The murky Arkansas quarterback picture got cleared up a bit on Monday when head coach Bret Bielema announced that four players—including senior quarterback Brandon Mitchell—have been released from the program and will seek transfers, according to the university.

Mitchell, a dual-threat quarterback who has played both quarterback and wide receiver in Fayetteville, could not overtake sophomore Brandon Allen for the top spot on the depth chart exiting spring practice.

"Brandon [Mitchell] is on track to earn his degree this summer and utilize the NCAA graduate transfer exception to play immediately this fall," Bielema said.

So what does this mean for Allen? It means that there's a ton of pressure on his shoulders.

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The SEC isn't typically known as a quarterback-driven league, despite the fact that the conference has produced three Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks in the last six seasons.

This season, Texas A&M quarterback and 2012 Heisman winner Johnny Manziel will play with a target on his back. But there are plenty of other talented quarterbacks capable of stepping out of his rather large SEC shadow.

AJ McCarron has two BCS National Championship rings as Alabama's starter, and Aaron Murray has set single-season touchdown records at Georgia in back-to-back seasons.

How do the SEC quarterbacks rank after spring practice?

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College football recruiting is a contact sport, and several high-profile programs are seeking out contact early and often.

According to Kipp Adams and David Ching of ESPN.com, the Georgia Bulldogs have offered a scholarship to 15-year-old defensive lineman Brodarious Hamm of Spalding High School in Griffin, Ga.

Aside from already being a member of the class of 2016 All-Name team, the 6'3", 292-pounder—yes, that's correct, he's 6'3", 292 pounds at 15 years old—is expected to be one of the nation's top prospects.

Which begs the question, how young is too young?

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To say that Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin made a splash in his first season with the Aggies would be quite the understatement.

Sumlin flourished in his transition year—which just so happened to be Texas A&M's first in the SEC—leading the Aggies to an 11-2 record, a win over Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl and producing the first redshirt freshman to ever win the Heisman Trophy in Johnny Manziel.

Winning is pretty cool, but Sumlin has brought his own unique style to College Station, creating a personality not only for himself, but for his entire program.

According to MySanAntonio.com, local disc jockey "DJ Double R" made an appearance earlier this spring when he spun records at Kyle Field for Texas A&M's "Friday Night Lights" scrimmage.

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While Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel polishes his Heisman Trophy and Alabama signal-caller AJ McCarron shows off his back-to-back BCS National Championship rings on their bro-cation to an exotic destination later this month, one SEC quarterback in northeast Georgia will be looking to solidify his legacy with a title in 2013.

Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray.

Murray passed on the NFL after receiving a second- or third-round grade, according to the Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald, to return to Georgia for his senior campaign. He already has the Georgia single-season touchdown record in his back pocket after tossing 35 in 2011, only to surpass the mark with 36 last season.

The Tampa native led his team to within five yards of playing for the national title last season, but his pass on the final play of the SEC Championship Game was tipped and caught by Chris Conley on the 5-yard line as time ran out.

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In an announcement Thursday in Atlanta, the SEC told the world it had created its own branch of the Federal Reserve—a branch more commonly known as the 24-hour SEC Network, which will launch on cable and satellite providers in August 2014.

The new network has already reached a deal to be carried by AT&T U-Verse customers, and is expected to be widely distributed inside the SEC footprint and on sports tiers nationwide.

But while the conference celebrated the event in an event that mimicked a mini-SEC Media Days, the Big Ten sat back, laughed and counted its money. After all, the Big Ten Network—of which Fox has a 49 percent ownership stake—has been in existence since 2007. Its existence is one of the primary reasons the Big Ten has paid out nearly $5 million more per school in 2012, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and AL.com. 

So what can the SEC copy and what can it avoid from the infancy of the Big Ten Network?

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That sound you hear is a Brink's truck backing up to the offices of the Southeastern Conference.

After years of speculation and rumors, the SEC announced the creation of its own 24-hour cable network in conjunction with ESPN at an event at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta on Thursday. The network is expected to debut in August 2014.

Per SEC commissioner Mike Slive during Wednesday's press conference:

So what does this mean for the future of the conference from a football perspective?

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Every Thursday on The SEC Blog, we will feature questions from the Bleacher Report inbox, Twitter and email at bsallee@bleacherreport.com. Q&A was pushed back to Friday this week due to NFL draft and BCS meetings coverage.

You have SEC questions, and I have SEC answers. Thank you, everybody, for your questions this week. If I didn't get to them, they will  be saved and used in the future.

And we're off:

There are a lot of great options, but I'm going to go with Florida quarterback Jeff Driskel and the Gator passing game, because the Gators are behind Georgia and South Carolina unless that improves in 2013.

Florida's offense was incredibly one-dimensional last season, and that's going to have to change if the Gators want to get to Atlanta. Some of that is on Driskel, and some of that is due to the lack of playmakers outside.

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