What we learned about UK's SEC opponents this spring

With college football's spring practice season wrapping up, it's a good time to hit the pause button and lay out what we've learned about Kentucky's 2018 opponents.

South Carolina

The Gamecocks have become the "trendy" choice to make noise in the SEC East, and while Cats Illustrated has reported that this has rubbed plenty of people in Kentucky's program the wrong way, there are reasons Will Muschamp's program is causing a stir. After South Carolina's spring game, SEC and college football analyst Barrett Sallee said the Gamecocks are "loaded". That's a relative term, but it does seem like South Carolina's depth has improved.

One of South Carolina's goals in the spring was to implement a faster paced offense. Jake Bentley took to it well in the spring game (15/25, 174 yards, 2 TD), but the defense wasn't as fundamentally sound in terms of lining up and reacting to the tempo as Muschamp would have liked.

Vanderbilt

The Commodores have a lot of questions to answer going into a pivotal, potentially decisive season for Derek Mason.

Following VU's "Spring Showcase," Mason was pleased with what the offense produced in their audition.

Kalija Lipscomb seemed to establish himself as a go-to receiver and a big-play threat this spring. Vanderbilt will normally lean on its defense more than its offense - that program identity has not changed under Mason, and has been a theme through most of Vanderbilt's coaches in modern history - but they will have to replace seven starters on the defensive side in 2018. Safety Tae Daley had a very productive spring

Florida

Every team has questions going into each spring, but Florida's are compounded because of the system change from Jim McElwain to new coach Dan Mullen.

The quarterback position was under the microscope all spring, and as is the case with Kentucky, Florida's competition appears to be ongoing. Feleipe Franks and Kyle Trask got the most opportunities in the spring game but Emory Jones and Jake Allen both showed flashes as well. Each did some good things, but Mullen didn't seem entirely pleased with anyone and wants to watch them more as the season approaches.

Antonneous Clayton has the potential to become a star pass rusher for the Gators and had a very strong spring.

Georgia

Kirby Smart has quickly upgraded the depth chart at Georgia through exceptional recruiting but he said after "G-Day," according to UGASports.com, “I do think our No. 1 defense is way ahead of our No. 2 defense. We’ve got better players out there. Today was the first time I thought we had a little bit of continuity on the No. 1 defense with some rhythm. We really haven’t had this this spring from a continuity standpoint.”

Freshman running back Zamir White, one of the nation's top recruits from the 2018 class, is recovering from an ACL injury and it looks like he will be on track to start playing just before the start of the season.

Smart also said that developing leadership is going to be a key moving forward.

Quarterbacks Jake Fromm and Justin Fields both threw picks and were sacked in the spring game, but the Bulldogs have tremendous depth behind center with those two.

Missouri

Expectations are high in Columbia going into Barry Odom's third year after the Tigers became one of the nation's most improved teams in the second half of last season. While the offense has largely powered the Odom turnaround, it was the defense that dominated the Black & Gold spring game.

Drew Lock didn't get too many reps in the spring game but there aren't any concerns about his ability going into a much-anticipated senior season. The play calling from Derek Dooley was a balanced run-pass attack, but according to Mitchell Forde of PowerMizzou.com, the Tigers didn't give away too much of what we can expect offensively. It's not clear at all who would take the snaps if Lock goes down.

While the defense did appear improved in that spring game, they didn't generate a lot of pressure.

Tennessee

A favorable 2018 schedule doesn't change the fact that Tennessee had a lot of questions to answer this spring.

Quarterback Jarrett Guarantano seemed to answer a lot of those questions with his spring game performance (15/27, 226 yards, 2 TD), but new head coach Jeremy Pruitt cautioned that the spring was about a lot more than just one game.

“You look at one days work out there, that's not really a true indication of how spring actually went,” Pruitt stated.

So the quarterback battle rages on.

Pruitt is working on a culture change at Tennessee, demanding that players who "quit" step up or get left behind.

Texas A&M

In the Maroon & White Game, quarterback Nick Starkel was fantastic in the first half while fellow signal caller Kellen Mond starred in the second.

Texas A&M came into the spring with serious offensive line questions and Jimbo Fisher is still probably going to lose some sleep over how that unit will fare in 2018.

The Aggies should be stout up front on defense and the whole front seven is talented.

Mississippi State

One of the reasons Mississippi State fans should probably feel good about new head coach Joe Moorhead is he has the offensive credentials, and the work with quarterbacks, to complement the returning personnel the Bulldogs have quite nicely. We don't know exactly how different MSU's offense will look in the post-Dan Mullen era, but Moorhead tipped his hand.

"We are going to throw the ball deep and we are going to try to stretch the defense horizontally, and, most importantly, vertically,” Moorhead said after the Mississippi State spring game.

Nick Fitzgerald was very limited this spring as he returns from an injury, and that created more of an opportunity for quarterback Keytaon Thompson to get reps. It looks like the Bulldogs will have plenty of weapons to get the ball to offensively.

Will Sammon of the Clarion Ledger wrote, after the spring game, that MSU doesn't have much depth at linebacker.