SEC Football: Predicting the winner of every quarterback competition

Apr 5, 2014; Baton Rouge, LA, USA; LSU Tigers quarterback Anthony Jennings (10) and quarterback Brandon Harris (6) run drills during the 2014 spring game at Tiger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

Only five of the 14 SEC football programs know who their quarterbacks will be at this point of the 2015 pre-season. Who will win the nine open SEC quarterback battles?

With Johnny Manziel, A.J. McCarron, Aaron Murray, Zach Mettenberger, Nick Marshall, Bo Wallace, Connor Shaw, and James Franklin all behind center two years ago, 2013 was the Year of the Quarterback in the SEC.

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There weren’t as many big names returning in 2014 – only Marshall, Wallace, Justin Worley and Brandon Allen were full-time starters the previous season, but there was plenty of experience to go around. Dak Prescott, Jeff Driskel, Maty Mauk, Dylan Thompson and Hutson Mason all entered the fall as unquestioned No. 1s and each gave his team a lot to be excited about heading into the season.

But as we look towards 2015, there are more questions than answers atop quarterback depth charts across the conference. In fact, only five of the 14 SEC football programs are 100 percent committed to their starting quarterbacks at this point in the pre-season:

• Arkansas: Brandon Allen
• Auburn: Jeremy Johnson
• Missouri: Maty Mauk
• Mississippi State: Dak Prescott
• Tennessee: Joshua Dobbs

Allen is the most experienced (and arguably the most underrated) signal caller in the conference and Prescott spent the bulk of the 2014 campaign in the Heisman discussion. Mauk led Missouri to the SEC Championship Game last year, Dobbs exploded onto the scene in the second half and led the Vols to a bowl game and Johnson enters 2015 with huge expectations.

It’s a solid group, but there are nearly twice as many SEC teams with unsettled quarterback situations than those that have peace atop the depth chart. So who will start for each of those nine teams? We predict the SEC quarterback battles.

Next: Vanderbilt