A major storyline of the still-young college football season has been the underwhelming or surprising play of the sport’s quarterbacks.
In the SEC, various young-yet-hyped signal-callers have fallen short of fan’s expectations, while lightly recruited players are stealing the show.
Meanwhile, the Big Ten’s two best aren’t named Drew Allar, the Big 12 has its usual gunslingers and the ACC’s top quarterback hails from Virginia!?
Through all of the madness, ESPN’s Bill Connelley attempted to sort through the mess and rank all 68 of the Power 4’s signal-callers. His list factored in a variety of statistics as well as personal review.
From the SEC, Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia and Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss were ranked No. 2 and No. 3 respectively. With both experiencing winding journeys to arrive in college football’s spotlight, their surge to the top has captured many fans’ attention.
Similarly, Ty Simpson’s path to becoming Alabama’s starting quarterback was rarely linear, yet he slots in at No. 8 with Connelley noting that “first impressions are rarely accurate.”
Embattled SEC signal-callers Arch Manning (41), Jackson Arnold (43) and Garrett Nussmeier (37) appear much further down the rankings, although none compare to Kentucky’s duo of Cutter Boley and Zach Calzada, who collectively occupy the 68th and final spot.
Connelley placed USC’s Jayden Maieva atop his rankings thanks to the quarterback’s nation-leading QBR and high yards per completion.
Parker is currently the sports editor with the Enterprise-Journal in McComb, Mississippi. He's a graduate from Mizzou who has experience covering the Tiger football and basketball beats for SB Nation, and he's worked for a variety of sports news outlets in the past.
