Here's the latest installment of Cover 3 — my weekly take on all things college football. Read through to see why I'm a fan of Northwestern's unheralded quarterback, over/under picks for a trio of SEC teams and the 2018 QB recruit who won't be helping any schools until 2020.

1. The next Trubisky?

Around this time last year, the odds-on favorite to be the top quarterback taken in the 2017 NFL Draft was probably Clemson's Deshaun Watson or Miami's Brad Kaaya. Maybe you'd catch some projection buzz for Deshone Kizer or some intrigue about Patrick Mahomes. What you wouldn't catch was a word about Mitch Trubisky and yet one year later, the Chicago Bears traded up to make the one-year starter the first quarterback off the board.

This year there are a host of names that are generating buzz as the potential first quarterback taken. USC's Sam Darnold, UCLA's Josh Rosen and Wyoming's Josh Allen are all popular picks. Oklahoma State's Mason Rudolph and Washington State's Luke Falk have some believers. There's even darkhorse talk about Auburn's Jarrett Stidham. But there's one guy with the upside and pure ability to be drafted above all those guys who is rarely mentioned: Northwestern's Clayton Thorson, who I rated as a four-star recruit and the No. 5 pro-style QB in the class of 2014.

Unlike Trubisky, Thorson heads into his redshirt junior season already with two years of starting experience under his belt. As a redshirt freshman, Thorson was part of a 10-3 season but he was surviving more than anything else. He threw for just over 1,500 yards and only seven touchdowns to his nine interceptions. But he was big (6-foot-4), he was athletic (397 rush yards) and he could make all the throws. The ability was there.

As a redshirt sophomore, Thorson's pass numbers nearly doubled (2,968 yards), his touchdown numbers tripled and his interceptions went down (eight) despite 147 more pass attempts. Trajectory and experience are big pieces of NFL evaluations at the quarterback position and Thorson big check marks in both areas.

This season, Northwestern is a contender to win the Big Ten West and Thorson is a big reason why. The Wildcats return Justin Jackson at running back, one of the league's top defenses and 16 starters overall. Northwestern is going to be playing in some meaningful games late in the season and Thorson will find the spotlight. On top of his big arm, NFL size and his plus athleticism, people at Northwestern rave about the young man as a person. Thorson needs to take another step forward during his fourth season in Evansville but he's given us every reason to believe that's going to happen. If it does, he'll be a first-round pick. If it doesn't, we'll run this story again next year when he's heading into his fourth season as a starter at Northwestern and one of the names on everybody's lips as an NFL lock.

2. Over/Under SEC fun

Vegas released some preseason win totals for all of college football recently and there's some serious value in the SEC.

The lowest win totals in the conference are assigned to Mississippi State and South Carolina. Both of those programs have an over/under of five wins and both are easy money on the over, in my opinion.

South Carolina is more likely to win the SEC East than they are to miss a bowl. At times Jake Bentley looked like one of the best true freshmen quarterbacks in the country last fall. He returns his entire offense that includes some blossoming young talent like tailback Rico Dowdle and wideout Bryan Edwards. Four of his five offensive linemen return and he's got an NFL tight end in Hayden Hurst. In Year 1, Will Muschamp spurred immediate improvements on defense and he returns six starters while welcoming back Skai Moore, who missed all of the 2016 season but is one of the SEC's best 'backers when healthy.

The Gamecocks have tough out-of-conference games against Clemson and N.C. State but they also get manageable crossover games against Arkansas and Texas A&M from the West. This is a scary team for the rest of the SEC. They won't be sitting at home in December.

Dan Mullen's squad is the same kind of scary. There's not a game on Mississippi State's schedule that it can't win – and that includes Alabama. I really think that this is a year that the Bulldogs cycle up with an athletic quarterback, some talented junior college prospects making an impact and the emergence of defenders like Jeffery Simmons and Leo Lewis.

Mississippi State has a tough early season stretch with LSU coming to Starkville followed by road games at Georgia and Auburn. If the Bulldogs can even get one win out of those three games, they'll have an easy waltz to seven regular season wins.

On the other end, Texas A&M's 7.5 win line looks too high for my taste. This team isn't getting to eight wins and that could spell trouble for Kevin Sumlin. The Aggies have recruited the quarterback position as well as anyone in the country; they just haven't retained quarterbacks with the same level of success. If Kyle Allen or even Kyler Murray were still on campus, I'd look at this differently but as things stand today, Texas A&M will go into seven of its games with a quarterback disadvantage. That doesn't include toss-up matchups against Danny Etling at LSU and Malik Zaire/Feleipe Franks at Florida so a case could be made to put that number at nine. That's an uphill climb in the SEC.

3. The mission debate for Tanner McKee

Tanner McKee, out of Corona (Calif.) Centennial, had a coming out party at the Elite 11 Finals two weeks ago. Already with incredible production on the high school level, he put his raw tools on display at the Elite 11 event and looked like one of the really rare arm talents in this 2018 class. If there's a knock on the 6-foot-6, big-armed passer it may just be that whoever signs him has to wait two years to get their hands on him. For the record, there's no clear-cut leader in his recruitment currently; Texas and Stanford have one selection each in the 247Sports Crystal Ball.

McKee is a practicing Mormon who doesn't compete on Sundays and plans to take an LDS Mission following his senior season in high school. That means two years away from the game of football, 7on7s, quarterback personal trainers and all the other skill-refining instruments that are so popular right now.

Because McKee has emerged as such a unique talent, he has sparked a new debate about how much that potential break from football should factor into his evaluation. It's certainly a factor for schools that have to measure out their scholarship numbers and roster projections. Are they willing to use an LOI on a prospect that is two years away from being on the roster? Quarterback isn't like linebacker or receiver. It's the minutia and skill that dictates the great ones, not raw athleticism. Do they trust that the guy they signed will return as the same player two years later?

My stance on the subject will be reflected in McKee's ranking on 247Sports (hint: that ranking is about to skyrocket). We rank players based on how we think they will develop as NFL prospects and there is precedent for quarterbacks that take mission trips to hear their names called on draft day.

In 2013 Brad Sorensen was drafted out of Southern Utah, six years after leaving for a mission trip to Spain. In 2007, John Beck was drafted out of BYU just a few years removed from a mission trip to Portugal and in 2002, Brandon Doman was drafted out of BYU after serving on a mission to Argentina.

More recently, Tanner Mangum left on a mission trip to Chile after a spring semester at BYU. He returned to fill in for an injured Taysom Hill and was one of the best freshman quarterbacks in college football before Hill won his job back last fall. The NFL could be in his future, too.

You don't just forget how to throw the football and mission trip or not, McKee will play in the NFL.

Barton Simmons is a College Football Insider and the Director of Scouting for 247Sports. Simmons made the All-Ivy team twice as a four-year starter at safety for the Yale Bulldogs from 2000-04. He resides in Nashville.