The New QBs
By: Colin Lacy
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
As we hit the unofficial end of the offseason with the SEC Kickoff Media Days coming to Atlanta this week, one of the biggest questions around the league will be the first year starting quarterbacks.
The SEC is flooded with first year starting quarterbacks this year with nine of the sixteen teams breaking in a year one starter running the offense.
Some of those have more questions around them, but the biggest questions in my opinion come from Knoxville, Tuscaloosa, and Auburn.
In Tuscaloosa, Ty Simpson is expected to be named starter for the Crimson Tide to fill the shoes of Jalen Milroe.
There’s been a lot of moving parts in T-Town on the offensive side to try and make the transition to the new signal caller with Kalen DeBoer changing up the play caller and bringing in Ryan Grubb as the new offensive coordinator and essentially demoting Nick Sheridan to “co-offensive coordinator and QBs Coach”.
After spending two years with Coach DeBoer as the OC leading Washington to two magical seasons in 2022 & 2023, Grubb spent the 2024 season as the offensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks.
Simpson is a name that Bama fans have heard for three years and has been in the program since 2022 but has seen limited action behind Milroe.
Simpson in 16 career games over the first three years of his career only has 50 pass attempts with only real meaningful snaps coming in the 2023 matchup against South Florida where he helped lead Bama to a victory in game 2 of the year when Milroe got benched for one game by Nick Saban.
Simpson is expected to make his first career start in Tallahassee on August 30th when the Tide open the year against Florida State.
Knoxville has been an interesting situation this offseason for the quarterback room. At the end of spring ball, Nico Iamaleava shockingly decided to enter the transfer portal and ended up at UCLA.
That caused Tennessee to scramble (no pun intended) and find a QB1 in the portal, so they landed on Joey Aguilar who was a two-year starter at Appalachian State before spending the spring at UCLA before transferring to Tennessee.
Aguilar racked up over 3,000 yards passing in 2024 for the Mountaineers and was named honorable mention All-Sun Belt both years in Boone.
Aguilar is pretty set in Knoxville to start the year at QB1 for Josh Heupel, but in my eyes won’t finish the year like that.
Aguilar absolutely is talented, there’s no doubt about that, but seeing him at App State, he’s not an SEC Quarterback.
That could open the door to Savannah product Jake Merklinger. Merklinger redshirted last season in Knoxville and will have four years of eligibility remaining for the Calvary Day alum.
My two cents says that Aguilar will start the year, but by the week five off week, Merklinger could be set up to start the Arkansas match-up the following week.
Finally, Auburn has been an interesting scenario at quarterback. After the departure of Peyton Thorne (who is now on the roster for the Cincinnati Bengals), Hugh Freeze hit the transfer portal to bring in Jackson Arnold.
Arnold spent two seasons at Oklahoma with a rocky 2024 season. Arnold was benched in the mid-September matchup with Tennessee for Michael Hawkins because of struggles for Arnold.
The former Sooner threw for over 1,400 yards with 12 scores but struggled at times. The plus side for Arnold is that while he’s technically a first-year starter (for Auburn) he does bring SEC experience having played in seventeen career games with five starts.
This is the most intriguing to watch for me and the one that could turn up golden for the Aubs or could turn the lights out on Hugh Freeze.
There are so many un-answered questions swirling around quarterbacks in the SEC which has created buzz and excitement around the best football league in the country.
Again, I think that Gunner Stockton for Georgia and Austin Simmons for Ole Miss will be the two that will be consistently solid throughout the year, but watching the rest unfold will be incredible to see as the season goes on.
