Gavin Ware, most who have followed his career have remarked, has been ready to take on a starring role in the SEC for some time. A central piece at Mississippi State since arriving as a freshman, Ware has spent the last few years not as a sleeping giant necessarily, but maybe as one who had just got up from a nap and was perhaps a little groggy.

As a senior, Ware has shaken out whatever cobwebs and weariness had seemingly attached themselves to his game the last few years (“I don’t know what was going through my head.