Chris Relf, Mississippi State’s unlikely knight in maroon armor

Relf accounted for almost 2,500 total yards and 17 touchdowns as the trigger man for the Bulldogs' best offensive season in well over a decade, even while splitting time for most of the first half of the season. With his raw ability and Tim Tebow-esque size (both are 6-3, 240 pounds), Relf always looked like a natural fit for the "option" portions of coach Dan Mullen's spread option scheme, the same scheme that propelled Tebow to a Heisman Trophy in 2007 and Florida to a BCS championship in 2008 with Mullen as offensive coordinator. It was only with his vast improvement last year as a passer, though, that Relf suddenly looked like a legitimate, every-down SEC starter.
The Bulldogs are probably bound for a rare top 25 nod in the preseason polls, and the AP headline that went out all over America after last weekend's spring game was about Relf's "jump from good to great." That's ambitious in a division that features at least three and possibly four other teams bound for the top 25 themselves, but not so farfetched when you consider that Relf — along with Georgia's Aaron Murray — is arguably the best returning starter in the SEC.