SEC QB Power Rankings, Week 8: Is Hendon Hooker Tennessee’s answer to Joe Burrow?

Quarterbacks: There are a lot of them! Each week throughout the season, we’ll help you keep the game’s most important position in perspective by ranking the SEC starters 1-14 according to highly scientific processes and/or pure gut-level instinct. Previously: Week 1 … Week 2. … Week 3. … Week 4. … Week 5. … Week 6. … Week 7.

1. Hendon Hooker, Tennessee

An obscure veteran quarterback transfers to an SEC school, arriving with little fanfare and marginal expectations. His destination is high-profile but in the midst of an undeniable slump, and hasn’t had a real difference-maker behind center in years. In fact, the cycle of mediocrity and instability at the position is notorious. In Year 1 at his new school, our guy fares well enough, entrenching himself as the starter and winning over the locals, but largely fails to move the needle otherwise. He’s better than the last guy, and the guy before that. But as far as the rest of the country is concerned, he’s still more or less just a guy.

In Year 2, he achieves liftoff. He generates big plays and viral highlights on a weekly basis. His stat lines are immaculate, and his touchdown-to-interception ratio borders on the absurd. The offense as a whole, previously a liability, is explosive, efficient and consistent; it rockets to the top of the national rankings in both yards and points per game and stays there. The team’s fortunes follow suit. They win their first nonconference road test in dramatic fashion and keep on winning, rising in the polls each week.

They play their way into a season-defining showdown against their nemesis, Alabama, whose long-running dominance in the rivalry has stood as a source of mockery and a symbol of the team’s second-class status. (And whose own star quarterback is coming into the big game with a nagging injury.) They race out to an early lead against the Tide, weather a second-half comeback, and prevail in an epic, exhausting, instant classic of a game in which both QBs are at the top of their game and neither offense can be stopped. From there, our guy’s name is golden and the sky’s the limit.

The guy? Three years ago, it was Joe Burrow in his Heisman-winning, career-making breakthrough at LSU. In 2022 — so far — it’s Hooker.

Now, yes, we must stress so far. The rankings are obligated under Responsible Take Law to point out there’s a lot of football still to be played. Tennessee is only halfway through its regular-season schedule; the Heisman and Playoff pictures are only just beginning to come into focus, and the Vols’ next big make-or-break test, a Nov. 5 trip to Georgia, looms as a major obstacle to both. Hooker’s numbers lag behind Burrow’s record-breaking pace in 2019, and he’s made much less headway among NFL scouts due to his advanced age (24, going on 25) and Tennessee’s unabashedly non-pro-style scheme. It’s mid-October; there’s always the possibility that Hookermania has peaked.

But it feels the same, right? The rapid ascent, the big-play panache, the cathartic triumph over Alabama: Clearly the profile of a special player in the midst of a special campaign. Narratively and statistically, Hooker has done everything in his power to hold up his end of the comp, including a monster performance (441 total yards, 5 TDs, 226.1 efficiency, 94.3 QBR) on the biggest stage of his life. After 15 years as a footnote in Bama’s story, Saturday’s win was every bit as meaningful to Tennessee and its prospects going forward as LSU’s landmark win in Tuscaloosa was in 2019. If he keeps them coming, the Vols are not only relevant for the first time in a couple of decades; they’re serious contenders to go all the way. Tennessee! Believe it or not, but with each new rung, their climb to the top looks a little more familiar.
– – –
(Last week: 2⬆)

2. Bryce Young, Alabama

It’s been a while since anyone other than the reigning Heisman winner has occupied the top slot here, and it’s another testament to Hooker’s brilliance on Saturday that Young’s brilliance wasn’t enough. His sore right arm just accounted for 80% of Bama’s total offense in a 49-point performance and he gets demoted? While taking a sustained beating in the process? That’s how good the other guy was.

There’s never a shortage of what-ifs in the wake of such a narrow, high-stakes loss, the most obvious of which in this case is the missed field goal that would have given the Crimson Tide the lead with 15 seconds to go. (Alabama’s perennial failure to hit a clutch kick remains one of the most fascinating curses in sports.) Even in defeat, though, the one thing no one doubts is that as long as the ball is in Young’s hands his team will never be out of a game. On that note, they’re still a long way from being out of the national championship race, too. The margin for error is gone, but given the Tide’s track record over the years following a regular-season setback – including last year, when they rallied behind Young from a midseason loss at Texas A&M – counting them out at this point is a rookie mistake.
– – –
(Last week: 1⬇)

3. Stetson Bennett IV, Georgia

While everyone and their mother was tuned in to the Hooker-Young shootout on Saturday afternoon, Bennett quietly delivered his best stat line in a month (24/30, 289 yards, 2 TDs, 90.1 QBR) in a routine, 55-0 romp over Vanderbilt. Yeah, it’s Vandy, but coming off 3 relatively low-octane outings in a row, a brisk beatdown is just what the doctor ordered heading into an open date. On the other side: A critical stretch run against Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi State and Kentucky.
– – –
(Last week: 3⬌)

4. KJ Jefferson, Arkansas

After sitting out Week 6 due to an apparent concussion, Jefferson looked better than ever in Week 7, setting career highs vs. an FBS opponent for attempts (40), yards (367), touchdowns (5), and QBR (94.5) in a wild, 52-35 win at BYU. He also posted the most ridiculous highlight of his career, somehow spinning out of the grasp of 3 different Cougars defenders in the pocket to find an open receiver for a chunk gain.

By “somehow,” obviously, I mean “by virtue of his colossal size” at 6-3, 242 pounds. That looked like 3 actual cougars trying and failing to take down a grizzly bear. In related news, Jefferson’s PFF grade on pressured dropbacks is the best among SEC starters this season by a significant margin.
– – –
(Last week: 5⬆)

5. Will Rogers, Mississippi State

The rankings regularly focus on Rogers’ lack of downfield juice, and Saturday’s 27-17 loss at Kentucky was an extreme example: His average depth of target against the Wildcats came in at just 3.4 yards, per PFF, his lowest ADOT since his first career start back in 2020. (That snapped a relatively aggressive run in which he’d averaged at least 7.0 yards per target in each of the previous 3 games.) Only 5 of Rogers’ 37 attempts traveled 10+ yards downfield, and none more than 20 yards. The Air Raid is not necessarily designed to be a big-play offense, but on the nights it’s reduced to a spread-era equivalent of “3 yards and a cloud of dust,” it can be tough to watch.
– – –
(Last week: 4⬇)

6. Jayden Daniels, LSU

Daniels’ stock is way up this week coming off his best game as a Tiger, by far, in a reassuring, 45-35 win at Florida. He accounted for three-fourths of the team’s 528 yards against the Gators and all 6 touchdowns (3 passing, 3 rushing) on just 8 possessions. He excelled on 3rd downs, going 8-for-9 with at least one conversion on all but one of LSU’s scoring drives, and under pressure, with all 3 TD passes coming against a UF blitz. That’s the quarterback Brian Kelly hoped he was getting when he recruited Daniels from Arizona State, and the version the Tigers will need to remain relevant over the second half of the season — beginning this weekend against red-hot, undefeated Ole Miss.
– – –
(Last week: 8⬆)

7. Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss

Dart did his part on a dominant afternoon for the Rebels’ ground game against Auburn, contributing 115 yards to Ole Miss’ best single-game rushing performance vs. any opponent since 1962. Accordingly, he also finished with the fewest passing yards (130) on the fewest completions (9) since Lane Kiffin’s arrival as head coach. But 3 of those 9 completions went for touchdowns, including a 23-yard layup as a direct result of Auburn’s respect for the quarterback as a runner:

Ole Miss’ 7-0 start hasn’t generated much dark-horse buzz, mainly due to a marginal schedule up to this point. That changes Saturday against LSU, the first in a 5-game SEC West stretch that stands to put the Rebels and their raw-but-versatile young QB on the map in a hurry.
– – –
(Last week: 7⬌)

8. Will Levis, Kentucky

Don’t read too much into the gap here between Levis and Stetson Bennett at No. 3 — after Hooker and Young at the top, the difference among the league’s second tier of QBs is thin and mostly comes down to accounting. Despite his stature on mock draft boards, Levis currently ranks below Bennett, Jefferson, Rogers, Daniels and Dart for the season in both Total QBR and overall PFF grade. (It doesn’t help that, unlike last year, he’s made almost no impact as a runner.) So here he lands, for now, heading into an open date. The pecking order over the second half of the season remains fluid, and with Tennessee and Georgia still looming Levis will have plenty of opportunities to prove the scouts right.
– – –
(Last week: 6⬇)

9. Anthony Richardson, Florida

The preseason scouting report on Richardson was “freak athlete with inconsistent QB skills,” and the midseason scouting report is the same except with inconsistent underlined 3 times for emphasis. Overall, he ranks 11th among SEC starters in pass efficiency and has been responsible for 9 turnovers in 7 games. But then, at any given moment, he’s liable to do something that reminds you he has the size/speed profile of peak Vince Young.

Gifted as he is, Richardson’s best asset at this point is still his youth. As a redshirt sophomore with eight career starts under his belt, there’s still plenty of time for the light to come on. Just don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen this year.
– – –
(Last week: 9⬌)

10. Spencer Rattler, South Carolina

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking loudly for Rattler, whose name rarely even shows up anymore in projections of draft-eligible passers in any context. Ideally, he hoped his Carolina tenure would be a one-and-done project that reminded scouts what all the hype was about in the first place after his Oklahoma tenure ended on the bench. Instead, his stock has continued to sink like a rock. Through 6 games, he ranks at or near the bottom of the conference in every major category and has yet to move the needle in any single performance.

As a redshirt junior, he technically has two more years of eligibility in 2023 and ’24 due to the free COVID year. For a guy who was once considered a top-10 pick, though, coming back for a 5th year on campus would be another sign of just how badly he’s regressed. And if the next 6 weeks look like the first 6, there’s no guarantee he’ll necessarily have a job to return to. The Gamecocks’ upcoming stretch against Texas A&M, Missouri, Vanderbilt and Florida is critical for getting Rattler on track ahead of a couple of potentially face-saving opportunities against Tennessee and Clemson.
– – –
(Last week: 10⬌)

11. Haynes King, Texas A&M

An open date arrived right on time for King, who needed a week off after visibly hobbling through the late stages of A&M’s Week 6 loss at Alabama. He expects to start this weekend at South Carolina, which if nothing else should get the Aggies one week closer to preserving freshman Conner Weigman‘s redshirt. Weigman has yet to appear this season, meaning he still can play in up to 4 games (ideally the last 4) without burning his first year of eligibility. At 3-3, frankly there’s nothing left for them to play for in the meantime that would be worth it.
– – –
(Last week: 11⬌)

12. Robby Ashford, Auburn

Ashford has struggled badly as QB1, but it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere anytime soon. Auburn pulled him briefly against Ole Miss for TJ Finley, who promptly coughed the ball up on a strip sack that set up the Rebels’ offense for a short-field touchdown. Ashford returned for the rest of the game, presiding over 5 scoring drives fueled mostly by RB Tank Bigsby running wild for the first time this season. A resurgent ground game is the Tigers’ only hope going forward, and Ashford’s mobility can play a role in that. If he has to put the ball in the air more than 15-20 times per game, good night.
– – –
(Last week: 12⬌)

13. Brady Cook, Missouri

Cook’s job appears safe, for now, if only by default. For how much longer, TBD. As usual this far down the list, there’s some local sentiment in favor of true freshman Sam Horn, who’s yet to see the field and therefore remains hypothetically capable of anything. A visit from Vanderbilt coming out of an open date should be an opportunity for Cook to get right heading into the second half of the season. If not, it could very easily turn into an opportunity to audition his replacement.
– – –
(Last week: 13⬌)

14. AJ Swann, Vanderbilt

Two of Swann’s first 3 career starts have come in road dates against Alabama and Georgia, in which he averaged 4.5 yards per attempt and Vanderbilt was outscored by a combined 110-3. The fact that he also got through both games without coughing up a turnover says all you need to know about the Commodores’ commitment to keeping him upright and un-traumatized. Expect a much longer leash this weekend at Missouri, probably Vandy’s best chance to snap its ongoing, 24-games-and-counting SEC losing streak this year.
– – –
(Last week: 14⬌)