San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Tagovailoa leads year of the quarterback
A Southeastern Conference quarterback hasn’t won the Heisman Trophy since 2012, when Kerrville Tivy’s Johnny Manziel earned college football’s top individual honor in Texas A&M’s first season in the league.
A season of change might be at hand, however, thanks to several strong arms spread throughout the SEC, starting with Alabama junior Tua Tagovailoa. He finished second in the Heisman race last season to Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray and is one of the early favorites this year.
“He had an outstanding year last year, (but) are there things he can improve upon? There’s no question about that,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said of his star quarterback. “He’s been as productive as anybody at his position in the country. Hopefully, we can build on that.”
Tagovailoa was the beacon of the preseason, but seven more of the SEC’s 14 programs also return starting quarterbacks in a league rarely celebrated for the position. In addition, five graduate transfers — including two at Arkansas — were fighting it out for starting gigs.
“We have a lot of great football players who are in the SEC playing quarterback,” said Georgia’s Jake Fromm, second only to Tagovailoa in terms of league attention. “It makes me want to raise my game to the next level and compete with them.”
Joe Burrow at LSU, Feleipe Franks at Florida and Terry Wilson at Kentucky all return after leading their respective programs to 10 victories. Kellen Mond at Texas A&M owns 21 starts over the past two seasons, and Jarrett Guarantano of Tennessee is not far behind with 18 career nods.
The granddaddy of them all is Jake Bentley at South Carolina. The senior has started 32 games, although the Gamecocks failed to reach double-digit victories in any of his three previous seasons.
“I don’t know how many times before where it’s been at this level,” Bentley said of so much quarterback experience in the SEC. “It’s what makes our league special.”
Count Georgia coach Kirby Smart, a former Alabama defensive coordinator, among the league veterans in awe of all the savvy SEC signal callers this season.
“It’s a really good year for quarterback in the SEC,” Smart said. “In my experience of having been in the SEC for a lot of years, whether as a coach or a player, I don’t know that there’s been a year when there’s been so many quarterbacks with this experience.
"Some of them might not have that experience at that (same) university, but they have experience, and that’s usually not a good sign for defensive coordinators in our conference.”
Manziel, who last played in the SEC in 2013, also holds the distinction of being the conference’s last quarterback selected in the first round of the NFL draft. The Cleveland Browns picked him 22nd overall in 2014, and he was a bust.
Tagovailoa and Fromm, both juniors, are two of the top three quarterbacks potentially in the 2020 NFL draft, according to Sports Illustrated (although that would mean they skipped their senior seasons).
As for veteran transfers expected to lead their respective programs, Missouri has Kelly Bryant from Clemson, Vanderbilt has Riley Neal from Ball State, Mississippi State has Tommy Stevens from Penn State, and Arkansas has Ben Hicks from SMU and Nick Starkel from A&M.
“I have one year to get it right, I can’t have any slip-ups,” said Bryant, who led Clemson to the national title game two seasons ago. “(Missouri) was selling me on how (former quarterback) Drew Lock had success in his (last) year and became a second-round draft pick.”