Ed Aschoff discusses what he calls the SEC’s “Year of Finding the Quarterback”:
At least five teams — Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Ole Miss and South Carolina — will be breaking in new quarterbacks, while three others — Florida, LSU and Vanderbilt — could potentially have new signal-callers under center thanks to intriguing quarterback battles. Then, you have Arkansas and Missouri, which must have better play at quarterback if those teams are going to make championship runs in 2015.
Ten SEC teams have some sort of serious quarterback question, but there’s good news for most: There are quality running backs to help carry the load. Those backfield bulls are back to help push when quarterbacks can’t. There are safety nets all around the league that could help quarterbacks needing a boost this fall.
To use a criminal justice analogy, a lot of SEC programs have both motive and opportunity to rely on strong running games to get through next season. I expect them to take advantage of what they’ve got.
The interesting question will be how SEC defensive coordinators who have slowly been gearing up to handle spread passing attacks manage to deal with this.
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I for one, am not convinced the Schottenheimer hire is a good one. I am unaware of any high level of achievement in the area he coached while he was in the NFL. I am queasy that he will be a round peg in a square hole and we will quickly see a disconnect between him and the college game. I hope I am wrong.
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Roswell, the guy seemed to get it done on the recruiting trail in the stretch run. You don’t coordinate offenses for 9 years in the NFL if you don’t know what you’re doing. He had a head case at QB in New York in Mark Sanchez and an injury-prone Sam Bradford in St. Louis.
I don’t know if he’s the right guy for the job yet because we haven’t seen him coach a game in Athens. He’s got experienced college guys all around him as his assistants and has a boss that knows how a pro-style offense should run at the collegiate level.
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Saban and Spurrier both sucked in the NFL…………..
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Me thinks the level of QB play may be down in some situations but is not nearly the big problem it is forecast to be by all the, self proclaimed, gurus. First of all, there wasn’t high level talent at QB in the SEC last season so I expect it to be somewhat better in 2015. And secondly, not all schools are justified in expecting mediocrity, I think UGA, for one, has talented options to choose from, and a staff capable of having 1-2 QBs ready for success.
I understand the tremendous strength we have at RB but would be disappointed if we approach next season with a simplistic “run the ball” mentality. I hope the offense is more wide-open in 2015 and that we use our running game to create bigger opportunities in the passing game.
While not major worried about UGA’s offense, I also would not underestimate the quality of QB choices at other programs either. This is a league that has recruited great talent for years at all positions and to think most will fall on their collective faces is naïve. There may not be a Peyton Manning, or Aaron Murray level passer on the field this fall but who feels that 3-4 teams cannot do as well as Corch and ohio did with 2nd and 3rd team players last year. Not exactly where you would think solid QB play would come from but all the “experts” were gushing by mid-November over that crew. Prescott may get all the pre-season awards but don’t be surprised if a couple of new names don’t get serious consideration by December’s vote.
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Watch out, Mac, or you’ll bring out the “gurus” who are convinced that the only reason Aaron Murray played at UGA was the stubbornness of Mark Richt and Mike Bobo. G-Day QBR for the win!
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Well it’s not the best year then for UGA to be breaking in new DL and ILBs. But I guess they won’t worry about getting beat in pass coverage.
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