College football is here here. Fall camp and Week 0 have come and gone, which means we finally have real football to talk about – a welcome reprieve from the constant summer conversations of playoff formats and House settlements. Preseason predictions have been flying hot off the press, which only heightens the anticipation for the season, which is shaping up to be a rather intriguing one.
I think of one of the reasons this season is so fascinating is there is a ton of uncertainty at the top. It feels like a wide open race. While we have a general idea of who the primary contenders will be, trying to predict what’s going to happen for these programs seems impossible, for which there are several contributing factors. Most obviously, we don’t have the dominant favorite we’ve had in some recent years, making for a crowded playoff race. Conference realignment has also made schedules imbalanced and unpredictable, which adds another wrinkle to predicting who will be in that tier of playoff contenders. There are plenty of other reasons, but to me the prevailing theme for the uncertainty this season comes back to one thing: inexperienced quarterbacks. If you look at the National Championship odds, seven out of the top ten teams either have a first time starter, a guy with limited experience, or a QB battle on their hands. In a sport that’s so reliant on quarterback play, it’s fascinating to me that so many of these teams have a question mark heading into the season. Let’s walk through what we’re dealing with:
The Returners
We do have three top QBs on national contending teams that have plenty of experience, and most of the time success at the helm of their offenses. These guys are Cade Klubnik at Clemson, Drew Allar at Penn State, and Garrett Nussmeier at LSU. Klubnik and Allar have had their fair share of ups and downs as starting QBs, but their experience combined with their teams’ stables of returning production at other positions is why they sit at #4 and #5 on the odds board. Nussmeier and the LSU Tigers sit a little bit lower on that board, and while there may not be as much chatter about a national championship for them this season, Nuss is pretty widely considered to be the guy with the most upside of the quarterback class, with a #1 overall pick remaining a real possibility.
We feel pretty good about these guys – not much else to talk about here. They have experience and all the tools to succeed, it’s just a question of whether or not they can take the next step to get their teams to a national championship. After them, the picture gets a lot more cloudy.
The Slightly Experienced
This is where the questions start. After the three returners, there are three guys that are stepping into the starting roles for their programs for the first time with very limited experience: Arch Manning at Texas, Gunnar Stockton at Georgia, and Dante Moore at Oregon.
The first two are in somewhat similar situations. Arch has a few starts under his belt after coming in for an injured Quinn Ewers last season. He played well against UTSA and Mississippi State, throwing for 550 yards and 6 touchdowns over the two games, but those weren’t exactly elite defenses. It feels like we’ve been waiting for this for years now, and the consensus is that Arch will have tons of success as the face of the Longhorns, and potentially play is way into the NFL draft next year. But in college football you just never know. Going to the Shoe in week 1 is no small task, and it’ll be very interesting to see how Arch handles it, followed by his first SEC schedule as the full-time starter. With Stockton, it’s a similar story, but maybe with a little less upside. We saw him in the SEC Championship as well as the Sugar bowl, and there was definitely a lot left to be desired from his performances (he did do enough to win that SEC championship, so some credit is due there). I would like to see a substantial improvement in the pass game before I feel really good about the Bulldogs natty chances. The good thing for Stockton (and also Arch), is that he has a really high floor of talent around him, which should help him get acclimated on the field early in the season.
Dante Moore is a little bit of a different case study. He came in as a highly touted recruit and started 9 games for UCLA during his freshman year, and while it wasn’t a very successful season for him or the Bruins, it was still meaningful experience. Now he comes in as the main man for the Ducks after a season of learning behind Dillon Gabriel, but I don’t see this as a slam dunk. Oregon didn’t add a QB through the portal, which shows some confidence in Moore as their guy, but we still have questions that need to be answered. Early in the season, I’m expecting the offense to lean on Makhi Hughes running the ball, but they’ll need Moore to step as the leader of the offense if they want to make a serious playoff run. I’m looking forward to watching how Moore has built on his experience both as a starter and a backup to lead the Ducks through their sophomore season in the Big 10.
While these three have at least a few games of meaningful experience under their belt, the next couple guys are coming in completely fresh.
The New Kids on the Block
The first guy I want to talk about was tough to place in one of these categories. Ty Simpson is set to take the reins of the Alabama offense, and while he has played in a handful of games in his time with the Crimson Tide, he has no starts, and most of his snaps came in garbage time. That’s why I put him in the “new guy” category, even though he’s been in college for several years. With Ty, it’s been a waiting game. Now his time has finally come, but we have nothing of substance to give us any indication of how it’s going to go. Kalen Deboer has proven to us that he can get the most out of his QB, but Simpson has to prove that he can perform in a high caliber offense against SEC defenses (not to mention he gets to make his first career start in Tallahassee). Plus, there’s always the pressure of having 5-star Keelon Russell nipping at your heels.
Now we get to the true new kid on the block. Julian Sayin, after initially committing to Alabama but transferring to Ohio State, gets the keys to the defending national champion Buckeyes offense. He was on the roster last year for that national championship, so he has a year of learning the system and program under his belt, and we’ll see how he builds on that experience. I’m the highest on Sayin out of the group that we’ve mentioned, but being a first year starter in the Big Ten can be a challenge, especially for a program with such high expectations. The good news is that he has an offensive line with experience, and a stable of extremely talented pass catchers, including Jeremiah Smith (you may or may not have heard of him).
Despite the uncertainty of future results, we at least know (or are pretty confident) that these guys will be the starter for their squads when the ball is snapped in Week 1. But, you can’t say that for every team, so let’s talk about the QB battles.
The QB Battles
These are the true question marks. As of right now, as far as I’m aware, we don’t know who the starting QB for Michigan will be. Lately, it’s sounding like 5-star freshman Bryce Underwood will get the nod over transfer Mikey Keene, but either way there’s some uncertainty. For Underwood, there’s always the possibility that a true freshman will struggle, regardless of how talented he is. This Michigan offense doesn’t seem to have the talent they had a few years ago, so it’s not irrational to think they’ll need Underwood to shine to make a playoff run. That might prove to be tough with trips to Oklahoma and Nebraska during the first month of the season. On the other side, if Keene recovers from his injury and gets a look early, I’m not 100% confident in him making the jump from the Mountain West to the Big 10. He probably provides a more stable floor on account of his experience, but only time will tell.
The same can be said for Notre Dame. It was looking like Steve Angeli was going to follow Riley Leonard as the starter, but he transferred to Syracuse, which means head coach Marcus Freeman had to decide between CJ Carr and Kenny Minchey. Carr just locked up the starting spot in the last week or so, but the fact that the battle carried on so close to the season gives me a little bit of doubt. He’ll be heading right into the fire with a matchup against Miami in Week 1, whose defense has some real dudes, especially up front. I want to see how the coaching staff schemes up the first few drives to set him up for success. There are also questions about why Carr was actually named the starter; reports from fall camp indicated that Minchey was really playing well and had become the front runner, so who knows who will be taking snaps by the time October rolls around. All we know for certain is that a program with a lot of momentum coming off a national championship experience needs someone to step up and lead the offense. They’ll have a lot of help from the running game, but the offense needs to show passing as a threat to allow that running game to work.
We’re really in for a treat this season. If any of the guys we’ve talked about click, their offense will be a major factor. Looking at this list, if there’s a guy I feel the best about, it’s Arch. His talent combined with the stable of blue chippers around him in that offense sets up for a really nice unit – it’s just a matter of how he performs in the big-time games. After that, your guess is as good as mine. My recommendation would be to sit back, relax, and enjoy watching these guys figure it out. It’s a wide open race at the top, and that only makes it more fun to watch for us as fans.
