During the 2022 season, Mississippi State quarterback Will Rogers became the SEC’s career leader in completions and passes.

Rogers completed 415-of-610 passes last season to push his career totals to 1,159 completions and 1,639 passes in three seasons with the Bulldogs. He surpassed the league career records of 921 completions, set by Georgia’s Aaron Murray from 2010 through 2013, and 1,553 passes, established by Missouri’s Drew Lock from 2015 through 2018.

In 2023, Rogers seems on course to break Murray’s SEC career record of 13,166 passing yards. The MSU QB will enter this season needing 2,478 passing yards to rise to No. 1 on the conference list, and Rogers threw for 3,974 yards last season and 4,739 in 2021.

Rogers likely won’t be the last player to set career passing records in the SEC. Changes in the game have promoted an escalation of numbers in passing and total-offense statistics.

But while the league’s records in those categories become more vulnerable, other SEC career records appear more secure than ever.

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Here are 10 SEC career records that likely will continue to stand the test of time:

21.0 yards per reception averaged by Arkansas’ Anthony Lucas

Three SEC players who have caught 100 passes have averaged at least 20 yards per reception. Lucas is the most recent of the three to play in the conference, completing his career at Arkansas in 1999 with 2,879 yards on 137 receptions. The SEC’s best 21st-century deep threats haven’t approached Lucas’ mark with LSU’s Ja’Marr Chase at 19.6 yards per reception, Georgia’s Tavarres King at 19.1 and Jaylen Waddle at 18.9. The other SEC players who have averaged at least 20 yards on a minimum of 100 receptions are Alabama’s Ozzie Newsome (20.3 yards on 102 receptions from 1974-77) and Ole Miss’ Willie Green (20.1 yards on 113 receptions from 1986-89). Other SEC players have averaged more than 20 yards per reception, most recently Auburn’s Sammie Coates from 2012 through 2014, but they failed to meet the 100-catch qualifier.

52 sacks by Alabama’s Derrick Thomas

Is this really a record? The Alabama linebacker compiled the total from 1985 through 1988, but the NCAA didn’t install sacks in its record book until 2000. The NFL started recording sacks in 1982, and some conferences got the jump on the NCAA, too, so Thomas’ name tops a list in the SEC record book that features Mississippi State’s Billy Jackson with 49 and no other player with more than 37. Only three SEC players this century have come within 20 of Thomas’ career record – Georgia’s David Pollack with 36 sacks, Tennessee’s Derek Barnett with 33 and Texas A&M’s Myles Garrett with 32.5.

68 interceptions thrown by Georgia’s Zeke Bratkowski

Here’s a passing record that’s good for the duration. Quarterbacks just don’t throw interceptions the way they used to. South Carolina QB Spencer Rattler tossed the most interceptions in the SEC in 2019, when 12 of his 396 passes picked off. Bratkowski threw 68 interceptions in 734 passes for Georgia from 1951 through 1953. No SEC player in the past 29 years has come within 20 of Bratkowski’s interception record. If the stats imply that Bratkowski was a bad quarterback, consider that he left the Bulldogs with the most passing yards in college football history – 4,863 – and was the 17th player picked in the 1953 NFL Draft, which was before he’d even played his senior season at Georgia.

There’s a related record to this one that has a lock on the SEC record book for the same reason – the 20 career interceptions by Ole Miss’ Bobby Wilson and LSU’s Chris Williams. That might not appear so out-of-reach, but Wilson played his final season for the Rebels in 1949 and Williams made his last appearance for the Tigers in 1980. Only four other SEC players have more than 16 career interceptions, and none of them played in the past 29 seasons. The returning player with the most career receptions in the SEC is Missouri’s Jaylon Carlies, who has seven.

145 touchdown responsibility by Florida’s Tim Tebow

The SEC has played 90 football seasons, and this record has been around for only 13 of them. Since going into the league record book, Georgia QB Aaron Murray got within eight of it. To break this record in three seasons, though, a player would need to average a little more than 48 passing and rushing touchdowns. Only four SEC players have exceeded 48 in touchdown responsibility in one season, including Tebow as the Gators QB with 55 in 2007. Across four seasons, the average would need to be 36.75. Last year’s SEC leader in touchdown responsibility was Mississippi State quarterback Will Rogers at 36.

494 interception-return yards by Tennessee’s Eric Berry

Mississippi State CB Emmanuel Forbes set an SEC record by returning six of his 14 career interceptions for touchdowns before leaving for the NFL as a first-round draft pick in April. But even with all those runs to the end zone, Forbes didn’t come within 100 yards of the Volunteers safety’s conference record for career interception-return yards. With 390 interception-return yards, Forbes ranks second in SEC history, and Berry has 27 percent more interception-return yards than Forbes. On his 14 interceptions from 2007 through 2009, Berry piled up 494 yards, an average of 35.3 yards per return, which is another conference record.

547 tackles by Tennessee’s Andy Spiva

The Tennessee linebacker compiled his total from 1973 through 1976 – a stone-etched relic from another time in football. Eight of the top 12 tacklers in SEC history played in the 1970s, when the number of rushing attempts was higher than in any period of college football history. In the 1970s, the SEC had eight teams average at least 62 rushing attempts per game in a season. That’s a lot of tackles available for linebackers. In 2022, Ole Miss led the SEC in rushing attempts per game at 47.2.

The NCAA also decreed in 2004 that all individual defensive statistics would be compiled by the press-box statistics crew during the game. That eliminated the practice of taking tackle totals from coaches. No one in the conference’s career top 10 tacklers played after that demarcation. At the end of the 2022 season, the SEC’s leader in career tackles was Arkansas linebacker Bumper Pool with 441. No returning player in the conference is halfway to Spiva’s record.

Spiva’s record looks safe even though Troy’s Carlton Martial broke the NCAA FBS career record by reaching 577 tackles last season.

994 rushing attempts by Georgia’s Herschel Walker

Which of the Georgia running back’s SEC career records is the most unassailable? His 994 rushing attempts or 5,289 rushing yards? Both have stood for 40 seasons. Walker’s record was established in three seasons with Georgia, and two SEC ball-carriers have reached the 900-carry milestone in four-season careers without reaching Walker’s mark. Ralph Webb had 931 rushing attempts for Vanderbilt from 2014 through 2017 and Anthony Dixon had 910 for Mississippi State from 2006 through 2009. In 2022, Ole Miss RB Quinshon Judkins led the SEC with 274 rushing attempts, 52 more than any other player. Three more seasons of that, and he’ll break Walker’s career record by 102 rushing attempts. But will Judkins play three more seasons for Ole Miss?

1,752 punt-return yards by Alabama’s Javier Arenas

The Alabama cornerback’s SEC career record isn’t all that old. Only 13 seasons have gone by since he set the mark. But it broke a record that was quite old. Vanderbilt’s Lee Nalley had held the SEC record for career punt-return yards with 1,695 since 1949. Last season, Alabama’s Kool-Aid McKinstry led the SEC with 332 punt-return yards. The conference’s returning career leader in punt-return yards is Texas A&M running back Ainias Smith with 551.

6,833 all-purpose yards by LSU’s Kevin Faulk

Arkansas running back Darren McFadden could have broken the LSU running back’s SEC record for career all-purpose yards if he had returned to the Razorbacks for his senior season. But that’s the point. A player good enough to do that isn’t going to stay in college for more than three seasons anymore. To break Faulk’s record in three seasons, a player would need to average 2,278 all-purpose yards per season, and an SEC player has reached that total only five times in the league’s history. To amass his record total, Faulk had 4,557 rushing yards, 600 receiving yards, 844 kickoff-return yards and 832 punt-return yards for LSU from 1995 through 1998. He’s 1,002 yards ahead of second-place McFadden in the SEC record book.

12,171 punt yards by Vanderbilt’s Jim Arnold

Arnold doesn’t hold the SEC record for career punt average anymore, as he did when he left Vanderbilt in 1982. Today, Arnold’s average of 43.9 yards per punt isn’t even in the top 20 for the conference, among players with at least 100 punts. But Arnold punted 277 times, the second-most in conference history. While recent top punters like Florida’s Johnny Townsend and Alabama’s JK Scott outdid Arnold in average by 2.3 and 1.6 yards, respectively, they finished more than 1,000 behind his total yardage because they didn’t reach his volume. In 2008, Mississippi State’s Blake McAdams broke Arnold’s SEC record for career punts with 293, but he couldn’t match Arnold’s average and wound up second on the league list with 11,562 yards.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.