Tennessee Football: Jarrett Guarantano ranked eighth-best quarterback in SEC

 Athlon Sports has ranked the top 130 quarterbacks in college football, and Jarrett Guarantano finds himself in a nice spot.

Jarrett Guarantano was compared to 129 of his other peers and was ranked as the 30th best quarterback in college football. In the SEC, Guarantano ranked eighth out of 14 which isn’t exactly ideal.

The writer of this piece, Steven Lassan, said with Jeremy Pruitt‘s “standout recruiting class” and the return of offensive coordinator Jim Chaney is what puts Guarantano at 30 along with everything he is building off from last season.

Guarantano was ranked eighth in the SEC which is where I question some of these rankings. Maybe I’m crazy, but Felipe Franks was ranked the fourth best quarterback in the SEC, and he is not the fourth best quarterback in the SEC.

Kelly Bryant has also ranked ahead of Guarantano, and we haven’t even seen him in, what almost a year? I know Bryant is a pretty good quarterback, but I don’t think we can just slot him at five and assume he’s still going to be the same quarterback he was at Clemson.

But then again, Guarantano has to prove himself on the field to get a higher ranking. I think he is a top-five quarterback in the SEC, but he is going to have to prove it to earn that kind of respect in 2019.

I know there are JG haters out there so if you’re a hater I’m going to need you to get over it for the remainder of this piece.

I think Guarantano has an opportunity to become a very good pocket passer in 2019. He has already shown is he extremely tough and has what it takes to be an SEC quarterback he has just found himself in two difficult years on offense.

Guarantano had a 141.0 passer rating last year which was an increase from his 128.7 passer rating in 2017. He has been extremely efficient in his first two seasons, and I truly believe if he had a competent coach as a freshman, he would be among the best quarterbacks in the SEC right now.

He has also been very good under pressure. The offensive line has also been an eyesore for Tennessee the past couple of years, but that’s not going to stop Guarantano from completing passes.

Guarantano completed 52.9% of his passes last year when he was under pressure which stood as the best in the conference. He also has an 82.5 passer rating while under pressure which served as the third best in the SEC behind South Carolina’s Jake Bentley and Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa.

Although he hasn’t had the opportunity to prove those stats on the field he definitely shows promise for 2019. Guarantano also seems to be clicking in Chaney’s offense this offseason.

If anyone can take Guarantano from being good to great, it’s Chaney. We’ve seen what Chaney has done at Tennessee before and what he did at Georgia the past few years so buckle up and get ready because when Guarantano gets in the zone, it’s going to be a fun season from then on out.