Mertz, Rattler were highly ranked preps in 2019

A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning:

Other than the fact they all are starting quarterbacks in the Southeastern Conference, what do Jayden Daniels (LSU), Spencer Rattler (South Carolina), Joe Milton (Tennessee), Jaxson Dart (Ole Miss), Devin Leary (Kentucky), Payton Thorne (Auburn) and Max Johnson (Texas A&M) have in common with Graham Mertz? They all started their collegiate football careers somewhere else.

The same thing holds true for Caleb Williams (Southern California), Bo Nix (Oregon), Shedeur Sanders (Colorado), Dillon Gabriel (Oklahoma), Jordan Travis (Florida State), Cameron Ward (Washington State), Quinn Ewers (Texas), Taulia Tagovailoa (Maryland), Haynes King (Georgia Tech), Kedon Slovis (BYU), Emory Jones (Cincinnati) and Jack Plummer (Louisville). And that’s scratching the surface. Rare is the QB who spends his entire career at one school.

Billy Napier’s answer to a question about quarterbacks in the transfer portal Wednesday night made it perfectly clear he questions where the Gators (4-2, 2-1 SEC) would be without Mertz, who was a 2019 recruit to Wisconsin. Mertz was the No. 7 QB in that 2019 class. Rattler was No. 1, Daniels No. 2 and Nix No. 3.

“Yeah, just the world we’re living in and thank the good Lord for it,” Napier said. “We certainly have benefitted from it.”

Mertz and Rattler will face off Saturday afternoon in Columbia, both with something to prove. Rattler is trying to salvage a South Carolina (2-3, 1-2 SEC) season that some experts predicted would be good for No. 2 in the SEC East when the games began for real back in August. He’s done his part fairly well (73 percent completions, 1,411 yards, 8.7 per attempt, 7 TDPs and just 3 INTs), but his offensive line has let him down regularly. Rattler has been sacked 23 times.

Mertz is looking break a 5-game Florida road losing streak that dates back to last season while keeping the Gators just a game back of SEC East leader Georgia. Mertz is 140-175 passing (80 percent, second nationally), for 1,474 yards (8.4 per attempt) and nine TDS (2 INTs).

The portal isn’t going to go away, nor is the increasing number of quarterbacks who transfer out in search of St. Somewhere Else where they feel they’ll have a fair shot at showing what they can do. Napier thinks this is a trend that won’t slow down any time soon “because you’ve just got one starter and as time goes there’s just movement, because everybody wants to prove they’re the guy and they can play.”

Not every transfer quarterback flourishes in his new destination. Florida’s Jack Miller III has been injured most of his two seasons at Florida since transferring from Ohio State. JT Daniels, who is having a good year at Rice, started his career at Southern Cal before spending two years at Georgia and a year at West Virginia. TJ Finley, once the heir apparent at LSU, is thriving at Texas State after languishing two years at Auburn.

Napier knows attrition is part of today’s college game and not just at the quarterback position. He knows it’s going to happen this year at Florida even though he believes UF has a second to none situation.

“I’m to a point now where we’re in our second year here,” Napier said. “We’ve completely rebuilt the player experience here. If they don’t want to, they don’t want to be here. I can’t imagine I much better place to go to play college football after being here a couple of years. I would put our player experience up against anybody in the country, relative to the whole package. It’s taken time to get there, but I believe in what we have to offer the student-athlete – the alumni network, the player development program that we have in place with GatorMade, connecting the dots, really having a holistic plan for who we are as people, students and football players; the level of detail we offer from a resource standpoint, strength and conditioning, sports science, nutrition, training room, football development, facilities, NIL, location – I don’t know about y’all but the last couple of days it’s been pretty nice out there. It’s October in Gainesville and it’s pretty tough to beat. If they don’t want to be here, they don’t want to be here.

“We have the opportunity to sign in the country both in high school and the best players available in the portal. I don’t think that’ll be a problem going forward. Will we have attrition? Absolutely. There’ll be some attrition, but I think that’s just reality. Some of it’s healthy. When you think about it, if a guy’s on the fence he doesn’t need to be here.”

Etienne good to go: Running back Trevor Etienne, who missed last week’s win over Vanderbilt, is healthy and ready to go Saturday in Columbia. He’s been kept non-contact all week, but Napier says, “He’s ready to go.”

Injury report: C Kingsley Eguakun (lower body, out); WR Caleb Douglas (lower body, out); WR Andy Jean (lower body, out); TE Jonathan Odom (upper body, out); WR Thai Chiaokhiao-Bowman (lower body, out); TE Dante Zanders (lower body, questionable)

SEC football

No. 11 Alabama (5-1, 3-0 SEC): Wide receiver Ja’Corey Brooks has been practicing this week and is good to go against Arkansas. DB Malachi Moore and punter James Burnip will be game-time decisions.

Arkansas (2-4, 0-2 SEC): Linebacker Chris Paul Jr., linebacker Alfahiym Walcott, defensive lineman Cameron Ball and corner Jalyn Bramlett are all listed as doubtful for Alabama. Corner Nudie McGlothern is expected back after missing a game under concussion protocol.

Auburn (3-2, 0-2 SEC): When it comes to LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels, HBC Hugh Freeze doesn’t think he can be stopped because Daniels has too many weapons at his disposal. “The key of this game is: Can you hold them to field goals?” Freeze said Wednesday.

No. 1 Georgia (6-0, 3-0 SEC): After Georgia’s 51-13 win over Kentucky last week, Kirby Smart told his team, “We still aren’t where we want to go, but we’re starting to see some indications.”

No. 24 Kentucky (5-1, 2-1 SEC): Although Paul Finebaum torched Mark Stoops for his comments about Georgia getting better players because of NIL – “Stoops came out very petty and small” – Cole Cubelic came to Stoops’ defense. “Just because you haven’t heard as many coaches come out and say it in plain view the way Mark Stoops did doesn’t mean that it’s not happening and doesn’t mean they don’t feel the same way,” Cubelic said on his Birmingham radio show co-hosted by Greg McElroy.

No. 22 LSU (4-2, 2-1 SEC): Addressing the problems the Tigers have had on defense, Brian Kelly said, “It’s like anything else, turnovers, tackles for loss, sacks, those things become contagious and we’re hoping that we catch a little bit of that.” LSU has 11 sacks, six interceptions and 32 tackles for loss this season.

Mississippi State (3-3, 0-3 SEC): On the SEC Coaches Teleconference, Zach Arnett said quarterback Will Rogers is being evaluated on a day-to-day basis for a shoulder injury suffered in the win over Western Michigan. Vanderbilt transfer Mike Wright is the backup QB in case Rogers can’t go. He’s completed 8-11 passes this season for 61 yards and a TD.

Missouri (5-1, 1-1 SEC): Coming off their first loss of the season, quarterback Brady Cook expects the Tigers to play with a rather large chip on their shoulders against Kentucky in Lexington this week. “We’re going to have a chip on our shoulder and we’re going to show it in practice,” Cook said.

No. 13 Ole Miss (5-1, 1-1 SEC): Wide receiver Jordan Watkins left practice Wednesday with a hand injury, although the severity has yet to be determined. Through six games, Watkins has 36 catches for 536 yards and two touchdowns.

South Carolina (2-3, 1-2 SEC): The Gators were among the worst teams in the country getting off the field on third down last year. This year, opponents convert only 26.47 percent of the time, which prompted South Carolina coach Shane Beamer to say “they present a lot of problems, particularly when you get to third down. Lot of volume in their defense and they’ve been really good on third down defense this season already. We’re going to have to play real well up front on the offensive line and tight end to be able to get some runs going and protect our quarterback.”

No. 19 Tennessee (4-1, 1-1 SEC): The Vols have been able to get to the quarterback 22 times this season using mostly a 4-man rush, which has freed up their linebackers to drop into coverage. “We’ve been better getting to the quarterback with a 4-man rush, which changes the coverages you’re able to play on the back end,” Josh Heupel said on the SEC Coaches Teleconference call Wednesday morning.

Texas A&M (4-2, 2-1 SEC): The Aggies netted 70 rushing yards last week against Alabama, which got to quarterback Max Johnson for five sacks. This week the Aggies go against a Tennessee team that is tied for fourth nationally with 22 sacks in five games. The Vols give up only 115.4 yards per game on the ground, 3.14 per carry.

Vanderbilt (2-5, 0-3 SEC): Vanderbilt has not scored a touchdown against the Georgia defense since 2018. The Commodores have lost the last two games against the Bulldogs by a combined 117 points.

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: The NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, whipped out its silk gloves and gave Kansas basketball’s wrists a thorough thrashing. Oh how painful! The entire Jayhawk Nation is writing in pain. Sure, the NCAA vacated 15 wins from the 2017-18 season, but compare that to the 100 the NCAA made Louisville vacate from 2011-15. Best of all from a Kansas viewpoint, the Level I violations were downgraded and the three years of probation won’t keep the Jayhawks from playing in the postseason.

This is typical of the NCAA, which wants to be taken seriously as the governing body of collegiate athletics. The only thing the NCAA does seriously is run dandy tournaments. That much it can do. As for dealing with athletes, enforcing rules or making new rules that are beneficial to athletes and recruits, the NCAA lacks the moral compass to do anything remotely useful.

It isn’t like the NCAA didn’t have the goods on Kansas. All the NCAA had to do was use the testimony under oath in Federal Court by people who went to jail as part of the college basketball corruption investigation and trials. Kansas collaborated with Adidas to buy players. Kansas coach Bill Self claims he didn’t know anything about it and all evidence against him personally was second hand or circumstantial. By all accounts, what the FBI and the NCAA had on Kansas should have been enough for the death penalty.

Of course, we were saying the same thing about Tennessee football. The NCAA had the Vols on more than 200 recruiting violations. The NCAA even admitted it considered the death penalty but rather than drop the hammer as it should have, Tennessee was fined a few million dollars and can still go to bowl games or participate in the College Football Playoff.

Then LSU coach Will Wade was caught on wiretap boasting about buying players. An LSU football booster embezzled more than a half million from a Baton Rouge hospital so he could pay a player. For that, LSU got a slap on the wrist and no serious punishment for either sport. LSU probably feels foolish for firing Wade about now.

Arizona, Louisville, North Carolina State, Oregon and Creighton were identified as cheaters in the FBI investigation. Their punishments even lighter than Kansas. Like LSU, Arizona must feel foolish for firing coach Sean Miller. Of course, Miller landed on his feet. He’s the head coach at Xavier.

At some point college presidents and athletic directors need to be grabbed by the lapels and shaken silly for continuing to maintain membership in the NCAA. There needs to be wholesale exit from this corrupt organization. Start a brand new organization with all new rules and without the bloated, inefficient yet highly paid bureaucracy. It’s past time