Breaking:Highly-Touted WR sec Decommits Flips Commitment To South Carolina Gamecocks,Over Top Programs like auburn tigers And Georgia Bulldogs..
Breaking:Highly-Touted WR sec Decommits Flips Commitment To South Carolina Gamecocks,Over Top Programs like auburn tigers And Georgia Bulldogs..
The 7 SEC offensive players who’ll break out in 2025
Let’s talk about something that everyone loves
In an 8-month offseason, you can talk yourself into virtually everyone being a breakout candidate. Whether that’s a guy who played 15 snaps in a blowout bowl game or a true freshman who was overlooked as a recruit, there’s a variety of backgrounds that a breakout candidate can have. What they can’t have, however, is an all-conference season under their belt. That’s a guy that already broke out.
Who were the SEC’s top breakout players in 2024? Dylan Sampson qualified, as did Ryan Williams and Diego Pavia. Granted, Williams came in with more preseason buzz than all of those guys combined. Still, though. He had the most receiving yards of any true freshman SEC wide receiver since 2015, and he made jaw-dropping plays as a 17-year-old (in case you haven’t heard).
So who are the SEC’s best breakout candidates for 2025? Today, we’ll dig into the 7 offensive players who fit that description:
Ole Miss QB Austin Simmons
In other years, I’d have Simmons as a top-5 quarterback in the SEC entering the season. The buzz out of Oxford is that the southpaw is exactly the guy we saw save the day against Georgia. Simmons’ touchdown drive might’ve fueled a ton of offseason hype, but go back to the fact that he reclassified from 2025 to 2023, and heading into his redshirt freshman season, he beat out coveted former LSU transfer Walker Howard for the backup job. Simmons did that while still juggling baseball duties. He moved on from baseball in hopes of becoming Lane Kiffin‘s next great quarterback. He’s got a largely new group of pass-catchers — Cayden Lee will be worthy of preseason All-SEC love — and he’ll have to do more heavy lifting than the 2024 Ole Miss offense had to do with an elite defense.
But Simmons has the mental and physical makeup of someone who can take the SEC by storm and emerge as an all-conference player. Shoot, I even think he’s got some favorable Heisman Trophy odds. Simmons might have some teachable moments early in his first season as a QB1, but he could be as challenging of a matchup as there is in the SEC by season’s end.
Auburn WR Cam Coleman
To be fair, Coleman broke out in the final 3 games, but I feel like I can include him because he didn’t finish in the top 20 in the SEC in receiving. And hey, the goal isn’t necessarily to find diamonds in the rough; it’s to find guys who are ready to explode. Coleman is that dude. He might not necessarily get the same level of preseason buzz as 2024 classmate Williams, but Coleman was the better player down the stretch. In those final 3 games, he posted 25 catches, 340 scrimmage yards and 3 total TDs. Once Coleman returned from his early-season shoulder injury, he was a matchup nightmare as a primary outside receiver, which is no small feat for a true freshman in the SEC.
Mind you, he did that with Payton Thorne throwing him passes. Jackson Arnold should be an upgrade. Coleman was the best player in Auburn’s loaded freshman receiver class. While there’s certainly pressure on that group to deliver, the addition of Georgia Tech transfer Eric Singleton should help take some attention off those second-year wideouts. Coleman could be in Hugh Freeze’s offense what Laquon Treadwell was at Ole Miss. All signs point to him becoming Auburn’s first 1,000-yard receiver since 1999.
Texas OT Trevor Goosby
An underrated moment of Texas‘s season was watching Kelvin Banks Jr. go down in the first half against Texas A&M and seeing Goosby step in and keep a limited Quinn Ewers upright against that loaded Aggie defensive front. The 6-7 redshirt freshman did a whale of a job that night in place of the future 1st-Round pick — he didn’t allow a single pressure or sack — and there’s no reason to think he’ll be anything but masterful in Year 3 working with elite Texas OL coach Kyle Flood. Goosby also stepped in for the injured Cam Williams and played right tackle in the postseason, and while he wasn’t perfect — he allowed a combined 5 hurries vs. Georgia and Arizona State — that versatility will be monumental for a new-look Texas O-line.
If 2023 classmate Arch Manning is going to pick defenses apart and live up to the hype, Goosby will be a major part of that as his blind-side protector. Much like we saw against A&M, don’t expect a major drop-off at left tackle in a post-Banks world.
Tennessee RB DeSean Bishop
“Insert Josh Heupel running back here.”
I know, I know. It’s an easy pick after SEC Offensive Player of the Year Dylan Sampson left for the NFL. Heupel’s rushing attacks finished in the top 25 in FBS in 6 of his 7 seasons as a head coach, including 2024 when Bishop was the RB2 in Tennessee’s Sampson-focused offense. That and a midseason injury limited some of Bishop’s opportunities, but he still finished No. 3 in the SEC with 6.2 yards/carry, and he averaged 4 yards/carry after first contact (No. 5 in SEC). That’s impressive for a redshirt freshman, especially one who was mostly in Sampson’s shadow in 2024.
Yes, Bishop will likely have more of a complementary role with Duke running back Star Thomas’ arrival in Knoxville. It’s extremely unlikely that Bishop will covet the workload that Sampson had if both backs (plus Peyton Lewis) stay healthy. But as we’ve seen with Bishop, he doesn’t need 20 touches to make his presence felt. The advantage goes to the guy with a 2-year head start in the Heupel offense.
Texas A&M RB Rueben Owens
As brutal as it was to watch Owens go down with a broken foot in fall camp after a promising true freshman campaign — he forced 23 missed tackles on 101 carries in 2023 — it was encouraging to see him return at all in 2024. Owens got to shake out the cobwebs and get live reps in the Collin Klein offense as the lead back in the bowl game. Owens likely won’t get lead-back work once All-SEC running back Le’Veon Moss makes a full return, but it remains to be seen what he’ll look like coming off his nasty season-ending knee injury. Even if Moss looks like the best version of himself, you could still see multiple stars emerge in the backfield, especially one that’ll operate behind 5 returning starters on the offensive line.
That’s a massive benefit for A&M. Offensive line continuity is everything in this era. Complement that with a talented, elusive tailback like Owens in a run-heavy scheme and you’ll see plenty of big-time moments from No. 4.
Ole Miss TE Luke Hasz
I’m not selling my Hasz stock even after he didn’t have the sophomore season that many (myself included) thought he would. Hasz left Arkansas for Ole Miss, where he’ll have the potential to become a go-to target for the aforementioned Simmons. Hasz could be to Ole Miss what Mason Taylor was to LSU. He’s not going to be relied on a ton in the run-blocking game quite like his predecessor Caden Prieskorn was, but that’s fine. Kiffin and Charlie Weis Jr. can dial up plenty of open looks for a reliable pass-catching tight end like Hasz, who is still extremely football-young (the pandemic canceled his AAU basketball tournaments led to him picking up football).
He’s one of those guys that good things seem to happen when he’s a part of the offensive game plan. In his 16-game career, he has a 147.7 QB rating when targeted and he’s got 42 catches compared to 0 drops on 48 career targets. One has to think that Kiffin will make Hasz a primary option in the passing game and frustrate Arkansas fans who saw his potential in a limited sample size.
LSU RB Harlem Berry
Look. I know that throughout his career, Brian Kelly hasn’t been big on the idea of freshmen skill-players stepping in and having major roles. I also know that Caden Durham just emerged as a stud as a true freshman, so the pecking order might not favor the Louisiana Player of the Year from the jump. But Berry’s shiftiness has the potential to make a loud impact at LSU in ways that we haven’t seen since Clyde Edwards-Helaire. That might not be a fair comp yet for someone who joined the team during bowl practices, but Berry was a 2,000-yard rusher in each of his 4 seasons in high school and he finished his historically prolific career with 142 rushing scores.
Yes, it’ll be a major step up in competition going from 1A Louisiana High School to the SEC, but I have to think that Kelly will want to get him involved early and often. Berry stayed home as a 5-star recruit, and in a running back room that lacks upperclassmen, why can’t Berry emerge as a 150-touch guy who makes electrifying plays with the ball in his hands?
Much like Williams did as a true freshman, Berry has the most potential of any new SEC skill-player to break out and become a household name in 2025.
Connor O’Gara
