SEC SQUAD - The SEC is LOADED at Quarterback | How Oklahoma stacks up

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Man, the SEC has so many interesting cornerbacks!

You're talking ball with the SEC squad!

From Alabama to Tennessee, from Georgia to Oklahoma, from Auburn to Texas, if the local experts

of The Lockdown Podcast Network bringing you scoops, breakdowns, and the most comprehensive

preview of the upcoming SEC weekend.

It's the SEC squad, and we have a seat for you!

Perfueling some thin skin are prohibited.

Squad up, you're part of the SEC squad.

No thin skin, but we do have some sunburned skin here on this week's edition of the SEC

squad.

He's Zach Blackerby, host locked on Auburn, I'm filling in for Chris Gordy, as he is

at a creed concert, Stephen Wilson locked on Ole Miss joining us, Corey Burton clearly

at the beach, he host locked on Vandy, Jimmy Stein of Lockdown, Bama, and John Miller

of Locked on Mizzou.

I thought it'd be fun to talk about some of the more interesting cornerbacks as we all

know, we can't get enough of quarterback discussion, so I wanted to throw a question

to each of you, you can't say a quarterback on your own roster, Stephen, you can't say

Trinidad Chambles, I know you're going to want to, but I thought it'd be fun to go around

and discuss the most intriguing quarterback in the SEC from your point of view, from your

team's point of view.

John, can you start us off here, who's intriguing from the Mizzou point of view, obviously

can't say anyone on Missouri's roster?

I'm actually going to go with Lenora Sellers, who everybody loved last season, seem to

have had a little bit of a down season, now you, I think you're looking at the new offensive

coordinator, Bob, which is a new theory of mine that I've been banding about in our group

chat, and I do think in this situation in particular with the game cocks, getting Mike

Schule out the door, I think it should be big for Sellers, and I think he has a pretty

big bounce back season.

Yeah, it's so funny, you know, how much has really changed from 365 days ago, where,

you know, we couldn't get enough of, yeah, he was talking about being the one, one in

the NFL draft, and then of course, he came back for a lot of money.

I think he would have still been an interesting prospect, a first rounder though, maybe not.

I think he can get back there, I really do, experience means a whole lot, especially in

this league.

Yeah, does he have the guys around him to help him take that step?

I guess is my biggest question.

That's true.

They're already down a couple tackles, I think, that's, it's been a brutal spring here

so far for the game.

Yeah.

Marlor locked on game cocks.

It's like every time he does a show, it's somebody else getting injured.

So we'll see, but yeah, Lenora Sellers, the skill sets there, right?

We saw glimpses of it.

Can he put it all together?

That's super, super intriguing.

Corey Burton, what say you?

Man, I'm interested in Byron Brown, honestly, because that's the first SEC quarterback

that Vanderbilt's up against.

And I want to see how he navigates the first part of the season, how they mesh into Alex

Skolesch's offensive scheme, and how that whole team just kind of jails with their first

SEC matchup against Vanderbilt and for you, Zach, it's at home, and might as well just

go the whole way and make it at night too for Jared Curtis, but yeah, I'm intrigued

by Byron Brown.

I think he was a great prospect in the transfer portal, obviously following his head coach

Auburn was a phenomenal move.

And so we'll see what he looks like in SEC play.

Does everybody else have to wait to their, I thought most people opened up their SEC slate

in their third game?

Are other folks having to wait till their fourth game for that?

Vanderbilt just made their schedule like that, I guess, with the non-con, they just, they

went interest.

And then it's all conference from the rest of the rest of the game to for Alabama.

I think Missouri has the same Vanderbilt set up I could be wrong, but got it, got it.

Yeah, I just assumed it was like week three across the board or game three across the board,

but I'm clearly wrong on that.

Jimmy Stein, most intriguing quarterback outside of Bama from the Bama perspective is who?

For me, it's Sam Levitt and Alabama will play LSU late in the year simply because of

this.

It had returned to Arizona State.

I wouldn't know what to think about him.

I mean, obviously he had the tremendous freshman year, not so great this previous season.

Some of it may be due to injury, some of it due to general team decline.

Lane Kiffin has worked as magic with just about every quarterback he's ever tutored.

You would have to think he's going to get the best out of Sam Levitt.

I'm just not sure exactly what that is.

I won't be shocked if he's maybe the best quarterback in the league.

And we certainly shouldn't be shocked if he's no better than he was a year ago.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, Sam Levitt and like the LSU storylines, nobody loves the storylines more than Stephen

Willis when it comes to the Lane Kiffin.

But yeah, you're right because Lane Kiffin's track record is unbelievable.

I think it's a little weird how nobody's bringing up the foot injury stuff with Sam Levitt.

Really feels it's not the exact same, but does feel a little similar to the DJ lagway

conversation a year ago, where I'm like, no one's talking about how this guy's

injured.

But like, I think this is important, different injury, different circumstances.

But I am a little surprised that that doesn't typically come up, especially at the national

level when people talk about Sam Levitt.

Yeah, because we saw a year ago, lagway, even Nussmire.

Even Nussmire was hurt all last spring and then he starts planning, played pretty poorly

and everybody's like, what's wrong?

And then he goes to the combine and says, well, every time I threw the ball last fall,

it hurt because of that, you know, abdominal injury.

So yeah, we'll see if Levitt's completely recovered.

I think LSU went and got another God just in case, although no one with Sam Levitt's,

you know, his upside or his talent.

But Lane Kiffin has worked magic with all his quarterbacks at Ole Miss.

He's done it before.

He certainly did it with his quarterbacks at Alabama.

He got the best out of everyone's ability.

So you have to think Sam Levitt's going to be really good.

We just haven't seen really good Sam Levitt in a while.

You're a smaller of Lockdown Gamecocks joining us.

Welcome, my friend.

You're down bad.

What are you hearing of this conversation?

Because you really are in the middle of all of it.

Yeah, I think the big thing is that we're in the middle of the tornado watch.

So I've never felt more SEC than right now.

That's me.

You're okay.

It's right.

It's interesting because the Nussmire thing was so blatantly obvious covering that from

up close and it was like, no, he's hurt for sure.

And then you just had the ultimate politician, Brian Kelly being like, no, you guys are crazy.

He's not hurt at all.

Trust me.

And then he's like, he looks pretty hurt.

He's wincing a lot.

Like, that's just what he does when he's excited.

So that was wild to a lot.

I think the thing with Levitt that I really do think is going to pay off in their favor

is that they went out and got two other kids.

The kid from Elon who I don't expect to be a starter, but he's put in some quality

time.

And we've seen Lane Kiffin.

I came in the middle of that conversation, turn a division to quarterback into the best

quarterback, maybe in the country and in short, that chambles.

Even dating back to who's the O.C. at Bama, nine of his last 11 or 12 quarterbacks have

had 30 touchdowns and or 3000 yards passing in a season.

So he's worked wonders.

The thing that I love the most is that Hussein Long Street, the kid from USC was a former

five star committed to A&M.

That kid's going to get a ton of reps and a ton of quality reps.

And we've seen this time and time again, I'm looking at the group we have on here right

now.

Five out of the six of us have seen a quarterback change.

The only one that did was Cory Burton.

And at some point over the last two years because of either an injury or just, you know,

wear and tear.

It happened a lot of several times in or at least once in both seasons.

So I think that depth in the in the QB room is going to be really, really big for LSU.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Go ahead, John.

Absolutely.

I was looking.

Hey, hey.

Hey, don't listen to Chris Marlar.

You were too late to be around at this point.

But no, when it comes to Sam Levitt, the word Liz Frank, and yes, that is one word, makes

me a little bit nervous.

He did shut it down and get the surgery though.

And that was last October, November, I believe I have my timeline right.

I think that should be long enough.

It really should be that that makes me a lot less nervous than had he put it off until

say February or something like that, just time and wise, that had been a lot more nervous.

Liz Frank, great diary too.

It really is.

All right.

So we'll continue this exercise.

Are you not going to pick me?

No.

Hold on, Steven.

Let me do these.

We got.

It's easy, by the way.

I haven't done this yet.

Steven, myself, Chris Marlar.

That's next right here.

Unlocked on FTC squad.

I'm Claudia Butler, host of locked on women's basketball.

And this is Mazda's women's basketball snapshot celebrating the work no highlight reel can ever capture.

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UCLA is making a serious push for the overall number one seed, but Yukon has held that spot

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All right.

Roll it on with the SEC squad Stephen Willis now is your time to shine.

I'm going to repeat the exercise because Chris Marlowe didn't hear what we were doing.

We're all going to be saying a quarterback that is most intriguing from your teams perspective.

You can't say somebody on your own roster.

Stephen Willis that is your turn.

The quarterback that I am intrigued about is Arch Manning because of his demanding ties to Ole Miss.

And Ole Miss playing at Texas this year.

It is going to be phenomenal one way or another.

Now Arch had a rough start to 2025.

There's no way that you can dance around that.

But the end of the year, he was really good.

If he takes a jump from that year to this year, it could be pretty special for Steve Sarkation and the Texas Longhorns.

Arch Manning is the quarterback I'm paying attention to.

That's a good one.

That's certainly a good one.

We definitely saw him get better over the course of the year.

Can he continue to carry that pressure?

He seems more ready for it this year than he did last year.

I think he kind of went through some growing pains and I actually think he handled a lot of the pressure.

Pretty well.

Does anybody want to say anything about Arch Manning before we let Chris Marlar go?

I predict a greatness for him a year ago.

So I guess we find out this year was I wrong or early?

I'll tell you wrong, Jimmy.

You were wrong.

I think you could be early.

But it's going to make it easier for him.

That's for sure.

Sure.

Yeah, Texas is like in town.

You're right, Carla.

Like, yeah, that's really what they need.

It was more talent.

You're right.

I was saying, having Cam Coleman makes it a lot easier to be great.

So Jimmy, you might be right.

Yeah.

Maybe so.

Just early.

All right, Chris Marlar.

Yeah.

Who's your quarterback that's most intriguing from the South Carolina point of view?

Peyton Thorne.

He's going to be starting for the monochristum mustangs.

It's a, it's like a sea league version of indoor arena football.

I'm pretty fired up about that.

So I think from my standpoint, it's, it's more so.

There's seven out of the 10 quarterbacks that South Carolina will face from powerful competition.

Well, we, our teams are going to face and are breaking in a new quarterback.

I think the one I'm most interested in that can have their team have the highest fluctuation and ceiling in floor is.

I'm going to say he wins the, the starting job is Keelan Russell.

I know that the board is very high on Austin Mac.

And he obviously was high enough on him to have him follow him from Washington and then forget.

I have to say Julian the saying's name and allow him go to Ohio State.

That was tough.

But Keelan Russell, you think about all of the people and players that Alabama's brought in since Sabin got there.

And now with the board, he's the highest ranked recruit in the history of that program.

Higher than Julio, higher than Bryce Young, higher than any of them.

And I think that it's hard to keep somebody like that.

You know, on, I'm like the two line of that, that depth chart for, for very long.

So I don't think it would be really interesting to see if he's the starter and how well.

He's supposed to be generations out.

How well he'll be able to play it.

Yeah, me your thoughts on that.

Yeah, the competition between Austin Mac and Keelan Russell is likely to produce a pretty good quarterback.

I think the betting favorites, Keelan Russell.

I mean, that's who I would, that's who I would go with.

A fan duel is Keelan Russell.

But Austin Mac is going to make it really tough on him and early whispers are.

He's off to a really good start and camp.

The fourth year, fourth year guys never started reminds me of guy named Toss Simpson a year ago who's going into his year four.

Who had never been a starter and really flourished might end up being a first round pick.

Austin Mac has a ton of ability.

It's year four for him.

But my, my, my guess would be Keelan Russell ultimately wins the job.

Yeah, from now on, I'm looking in.

I've got a question how much of a true battle.

That is Jimmy.

I think it's absolutely a true battle.

If they really believed that Keelan is definitely going to be the starter, he wouldn't be split in 50, 50 reps.

Even even at this juncture, they're split in 50, 50 reps.

There'll be three scrimmages that Alabama has including the final scrimmage, which will be the A-Day game.

We'll get a real good look at how they're splitting reps at that point.

I think the battle is going to extend all the way deep into fall camp myself.

Interesting.

All right.

Yeah.

The quarterback that I think is most intriguing from the Auburn point of view is Aaron Filo, a Florida.

I just, I don't fully get that one.

I'm not going to lie to you.

And then, you know, when Florida comes to Auburn, it'll be both teams starting, you know, their SEC slate against each other.

And obviously, you know, those two coaches, I think are going to be tied together because of how the coaching carousel went over the, over the off season.

I think that's going to be clearly an important one.

And whoever wins that game is going to have so much hope and excitement going, you know, into their first season under the new head coaches.

And then there's going to be some frustration for whoever loses it.

And I think Aaron Filo coming to Jordan here, I think that's intriguing because I don't fully get it.

I think they could have done and gotten, you know, a much more proven guy.

But I'm excited to see how that shakes out.

So Aaron Filo at Florida.

I'm sure he's going to be the starter.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know.

Interesting piece there.

And you know, Buster's not afraid to just because he played with him at Georgia Tech, doesn't mean he's going to necessarily start.

I mean, he may end up winning the battle, but I mean, Tramil Jones has a different dynamic to his game that might be more intriguing and might be a better fit with that offense.

It's basically intrigues me as the winner of that quarterback battle and what what identity Florida is going to take on as a result of that.

You know, Aaron Filo's thrown about the same amount of career passes is Austin Simmons.

I'm just saying, who's that?

I'm your presumptive Missouri starter.

By the way, I questioned John Summers' decision making after this weekend announcing that he is not going to take his wife that he's been married to for 15 years on her 40th birthday to Italy because he's too busy.

That's not something he's going to hear about for 25 years.

That was a tough scene there.

And that was when he said it, I was like, and then he said they're not even going out of the state.

They're going to stay in Florida, which there's a lot to do in Florida, but my God, dude.

Bad moves.

I was like, when I saw that, I was like, he's not good.

Not good.

Yeah, I'm sure Aaron Filo and Tremel Jones are really good players, but you got to go home every night to her.

Yeah, that's also fair.

Right.

Yeah, take her.

Yeah.

He must have Joe Judges PR guy.

Well, I'm glad he earned the Florida logo, which is good.

I know that that was kind of the thing that they were talking about is you got to earn it.

You got to earn it, which is my least favorite part of spring football.

We're not putting names on the back of the jerseys this year.

It's more important the name on the front, like we got it, dude.

We got it.

I saw everything too.

Yeah.

Stance has.

How are we going to make the quarterback making $3 million a year?

Earn is right.

Yeah.

What?

And shockingly ends up with the jersey number.

Everybody thought he was going to have.

Yeah.

Crazy.

How that works out.

Right.

That's right.

His team.

Did we leave any of these quarterbacks out?

And then, you know, are there eligibility questions still lingering for some of these guys?

Like, does that make the situation intriguing?

That's next right here on the SEC squad.

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The board is set and now on the clock with the number one pick of the five hour energy flavor draft is.

John Miller.

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All right.

A few minutes here.

Is there any sort of intrigue from you guys's position on, you know, what is happening at Ole Miss with Trinidad or what is happening at Tennessee with Joey Aguilar?

Do y'all think that's pretty much worked itself out up to this point?

Who wants to start?

If not the right thing, right?

If not the right type of success, right?

If Chambrace, right?

If Chambrace isn't the quarterback, won't we be surprised?

I mean, in terms of this eligibility?

And in conversely, I don't believe that Aguilar will, right?

I mean.

Right.

The quarterback for Ole Miss in 2026 is going to be Chambrace.

The NCAA appealed, but is asking permission to appeal.

And the spring court can just say no.

say no. And by the way, like seven out of the eight justices, they have a lot of

group from Ole Miss. Yeah, that's true. Yes, I thought it was nine. One of the justices

do not. I don't know if Ole Miss just turned that out. That's incredible.

Yeah, there's two all schools in the state. Yeah, there's two all schools in the state,

like 90% of the judges in that state are Ole Miss Grips. How about that?

The fact that the NCAA is asking permission in the state of Mississippi to do it is hysterical.

I wrote about this last week, James Plug, and I was like, this is this and in the fast and

furious movies. It's like every time you think it's going to end, which is like, no, we're sitting

tight-reased to space this time. You're like, what? Just call it a day, man. You're not going to

win this case. Everybody wants to see Trinidad Chambers, that likes College of Ball, wants to see him

play. And I think more than anything at this point, we just don't care. It's nothing is going to change

when they go back into a courtroom. We've already seen how it's played out. They've already made

their decision. And so at this point, I'm like, let's just move on. Move on. And whatever case

you want to lose next, go to that one. Yeah, you want to hear my tinful? That was released

the day before the SAVE College sports thing and everything to get eyeballs on Washington, DC,

releasing a 654-page document, which it was an 18-page repeal and they sent like the rule book

for the NCA, you ran photocopies of it for the total thing. It was all for show so that they could

get eyeballs in Washington. Michael, I get 10 foil at all, man. I think that's probably

reasonable. Yeah. Chris Marlowe bringing up Fast and Furious, Power Rain, the top three Fast and

Furious movies. Who wants to take a stab at this? I'm so glad I found the link. Number one, for sure.

Come on. John, he asked me, not you, first and foremost. No, I asked. I asked a general three.

I think Fast Five is very good. Fast Four is probably number two. And I would have to say either

six or the original. After that, they got really, I mean, let's just call it a spade. Like some

of them, I'll just say it, guys, not very believable. Not very believable. John, your thoughts on

Chris Marlowe's list there. Sorry, Jess, man. What's the one they go to Brazil and I lost count? Five.

I was going to say, basically, it's for me, the series ended with what they did a good job sending

Paul Walker out kind of beautifully. I'm not even joking. One Charlie's there and showed up.

I don't really have any time for it anymore. I gotta be honest. I thought Fast and Furious was

a documentary about Antonio Brown. It's movies. No, no, it was just incredible. Go down.

Got that Georgia football term. There it is. I just want to watch documentaries.

I mean, what is what is less believable that they keep making these movies or that every two to

three weeks, we get on Twitter at 8 a.m. and Clint Shamblin is sending us something about a Georgia

football player being arrested again. Because that seems at this point just as far fetched. Like,

how have they, how have they not stopped this yet? Right? The government should step in with that.

The best thing about those tweets is it's, oh, it happened. We just found out about that.

But it goes into a paragraph justifying why it happened. That's the fun part about those tweets.

Yes. For sure. So I was telling the Georgia football players to rain it in a notch with their

reckless driving. I appreciate it. Well, I thought you were going to be at the creed concert with

Gordy. I'm so pissed right now. No. So our dog had emergency surgery. Ali's leaving tomorrow for

her bachelor ed party. So I was not able to go see creed tonight because I had to stay home and

make sure that I was back in time for the dog to be given all their medicine. But they're coming

to New Orleans on April 11th or 12th at Sunday in a month round. I will be there or I will break up

with Ali. Now, that's the most SEC thing ever. All right. And if you want to know the point that

you know that you're getting old, my wife told me that the offspring was at the Strawberry Festival

Florida. And we could have seen them. And I was like, Oh my goodness. I am at the worst.

Yeah. It's like the grocery stores putting out bangers. And you can't listen to the radio anymore.

I love it. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Also, anytime you see one of your favorite bands from

your adolescence is playing at a county amphitheater. You're like, geez, that is tough. That's

good. I used to I used to listen to that one. And you're like, Oh gosh. Yeah. Back at last day.

Right. All right. Are we good? Anybody want to add anything quarterback related? We all could go

around the room and say something nice about Byron Brown. Are we good to go? Are we fine?

Is he going to be that good? Is he going to be that good? Yeah. After week four, yeah.

After week four, he could be as good as he wants to be. But yeah, I got to say I love I love that

what Auburn did this time around with the higher and the quarterback was like in the past, it was like,

Hey, let's go get a guy who's got a kind of a shady past. We don't love that. But he beat

Bama twice 10 years ago. And then this time, they're like, Okay, that didn't work. What if we get a guy

that almost beat Bama twice within the last five years? And they're like, yeah, yeah, that's

let's do that. So, you know, just in the future, they're going to end up going to get like the

coach from Mercer. I think next time around, which I mean, which which hard do you think is better?

The Hugh Freeze one or the Alex Goldish one? I hate that I thought the Hugh Freeze thing was going to

work. I just listen, it's not an election year, but I'm not going to say anything bad about

Russians at all. So I'm just I'll just I'll say this one out.

I think that does it for this week's edition.

The SEC squad, Jimmy Stein of Lockdown, Bama John Miller, Lockdown, Mizzou, Chris Marler,

Lockdown, Gamecox, Cory Burton, Lockdown, Bandy, Steven Willis, Lockdown, Ole Miss,

I'm Zach Blackerby, I host Locke on Auburn. This has been another edition of Lockdown,

SEC squad. Can you do me higher?