Bill Shanks: Where have all the quarterbacks gone?
How could the most important position on the football field be the biggest mystery in the SEC? It’s early, way early, but through the first two weeks of the season the quarterback position is a black hole in what is supposed to be the best football conference in the country.
Patrick Towles of Kentucky and Chad Kelly of Mississippi are the best two quarterbacks in the conference after the first two weeks. How scary is that?
We know what happened last week in Nashville, Tennessee, as Greyson Lambert just amplified the debate about who should be starting for Georgia. Lambert was awful in the first half. He didn’t complete a pass. How can someone be that bad for two quarters? It made fans understand why Virginia didn’t cry when Lambert transferred.
Georgia might be able to get away with having a bad deal at quarterback because every other team in the division except Kentucky is in the same boat. South Carolina just lost its starter to an injury. Connor Mitch is out, and someone named Perry Orth will start this weekend in Athens. How can Steve Spurrier, of all people, have such a bad situation at quarterback? We’ll see if he can work his magic with Orth or if having a mediocre quarterback will once again cost the Gamecocks.
Josh Dobbs was supposed to be good, but the Tennessee quarterback had an awful second half last week against Oklahoma. Missouri’s Maty Mauk is the most experienced quarterback in the SEC East, but he might be the most undependable. Florida hasn’t seemed to settle on one quarterback, with Will Grier and Treon Harris fighting it out. And Vanderbilt’s Johnny McCrary is just not very good.
It’s not much better in the SEC West. I was among many who believed Auburn’s Jeremy Johnson would be good. So far, Johnson has been miserably bad with five interceptions. Alabama’s situation seems shaky, at best. Jake Coker needs to hold off hard-charging Cooper Bateman in what seems like an ongoing battle. It might be too early to see if Brandon Harris has solved LSU’s continuing quarterback dilemma, since he has played just one game.
Texas A&M’s Kyle Allen has joined Kelly as one of the productive quarterbacks in the SEC. You can’t blame Arkansas’ loss last week on Brandon Allen, who has been solid so far. And, as expected, Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott has been very good.
But that’s it. There are more questions than answers, and it’s making many wonder how strong the SEC is this year with shoddy quarterback play in the first couple of weeks.
Georgia must figure out its situation. Lambert can’t be that bad again, can he? Lambert struggled against a bad Vanderbilt defense and will face much tougher opponents, starting this week against the Gamecocks. Now, South Carolina might not have a great defense, but with the way Spurrier hates Georgia, he’s going to smell blood in the water if he detects weakness at the quarterback position.
South Carolina is desperate for a win, making it extremely dangerous. A loss at home to Kentucky will do that to a team. And with South Carolina’s season in jeopardy, the last thing Spurrier will want is for a quarterback who couldn’t get out of his own way at Vanderbilt to beat his Gamecocks.
Georgia has two more weeks before Alabama comes to Athens. The Bulldogs better figure out something before then. If there is as much uneasiness and uncertainty about Lambert in two weeks as there is now, Georgia will be in big trouble.
But will Mark Richt give Lambert a long leash Saturday, or will Brice Ramsey be warming up after the first three-and-out for the Georgia offense?
Unfortunately, these issues are par for the course this season in a bizarre SEC East where quarterbacks are no longer the big men on campus.
Listen to “The Bill Shanks Show” from 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WPLA Fox Sports 1670 AM in Macon and online at www.foxsports1670.com. Follow Bill at twitter.com/BillShanks and email him at thebillshanksshow@yahoo.com.
This story was originally published September 15, 2015 at 8:43 PM with the headline "Bill Shanks: Where have all the quarterbacks gone?."