How important is QB experience in the SEC? In 2025, we'll find out.

How important is quarterback experience in the SEC? This season will show.

Look around the Southeastern Conferences media days which is to say look around a tasting menu of the college football season to come and focus on the quarterbacks.

Eleven of the SECs 16 teams are bringing their quarterbacks to Atlanta for this weeks media event, making the signal-callers the most represented position among player attendees.

The SEC QB contingent includes five of the top nine Heisman Trophy candidates in terms of preseason betting odds.

Six media days representatives are returning starters.

Are those the kind of quarterback stats that will matter once games kick off in six-ish weeks? Not at all.

But the SECs quarterback dynamics and how Missouris QB battle fits into them are a compelling canvas for whats to come in 2025.

Does SEC experience matter? Do transitions to new starters progress better with a transfer or a successor whos waited his turn? The multiplicity of paths to starting jobs in this conference is what will be fruitful to follow.

Grabbing, by far, the most media attention this week has been Texas quarterback Arch Manning.

No surprise there.

He wasnt the starter for his first two seasons with the Longhorns, but that doesnt mean he wasnt tailed by the spotlight.

With 95 passing attempts in 12 career appearances, hes not quite an unknown, but Manning is hardly an experienced college quarterback either.

Yet thats done little to slow the hype train that has him as the betting favorite for the Heisman.

Arguably the main basis for why Louisiana State quarterback Garrett Nussmeier is second in the odds, however, is that hes experienced.

Like Manning, he waited his turn.

And after 2023 Heisman winner Jayden Daniels moved on to the NFL, Nussmeier took over in the Bayou.

His debut season as a starter was uneven.

Nussmeier led the SEC in completions but also interceptions.

He posted 4,052 passing yards for 29 touchdowns and 12 picks.

LSU coach Brian Kelly was adamant Tuesday that its that kind of season that sets up Nussmeier to be one of the best in the nation this year.

I cant underestimate how important the development was, Kelly said.

I think we all, you all saw it.

Jayden Daniels development in Year 1 to Year 2 was astronomical if that word even suits it.

It was incredible.

Garrett Nussmeier will have a similar jump.

Its because you go on the ground and its sold out, you play teams that are so well-coached and so balanced and have great players that you have no choice but to learn, develop and get better or youre going to be left by the side.

So thats why Im confident that experience, in this league, at the quarterback position is the most important thing.

Could you come in and play as a freshman? Absolutely.

But there will be those moments where you look like a freshman.

You look like a first-year player.

Garrett will tell you that, and he wasnt a true freshman.

Kellys philosophy ought to mean good tidings for the likes of South Carolina and Florida, which will start redshirt sophomore LaNorris Sellers and true sophomore D.J.

Lagway, respectively.

Maybe even Auburn quarterback Jackson Arnold, who transferred from the Plains after a disappointing season at Oklahoma.

Hes a unique intra-SEC quarterback transfer.

Arnold played a bit in 2023, the Sooners last season in the Big 12.

Then he struggled in 2024 behind the conferences worst offensive line, taking a beating and at one point getting benched for a true freshman.

Now it was just a matter of, man, lets give this guy a restart and let him regain his swagger and confidence, Auburn coach Hugh Freeze said.

Does SEC experience count as helpful when its requiring a quarterback to undergo a mental reset? Some coaches would seemingly like to have more experience at quarterback than they do.

Take Georgias Kirby Smart, for example.

Hes been one of the best coaches in college football, but his Bulldogs will look quite a bit different in 2025: 54% of the roster is made up of first- and second-year players, comprising the youngest UGA team of his career.

There is a youthful exuberance, Smart said.

That can be both positive and negative.

...

Its their first time getting a chance to start.

Its their first time being a major player in the rotation.

Theres good and bad about both.

Weve got to manage that.

Weve got to be patient with them, and weve got to get them better.

The almost-wishful nature of those words go for his entire team but fits quarterback Gunner Stockton, whos entering his fourth season overall but first as a starter.

Can Georgia afford to be patient with a starting QB? Then theres the matter of the five programs that didnt bring any quarterbacks to Atlanta: Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Missouri.

Are they just less confident in the position? Kentuckys Zach Calzada transferred in from Incarnate Word but via Texas A&M and Auburn, so he has SEC experience.

Aggies quarterback Marcel Reed was their signal-caller of choice at times last season.

Theres some upside to both.

The other three programs that left their quarterbacks at home have ongoing battles at the position.

Mizzou is down to Beau Pribula and Sam Horn, neither of whom have all that much experience.

Alabama is down to Ty Simpson, Austin Mack and Keelon Russell.

And all of them are probably feeling better than Tennessee right about now, which is moving on from Nico Iamaleavas messy spring exit with the kind of spin from coach Josh Heupel that just cant come off as confident.

Its never about whos not in your building but about who is in your building, Heupel said.

In 2025, the SEC will show whether its about the experience in your building, too..

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