Stacking Mac Up Against The SEC's Best Shows Greg McElroy's Doing Fine

If the regular season is 12 games long, then we've just finished the first quarter. Many thought it would take a while for this tall Texan tapped to sling passes at Alabama to be comfortable as a starter. So how does Mac stack up against the supposed SEC's best?

First quarter grade: - A.

Statistics don't matter as much as wins. If you don't believe it, just ask any loser.

But statistics do show who's hot and who's not, so lets compare Alabama's Greg McElroy to the the so called "Hot Shots" in the SEC.

Quarterback          Comp/Att     Yds       Comp.%      TD    INT       Rating

Tim Tebow              39/58        540        67.2           5       1        170.4

Greg McElroy           46/69        647        66.7            4      1        166.7

Jordan Jefferson      47/73        475        64.4            5      1        138.9

Ryan Mallet             38/61        717        62.3            6       0        193.5

Jevan Snead           28/50        384        56.0             5       2        145.5

Those are the stats. You can argue over the interpretation, but not the final numbers.

An interpretation of sorts would have been, had Nick Saban not pulled Greg McElroy from two quarters of play against North Texas and he simply doubled his first half stats, (which would have likely been higher against a tired and depleted mild opponent) then McElroy's stats would have looked like this:

Greg McElroy           68/97       910        70.1              8        1       194.3

Instead of being second in completions percentage he would be first. Instead of being third in rating he would have been first. And finally, instead of being second in total yards passing, he would have been first.

But there are lots of hypotheticals in only judging against three teams. Charleston Southern would have afforded almost any school to pad the QB's stats and North Texas isn't far behind. Everyone on this list played a cupcake or two.

The point of the article is not to tout Greg McElroy as one of the SEC's best quarterbacks, but rather to point out that even his strongest detractor would have to admit that if you're having a discussion of the very best quarterbacks in the conference, you have to discuss Greg.

Most media as well as opposing fan bases discounted McElroy and even counted him more of a liability than an asset in the off season.

What a difference a few games make.

McElroy is now seen as the man the Tide has been looking for to get them to the next step, a national championship game. Opposing coaches now spend more time worrying about McElroy than any other player in Crimson.

No one has found a way to rattle him so far and no team has managed to stop Greg from leading the team to victory.

"Greg has a clearer vision of everything going on and always makes the right read. That great vision allows him to find the open man and take what they'll give him." said a beaming Nick Saban about his starting quarterback.

As the season progresses, it will be interesting to see if McElroy can keep up this pace against stiff SEC opponents. 

At least now, the public has been warned. Don't bet against him.