The showdown between Alabama’s Keelon Russell and Mississippi State’s Kamario Taylor didn’t exactly live up to the billing. The two players, who are the early favorites for next year’s No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft didn’t have a four quarter duel, as it was largely one sided. Still that doesn’t take away from the body of work from Taylor, or anyone else, in the league through five weeks of the season.
It does beg the question though – should there be a new No. 1? Here are this week’s SEC Quarterback Power Rankings.
Bottom 6
12. LaNorris Sellers, South Carolina
Tier 2 QB 1s
Someone has to go at No. 10. That’s how bad the bottom six in the conference have been so far this season. Brown didn’t have a good game against Tennessee, but at this point the stat line of 266 yards of offense, two touchdowns and two interceptions is pretty good for him and what he’s shown to be his ceiling.
Texas was on a bye, but this weekend will be huge for Manning. Last year the Oklahoma game was his coming out party.
The accuracy has gotten better over the last two weeks. Granted the competition hasn’t been great, but for a guy who completed just 61% of his passes in his first three games, completing 76% in his last two games, while injured, has been great. The interceptions are apparently just going to be a part of the experience.
Are we sleeping too much on Minchey? I think so. A check-down merchant, and passer who excelled at anything 10 yards or less, had the least taken off this week against South Carolina. Minchey had three touchdowns and over 270 yards passing against the Gamecocks. He ranks sixth in the SEC in passer rating (160.37), has a TD-to-INT ratio of 11–to-1 and is fifth in completion percentage (68.3%).
Philo wasn’t great against Missouri, but honestly nobody was for Florida. It will be interesting to see what teams do moving forward against Florida. The blueprint before Missouri was always going to be to try and take running back Jadan Baugh away and make Philo beat you. That worked for Missouri, but don’t expect it to happen back-to-back weeks against a bad South Carolina secondary.
Top 5
Simmons has been incredible this season, and it feels like people are finally starting to notice. Simmons was awesome against Florida. He completed nearly 80% of his passes for 340 yards and two touchdowns. He’s also now the only quarterback in the league without an interception this season. In his first full year as a starter, Simmons is currently top three in the league in passing yards (1287), passer rating (178.1) and touchdown passes (13).
4. Kamario Taylor, Mississippi State
It was a week to forget for Taylor, but Super Kamario was still pretty good in the blowout loss against Alabama. Playing against that defense without the help of a run game certainly did not help the stat sheet. However, his 17 TD passes still lead the SEC.
Stockton has 13 touchdowns, and 11 of them are from 10 air yards or less. That’s the most in the country. That’s not a knock necessarily on Stockton. It’s just the makeup of Georgia’s offense. That offense is leading the entire country in scoring by the way. Stockton will need to attack Alabama more downfield on Saturday, but in two games against Alabama he’s completed 71.7% of his passes and has four touchdowns with zero interceptions.
2. Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss
Ole Miss was off this week, and while Chambliss isn’t No. 1 in this week’s rankings, there’s still no one else in America you’d want with the ball in their hands in the fourth quarter.
Hopefully this isn’t the kiss of death since he’s yet to face Kirby Smart and Glenn Schumann’s defense. But, this is a weekly ranking, and it’s hard to justify that anyone else in the SEC, and maybe the nation, is playing better at the quarterback position right now than Russell. Some of the throws he’s making are jaw dropping, and so are the numbers. Russell leads the SEC in QBR (91.0), yards per attempt (10.7) and is top three in completion percentage (71.2), passing yards per game (282.8) and passer rating (185.66).
