Behind the Scenes : Sellers vs Lagway
Two phenoms who took the country by storm. Two elite athletes poised for monster seasons. But for some reason, one of them is getting all the national spotlight.
The conversation around college football’s top young quarterbacks has been dominated by DJ Lagway (Arch Manning too), and to be fair, there's a good reason for that. He’s a gifted passer with prototypical size, high level traits, and superstar potential. He’s a first-round NFL talent with all the tools. But what’s not being talked about nearly enough is that LaNorris Sellers is every bit as good and possibly better. The national media’s insistence on propping up Lagway while largely ignoring Sellers is both lazy and rooted in flawed perception. If Sellers had come into college as a 5-star recruit instead of a late-rising 3-star, we’d be having a different conversation in my opinion. The subconscious bias in football coverage is real. People want to be right about their early evaluations, and many just missed on Sellers.
Let’s set the record straight: both Lagway and Sellers have the potential to be the best player in college football this year. They have rare arm strength, elite mobility, and a clutch gene that separates them from most of their peers. But if you actually watch the film and look at the numbers, you’ll see that Sellers straight up played better last season. His performances against top competition were more consistent, more impactful, and more complete.
While Lagway gets praise for his deep-ball accuracy and rightly so it’s worth noting that Sellers ranked No. 2 in FBS in adjusted completion percentage on 20+ yard throws, right behind Lagway. They’re both elite vertical throwers. But Sellers did it under much more difficult circumstances. He was only kept clean on 57% of his dropbacks, one of the lowest rates in the SEC. And while some of that was due to him holding onto the ball too long at times, it speaks volumes about the pressure he played under. Even still, when Sellers was kept clean, he completed 71% of his passes, throwing 14 touchdowns to just 2 interceptions. His overall completion percentage of 65.6% was third in the SEC, 28th nationally, and seventh best in South Carolina program history. Only Jaxson Dart and Quinn Ewers finished with better marks among SEC quarterbacks. That was with a non dynamic receiving corps (leading receiver was a tight end) and a first year starter learning on the fly.
Yes, Sellers didn’t look great early in the season. His mechanics broke down at times and he needs to clean up footwork. He sailed a few passes, and put the ball on turf way too often, but what young quarterback doesn’t go through growing pains? Especially in an offense that wasn’t built to fully maximize his talents and with little rhythm to the play calling early in the year. What we saw from midseason onward was something special. From the Alabama game through the bowl game, Sellers averaged 248 passing yards, completed 68.3% of his throws, and accounted for 2 passing touchdowns per game, all while facing five ranked opponents. He led the Gamecocks to a 6–2 record during that stretch and bailed out the offense countless times with his playmaking ability when the original call broke down.
