It’s time for Week 7 of the college football season.
Each week, I use this space to rank the nation’s 7 best quarterbacks. Most teams are now halfway through the season and have played a handful of conference games, so the sample size is growing.
A few notes to know before we dive in:
Note: I’ll be leaning heavily on available advanced statistics, which recently got better thanks to CollegeFootballData.com’s addition of new passing metrics. A few helpful definitions to know:
- CPOE (Completion Percentage Over Expected) — actual completion % minus expected completion %, where “expected” is what an average FBS QB would complete given each throw’s depth, direction, down, distance, and field position.
- Dead-end play rate — share of all QB plays (pass attempts + sacks + rushes) that gain 4 yards or fewer without converting a first down or scoring. Measures how wasteful a QB is on a down-to-down basis.
- (Rush) success rate — share of QB rush attempts that gain 50% of the yards-to-go on 1st down, 70% on 2nd, or 100% on 3rd/4th (TDs always count). Sacks and kneel-downs are excluded.
- ADOT (Average Depth of Target) — average air yards per attempt: how far downfield past the line of scrimmage the average throw is aimed, counting incompletions and INTs at their intended target depth. Measures aggressiveness and intent, but not whether the pass was completed.
- Deep-throw rate — share of attempts targeted 15+ yards beyond the line of scrimmage.
College quarterback rankings
Without further ado:
1. Darian Mensah, Miami (Last week: 1)
Darian Mensah was idle last week so I don’t have much to add. However, he retains his hold on the No. 1 spot thanks to his unbelievable completion percentage (84%), CPOE (18%) and dead-end play rate (29%). The only weakness in his profile is an ADOT of just over 6, but it really doesn’t matter too much when you have a slot receiver like Malachi Toney who can create yards after the catch at an elite level like Toney can.
2. CJ Carr, Notre Dame (Last week: 5)
I think 2 through 5 on this list are all really close. I’ll give Carr the nod at the top of that tier this week. Carr and the next few quarterbacks all have really strong CPOE and ADOT numbers but what separates Carr is his pocket awareness. He’s running a 1.4% sack rate, which is elite. He also has a rushing success rate north of 70%. The level of competition will increase significant for Notre Dame over the next month, but I expect Carr will continue to perform at a really high level.
3. Gunner Stockton, Georgia (Last week: 7)
Gunner Stockton continues to be the most underrated quarterback in the country. He has a game manager reputation and comes across as boring, but that’s not what we’ve seen from him or Georgia’s offense in general this season. Stockton has an elite 13% CPOE and an ADOT of almost 9. He’s in the top 5 nationally in EPA per dropback and remains a threat with his legs, too. Stockton posted a CPOE of nearly 22% against Alabama last week, which is among the best single-game performances in that metric for any P4 quarterback all season.
4. Keelon Russell, Alabama (Last week: 2)
I’m dropping Keelon Russell a couple of spots this week, but I remain a huge fan and couldn’t be more optimistic about his future. Unfortunately for Alabama, Russell performed quite poorly against Georgia (-8% CPOE) and continues to have issues with taking too many sacks (8.4% sack rate in 2026). Russell will face another challenging defense this weekend in a hostile environment as Alabama travels to face Tennessee in Knoxville.
5. Julian Sayin, Ohio State (Last week: 2)
Julian Sayin only completed 13-of-21 passes against Maryland, but he went for 242 yards, 4 touchdowns and 1 interception. As I wrote earlier, the difference between No. 2 and No. 5 on this list is pretty small this week. Sayin slips to 5 mostly because he’s been playing life on easy mode a bit with Jeremiah Smith as a teammate. Sayin has a CPOE of around 13% this season across all attempts, but his CPOE slips to under 9% when he’s targeting someone other than Smith. A 9% CPOE is still very good, but it’s not elite. Sayin also takes way too many sacks with a rate of 6.4%, which is second-worst among elite quarterbacks behind only Russell.
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6. Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss (Last week: 4)
Trinidad Chambliss continues to fall slightly in these rankings because his advanced metrics just aren’t up to snuff with his peers. He has a CPOE of a little under 8%, which is good but not great. He’s not pushing the ball downfield much, either — only 22% of his passes travel 15+ yards downfield. He’s won more big games than pretty much any QB still in college, but I’m hoping to see improved metrics from Chambliss over the second half of the season.
7. Josh Hoover, Indiana (Last week: Not Ranked)
Josh Hoover averaged over 10 yards per attempt in a big comeback win over Nebraska. Hoover hasn’t been quite as good as Fernando Mendoza was last year, but he’s still really effective. He’s No. 2 nationally in EPA per dropback behind only Mensah. He’s seemingly fixed his turnover issues from his time at TCU and is running an ADOT of 11, which is higher than virtually all of his peers on this list.
On the radar
In no particular order:
Austin Simmons, Mizzou: Austin Simmons was No. 6 on this list last week and then put together a true stinker of a performance against Texas A&M: 147 passing yards, 1 touchdown and 1 interception on 28 attempts. Huge game this weekend against his old teammates in Oxford.
Drew Mestemaker, Oklahoma State: Drew Mestemaker is getting more NFL Draft buzz. I’m not a scout, but I can say there’s nothing too special about his statistical profile. He’s running a 4.5% CPOE and an ADOT under 9. He keeps sacks to a minimum (2.3%) but any NFL Draft talk requires significant projection.
Aidan Chiles, Northwestern: I continue to be very impressed with Aidan Chiles. Northwestern is legit good and he’s a big reason why. He has a 10% CPOE, which is awesome. Even better — he has a 25% CPOE on balls thrown 15+ yards beyond the line of scrimmage, which is elite (only Mensah is better).
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Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
