride of Tennessee did see some time as a true freshman. Maybe it will help him going forward.

How we’ll remember this class: Right now, it looks like a pretty great class. Fromm is the second consecutive freshman QB to win and SEC title and lead a team to the Playoff; Hurts was the first last year. Mond had some moments starting as a true freshman, and Tagovailoa could develop into the most talented player in college football. With Brennan and Thompson both showing some skills in reserve time this season, this could be the SEC QB class that breaks through.