Majority of SEC Quarterbacks Vanderbilt Faces Next Year Will Be First-Time Starters
One of the best stories all year was Vanderbilt football.
When they hired Clark Lea to lead this program ahead of the 2021 season, the former Commodores player was vocal about his desire to turn this into a marquee program in the country, not just the Southeastern Conference.
Considering Vanderbilt hadn't had a winning season since 2014, the confident comments Lea expressed were met with some eyerolls even if people were rooting for him.
Not many are taking shots at his program now, though.
Vanderbilt broke the 11-year drought between winning seasons with their bowl victory as underdogs against Georgia Tech, something many analysts didn't expect them to do.
That was the theme throughout this campaign.
The Commodores began the year with an upset over Virginia Tech before taking down top-ranked Alabama and coming close to also doing so against Missouri and Texas.
Lea has to take advantage of this newfound momentum if he's going to build upon the success they had in 2024, but when taking a look ahead at their schedule for the upcoming campaign, there is a chance they can put together back-to-back winning seasons based on one elementary thing.
Vanderbilt faces five SEC opponents that will have a first-time starting quarterback for their respective programs.
-South Carolina: LaNorris Sellers
-Alabama: Ty Simpson
-LSU: Garrett Nussmeier
-Missouri: Beau Pribula
-Texas: Arch Manning
-Auburn: Jackson Arnold
-Kentucky: Zach Calzada
-Tennessee: Nico Iamaleava
*bold signals first-time starters
Some of these players, Jackson Arnold and Zach Calzada, have been starters elsewhere with Arnold transferring in from Oklahoma and Calzada from FCS program Incarnate Word.
Others, like Beau Pribula and Arch Manning, were utilized in certain packages even when they weren't the starter, giving them game reps when the contest wasn't necessarily a blowout.
Ty Simpson is the traditional backup turning into a starter, someone who is familiar with the offensive system but hasn't been able to win the job at any point during his career until now.
How exactly does this help Vanderbilt?
Well, for the first time in a long time, they appear to have the quarterback advantage when it comes to true experience in the majority of their conference matchups.
Diego Pavia is coming off a season where he proved a lot of the doubters wrong, and with him set to return for 2025, this could be the best version of the Commodores that's been seen in a long time.
Of course, just because Vanderbilt has the advantage of quarterback continuity on paper heading into the year doesn't mean that guarantees them wins.
All of those players listed above will gain experience throughout the season, so by the time the Commodores face those teams, things could be operating at a high level with those signal callers at the helm.
But it's still exciting to know Vanderbilt is the program in a good place when it comes to the most important position in sports and the majority of conference opponents they are facing in 2025 will be dealing with a first-time starter for their respective programs.
