Book excerpt: Does the future of college football need a commissioner?
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Bill Connelly
Editor’s note: On Sept. 2, ESPN writer Bill Connelly’s book “Forward Progress: The Definitive Guide to the Future of College Football” will be released. This edited excerpt looks at whether the sport needs central leadership like professional leagues.
In 1920, professional baseball was in crisis. The Black Sox scandal, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox — star outfielder “Shoeless Joe” Jackson; co-aces Eddie Cicotte and Lefty Williams; four other starters (first baseman Chick Gandil, shortstop Swede Risberg, third baseman Buck Weaver, and outfielder Happy Felsch); and a key backup infielder (Fred McMullin) — were indicted and accused of throwing the 1919 World Series, had, along with allegations of other fixed games, shaken the sport to its core. Baseball had been governed by a National Commission consisting of three parties with extreme self-interest: National League president John Heydler, American League president Ban Johnson, and Garry Herrmann, president of the Cincinnati Reds team that had beaten the White Sox in the World Series. Its leadership proved lacking in this moment, and its questionable independence severely damaged perceptions. Herrmann resigned from the commission in 1920, and the commissioners couldn’t agree on a new third member.
In early October 1920, days before the start of that season’s World Series between the Brooklyn Robins and Cleveland Indians, leaders of the Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, New York Giants, and Pittsburgh Pirates proposed a tribunal of, in the words of the New York Times, “three of America’s biggest men, with absolute power over both major and minor leagues.” A letter sent to every major and minor baseball club said, “If baseball is to continue to exist as our national game (and it will) it must be with the recognition on the part of club owners and players that the game itself belongs to the American people, and not to either owners or players.”
The letter stated that “the present deplorable condition in baseball has been brought about by the lack of complete supervisory control of professional baseball,” that “the only cure for such condition is by having at the head of baseball men in no wise connected with baseball who are so prominent and representative among the American people that not a breath of suspicion could be ever reflected.” It concluded, “The practical operation of this agreement would be the selection of three men of such unquestionable reputation and standing in fields other than baseball that the mere knowledge of their control of baseball, in itself, would insure that the public interests would first be served, and that, therefore, as a natural sequence, all existing evils would disappear.” This tribunal would have the power to punish players, strip owners of their franchises, “establish a proper relationship between minor leagues and major leagues,” you name it.
This proposal, first discussed by Cubs shareholder A.D. Lasker, became known as the Lasker Plan. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a number of clubs — particularly, those in the American League still loyal to the strong-willed Johnson — initially balked at the idea, to the point where the National League considered beginning an entirely new league with a few insurrectionist AL clubs, including the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. But all necessary parties eventually came to the table, and figures as grand as former president William Howard Taft, General John J. Pershing and former treasury secretary William G. McAdoo were under discussion for the tribunal.
The search pretty quickly began to revolve around a single figure: Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. A known baseball fan and an occasional showman on the bench, the 54-year-old Landis was known primarily for his antitrust judgment against Standard Oil, issuing the corporation a $29.2 million fine in 1907, equivalent to almost $1 billion today. (The U.S. Court of Appeals would eventually strike down the verdict.) He was regarded as tough but thoughtful, a grand figure but a supporter of the everyman. He would go on to serve as the sport’s first commissioner, a one-man tribunal, until his death in 1944.
Landis proved ruthless and uncompromising when he felt he needed to be. Despite all of the indicted “Black Sox” being acquitted in a criminal trial, Landis still banned them from baseball for life, stating, “Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player that throws a ball game; no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ball game; no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing ball games are planned and discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball.” For better or worse, he stuck to that decision through the years despite both legal and emotional appeals.
Landis wasn’t a ruthless traditionalist, however. The All-Star Game was created under his watch in the early 1930s and proved to be a big hit, and while he didn’t seem to approve of the development of farm systems, in which minor league clubs developed affiliations with major league clubs to develop and promote their talent through the ranks, he also didn’t stop it, choosing only to step in on a case-by-case basis. He was far from infallible — you can certainly find inconsistency in some of his decisions, and Lord knows baseball didn’t exactly speed toward integration under his watch. (Jackie Robinson’s major league debut came two and a half years after Landis’ death. He might not have stopped that from happening had he still been in charge, but he certainly wasn’t pushing owners to become more progressive in this regard.) But he provided as steady a hand as possible, and both the trust in and popularity of baseball grew under his watch.
Absolute power? A dictatorial hand over the sport you’ve loved since childhood? Man, sign me up. That sounds amazing. Sure, I’ve never issued a billion-dollar fine to anyone, and my strongest bona fides regarding my general incorruptibility probably stem from the time I went on “The Paul Finebaum Show” and proclaimed that Cincinnati should have ranked higher than the SEC’s Texas A&M in the 2020 College Football Playoff rankings. But that qualifies as speaking truth to power, right?
In 2017, while at SB Nation, I indeed decided to run for college football commissioner. Granted, there was no such election and no such position, but it felt like a good use of time all the same. “College football needs someone to make long-term decisions,” I wrote. “College football needs someone who can reflect the interest of programs at every level: Alabama, Alabama-Birmingham, North Alabama, and all.”
There was an explosion of commish talk in 2016, thanks to a number of issues like College Football Playoff selections, conference schedules (mainly that some conferences play eight conference games and others play nine), and high school satellite camps, an issue that was all the rage for a few months and then vanished from consciousness altogether, to the point where I don’t even feel the need to define it here. “There needs to be somebody that looks out for what’s best for the game,” Alabama‘s Nick Saban said at the time, “not what’s best for the Big Ten or what’s best for the SEC or what’s best for Jim Harbaugh, but what’s best for the game of college football — the integrity of the game, the coaches, the players, and the people that play it. That’s bigger than all of this.” (Harbaugh was at the center of the satellite camp issue that I’m still not going to explain further.) But even with Saban’s high-visibility comments, nothing came of it. Nothing ever comes of it.
Through the decades the only thing everyone has seemingly agreed on in this sport is the need for a commissioner figure.
“Charley Trippi, one of the all-time greats in college and professional football … said college football today needs a national commissioner to direct the game on a national basis. Trippi … charged that the National Collegiate Athletic Association is ‘controlled by the Big Ten.’ He said he felt no conference in the nation should have any kind of monopoly in the game.” — Macon News, 1958
“You don’t think we need a commissioner and a set of rules to make things even? We’re the only sport in America that doesn’t have the same set of rules for everybody that plays … Everybody goes to their own neighborhood and makes their own little rules.” — Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher, 2016
“I think there’s a perception with the public that perhaps college football doesn’t have its act together because there are so many different entities pulling in different directions.” — former Baylor head coach Grant Teaff, 1994
“… If you’re biased by a specific conference or if you’re impacted by making all your decisions based on revenue and earnings, then we’re never going to get to a good place.” — Penn State head coach James Franklin, 2024
“What this business needs is a commissioner who has the best interest of the game in mind. There needs to be somebody who creates a structure in which people just don’t cannibalize each other. … The NCAA president doesn’t have any legal authority to do much, in his defense, because they’ve given away that authority over the course of the last 60 years.” — West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck, 2011
“I think we need to have a … commissioner. I think football should be separate from the other sports. Just because our school is leaving to go to the Big Ten in football … our softball team should be playing Arizona in softball. Our basketball team should be playing Arizona in basketball. … And they’ll say, well, how do you do that? Well, Notre Dame’s independent in football, and they’re in a conference in everything else. I think we should all be independent in football. You can have a 64-team conference that’s in the Power 5, and you can have a 64-team conference that’s in the Group of 5, and we separate, and we play each other. You can have the West Coast teams, and every year we play seven games against the West Coast teams and then we play the East — we play Syracuse, Boston College, Pitt, West Virginia, Virginia — and then the next year you play against the South while you still play your seven teams. You play a seven-game schedule, you play four against another conference opponent, division opponent, and you can always play against one Mountain West team every year so we can still keep those rivalries going. … But I think if you went together collectively, as a group, and said there’s 132 teams and we all share the same TV contract, so that the Mountain West doesn’t have one and the Sun Belt doesn’t have another and the SEC another, that we all go together, that’s a lot of games, and there’s a lot of people in the TV world that would go through it. … But I think if we still do the same and take all that money … that money now needs to be shared with the student-athletes, and there needs to be revenue sharing, and the players should get paid, and you get rid of [NIL], and the schools should be paying the players because the players are what the product is. And the fact that they don’t get paid is really the biggest travesty. Not that I’ve thought about it.” — UCLA head coach Chip Kelly, 2023
Kelly’s spiel, spoken at a pace faster than his fastest old Oregon offense at a press conference before UCLA’s LA Bowl appearance, made waves. In a way, he was basically calling for a College Football Association of sorts, an all-of-FBS league that could negotiate a huge television contract to be divvied out in a fair manner. In a perfect world, maybe that’s what would exist. But as with any other “In a perfect world …” construct, the real world prevailed instead.
The waves continued after Kelly’s comments. In January 2024, Nick Saban retired in part because he was frustrated with all the different demands of the NIL era. In February, Saban told ESPN’s Chris Low, “If my voice can bring about some meaningful change, I want to help any way I can, because I love the players, and I love college football. What we have now is not college football — not college football as we know it. You hear somebody use the word ‘student-athlete.’ That doesn’t exist.” A company man until the end, Saban suggested that either SEC commissioner Greg Sankey or Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne might make a good commissioner for the sport. (“They would be more qualified than I am. They’re in it every day and know all the issues.”) In December 2024, Penn State head coach James Franklin expressed frustration with the state of the college football calendar and the fact that his backup quarterback, Beau Pribula, felt he needed to hop into the transfer portal before the Nittany Lions’ College Football Playoff journey began to make sure he had a solid home for the winter semester. His solution? “Let’s get a commissioner of college football that is waking up every single morning and going to bed every single night making decisions that’s in the best interest of college football. I think Nick Saban would be the obvious choice if we made that decision.”
Did anything come of that? Of course not. But that just means I’m still a candidate, right?
Back in 2017, my campaign platform consisted of nine pillars intended to maximize both the athlete’s experience and the fan’s enjoyment of the sport:
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A student-athlete bill of rights to ensure proper health care options, guaranteed undergraduate scholarships, and freer transfer rules.
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A modernized definition of amateurism that allowed players to profit off of their name, image, and likeness.
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The return of the EA Sports video game. (Hey, you have to throw some red meat to the base, right?)
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A fairer recruiting landscape that allowed players easier releases from their letters of intent if a coach left and explored changes to signing periods and regulations surrounding official visits and other recruiting rules.
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A system of promotion and relegation that incorporates actual merit into the sport’s power structure. (This one’s always on my mind.)
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An expanded playoff.
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Ditching unequal conference divisions in favor of a system of permanent rivalries and a larger rotation of opponents.
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Increasing creativity and flexibility in nonconference scheduling. (One idea: a “BracketBuster Saturday” in November in which everyone in FBS gets paired off based on in-season results.)
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Changes in clock rules that stemmed the recent increases in average game times, which had reached nearly three and a half hours per game.
It’s been about eight years since I put that list together, and damned if I haven’t gotten a lot of what I wanted: We’ve seen either partial or complete success for items No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 9. That’s a hell of a success rate, especially considering how hard it is to actually institute change in this sport at times. But it feels like a lot of the forces I was responding to at the time — mainly, massive disorganization within the sport and an ever-increasing imbalance between haves and have-nots — have only gotten worse since 2017. Why? BECAUSE WE STILL HAVE NO COMMISSIONER! Any change that could have produced progressive outcomes only made the imbalance worse because when no one’s in charge, that really means that the most powerful and self-interested figures in the sport are in charge. And their only goal is to reinforce the power structure.
“I can’t tell you how many times I heard [former Big Ten commissioner] Jim Delany say two things,” former Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson said. “One: ‘You didn’t bring the Rose Bowl, or the Orange Bowl, or the Sugar Bowl, or the Fiesta Bowl, so [you get] whatever we decide you are worthy of.’ He also used to say, ‘The world cares more about 6-6 Michigan than 12-0 Utah, and until you realize and understand that and accept that …’ and I got it. But we always seemed to find a way to work together for the good of the cause, the good of the overall enterprise. Great, you started the Rose Bowl, but was it all bad that TCU beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl [in 2011]? That Utah beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl [in 2009]? Did the enterprise come crumbling down? No. We’re trying to look at the good of the cause and what’s best for the second most popular sport out there, and what I always had in the back of my mind trying to protect was how we could make sure that people give a damn about college football.”
For somewhere between 10 and 30 years, Delany was the sport’s most powerful figure. He kick-started multiple runs of conference realignment, and the Big Ten’s creation of the Big Ten Network turned out to be a game-changer. But college football’s most powerful figure was also doing everything he could to keep other conferences’ ambitions in check, to almost limit the sport’s potential growth in other areas of the country.
“When people talk about wanting a commissioner, what they’re really asking for is someone whose job it is to look out for the betterment of the sport as a whole,” said NBC Sports’ Nicole Auerbach. “I know it sounds really pollyannaish and idealistic, but you don’t have someone whose job it is to look out for the greater good. So you have competing interests. You have an NCAA president who has certain motivations and goals — and major college football is not even under their purview. And then you have all these different commissioners, and it makes a lot of sense that we ended up in a position where conferences started hiring outside of college sports. They hired businesspeople, they hired media executives, and then those people believe that their goal is to advance the interest only of their conference because that’s how those jobs work.”
“Lately, it seems like we’ve morphed into, ‘I’ve gotta feed the beast,'” said Thompson. “‘I’ve got 18 schools, 16 schools …’ In 2023, there were five autonomous conferences with an average membership of 13 schools each. Now we’ve got four autonomous conferences with an average membership of 17. We’ve gone to that consolidation, and a commissioner is paid to protect his 14, 16, 18 school interests. But, man, it just doesn’t seem like we care as much about how we just keep this thing going, how we keep 80,000 people, 50,000 people, hell, even 30,000 people coming to games.”
Now, professional sports have proven rather definitively that you can be disorganized and inequality-friendly with a commissioner atop the organizational chart. Just look at the last 35 years for most of Europe’s biggest soccer leagues or large swaths of Major League Baseball’s history — baseball had all the inequality a fan of capitalism could possibly crave, especially in the 1990s. And, hey, having an occasional tyrant like David Stern in charge didn’t stop the NBA from basically being ruled by three teams for decades — from 1980 to 2002, the Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics, and Chicago Bulls won 17 of 23 titles. Even in the NFL, all the parity measures in the world couldn’t stop the teams that employed either Tom Brady (New England, then Tampa Bay) or Patrick Mahomes (Kansas City) from winning 10 of 24 Super Bowls from 2001 to 2024.
It’s also not hard to see how a dictatorial figure like the Landis-style commissioner I dream of becoming could get corrupted. (I wouldn’t, of course — you can trust me — but others might.)
You can obviously manage things quite poorly with a commissioner in charge. But the only thing worse might be not having one. Professional organizations have commissioners, and at its highest level college football is now a professional organization of sorts. But a quote from Notre Dame president Father John J. Cavanaugh from the late 1940s still rings impressively true: “The type of reformers I refer to are those who play with the question for public consumption, who seem to say that an indefinable something has to be done in a way nobody knows how, at a time nobody knows when, in places nobody knows where, to accomplish nobody knows what. I wonder if there are not grounds to suspect that the reformers … protest too much, that their zeal may be an excuse for their own negligence in reforming themselves.”
Of course, there’s no place for a commissioner in college football’s structure. There’s no National College Football Office for him or her to occupy. England has spent the last few years working toward an “independent football regulator” (IFR) to oversee soccer as a whole in the country — in a lot of the same ways we’re talking about here — and it might create an intriguing model to follow. Or it might prove to totally lack independence from either partisan government or financial influence. We’ll see.
The creation of the College Football Playoff as an entity might have produced an opportunity for a leadership structure of sorts — imagine a situation in which schools must opt in to CFP membership (which features a set of rules and protocols you must follow) to compete for the CFP title — but it doesn’t appear we’re anywhere close to that at the moment. Among other things, expanding the CFP’s governance potential would again require a vote from Sankey and Petitti to strip themselves of power. “It could come through the CFP,” Auerbach said. “They already have a governance structure. In theory, they could build that out and add all of the bureaucratic pieces they would need to truly govern the sport. But you would need the people who are powerful now to be willing to give up some of that power for the collective good of the sport — you would need to have a willingness from the SEC and Big Ten commissioners, or those schools in their leagues, to give up power to have a collective, centralized, powerful figure. … It’s just hard to imagine that that would happen.”
“I think any governance system probably has to shift power away from the presidents,” said Extra Points’ Matt Brown, “… That could be a centralized commissioner. That could be a different board.” Right now, however, it’s nothing. And without anyone atop the pyramid, any change that could be good for the sport just exacerbates the haves-versus-have-nots divide that already exists.
Writing about the possibility of interleague play in Major League Baseball in the early 1970s, Roger Angell wrote, “The plan is startling and perhaps imperfect, but it is surely worth hopeful scrutiny at the top levels of baseball. I am convinced, however, that traditionalists need have no fear that it will be adopted. Any amalgamation would require all the owners to subdue their differences, to delegate real authority, to accept change, and to admit that they share an equal responsibility for everything that happens to their game. And that, to judge by their past record and by their performance in the strike, is exactly what they will never do.” He was right and wrong: it did come into existence, but it took 25 years to do so. We’ve been talking about a college football commissioner for far longer than that, and there doesn’t yet appear to be much of an appetite for subduing differences or delegating real authority. And it’s hard to imagine that changing without some sort of Black Sox-level emergency.
Then again, we can only envision what we know to envision. “Our imagination is bound by our experiences,” The Athletic’s Ralph Russo said. “And that’s making it hard to see where all this could possibly go. I feel like there’s a conclusion here that nothing in our collective experience could have brought us to. There’s just something, some other event, that is going to influence college football, probably an outside event. I say that because the history of college football is riddled with outside events totally influencing the power structure. It’s demographic movement — where the population goes within the United States. It’s wars. It’s segregation and desegregation. All of these things. So is the next thing something that completely disrupts the university system? Is it something that disrupts the U.S. government?”
At best, a commissioner figure could for the first time give the sport a vision to follow and a steadying hand for guidance. At worst, he or she would reinforce the divides and inequality that have already been established, furrowing his or her brow and talking about how great and deep college football is and how hard it is to satisfy everyone before simply giving the SEC and Big Ten whatever they want.
Regardless, I’m keeping my hat in the ring. CONNELLY 2025 (or 2036, or 2048, whatever it ends up being).
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Adam Rittenberg
Among the teams that reached the initial 12-team College Football Playoff, four brought back starting quarterbacks for this fall, and two others saw their QBs transfer but remain in the college game.
Normally, the focus of the sport would be on the returning signal-callers. Players such as Penn State’s Drew Allar, Clemson’s Cade Klubnik, Arizona State’s Sam Leavitt, SMU’s Kevin Jennings and an intriguing group of incumbents in the Big 12, SEC and elsewhere would be generating the most buzz.
But 2025 is different. The quarterback discussion is dominated by a 2024 backup who didn’t attempt a pass in four postseason games and had just 12 pass attempts after his first two career starts. Texas quarterback Arch Manning might be the biggest name in the sport as he prepares for his first season as QB1. The guy with the attention-grabbing name now has the platform to showcase his talents.
After a season in which the Heisman Trophy race came down to two non-quarterbacks — Travis Hunter and Ashton Jeanty — perhaps Manning will meet the outsized expectations. Or will another quarterback — Allar, Klubnik, LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier, South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers, Miami’s Carson Beck — step forward in the race?
I spoke with coaches and others around the sport to assess several of the more notable quarterbacks. Other than Manning, I focused on quarterbacks with a good amount of game experience, as we’ll see how things play out with freshmen such as Michigan’s Bryce Underwood, Ohio State’s Julian Sayin and Notre Dame’s CJ Carr.
Here’s a conference-by-conference look:
Jump to a conference:
SEC | ACC | Big Ten | Big 12
SEC
Nussmeier’s path through college used to be the norm but has become increasingly rare — a quarterback who waits his turn behind top players, then takes over the starting job when he’s more seasoned, both physically and mentally. Along with Clemson’s Klubnik, Nussmeier received the most consistently strong reviews from opposing coaches.
“Cade and Nussmeier are two studs,” an ACC coach said. “I love both of them.”
Added an SEC coach: “Garrett is a really talented quarterback. He’s obviously going to take a really good step second year as a starter, too.”
Nussmeier is the first LSU quarterback and just the fourth in SEC history to return to his team following a season with at least 4,000 passing yards.
“He’s in the top two or three in the whole country, without question,” said a defensive coordinator set to face Nussmeier this fall. “We’ve got to affect him somehow.”
Sellers grew up admiring Cam Newton and hopes to mimic Newton’s Heisman Trophy-winning breakthrough season of 2010. Like Newton, Sellers has physical gifts that jump out — a 240-pound frame and quickness that makes him difficult to tackle, as Clemson found out in last year’s rivalry loss to the Gamecocks. Sellers rushed for 166 yards and two touchdowns against Clemson, and showcased his dual-threat playmaking ability in games against Texas A&M, Missouri and LSU.
“Sellers really got hot down the stretch,” an SEC coach said. “He’s such a big, imposing, physical kid. Now, can he take the next step in the throw game?”
Other coaches echoed the review on Sellers, whose ability to make head-turning plays is unquestioned. He also showed better accuracy as the season went along, finishing at 65.6% completions.
The key is identifying the right run-pass blend and ultimately being at his best when surveying the field to pass.
“It’s run when you want to, not when you have to,” South Carolina offensive coordinator Mike Shula told ESPN. “We just want him to use [the running ability] as an added layer, icing on the cake. He’s moving toward that, but as he continues to get better on processing mentally and then timing-wise, where he’s trusting himself and the wideouts, that’s when he can really excel.”
Some coaches aren’t quite sold on Sellers.
“I can’t get behind the LaNorris Sellers hype,” an SEC coach said. “He reminds me of Anthony Richardson, and I know Anthony Richardson went fourth overall [in the NFL draft]. Physically, he’s a freak, but is he a great quarterback?”
Mateer has generated a lot of attention from opposing coaches as he makes the jump to Oklahoma from Washington State, alongside offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle. The lightly recruited Texan shined last fall as the Cougars’ starter, leading the FBS in touchdowns responsible for during the regular season (44), and producing the best rushing season for a WSU quarterback — 826 yards, 15 touchdowns — to go with 3,139 passing yards and 29 touchdowns on 64.6% completions.
“He’s a triple threat,” an SEC defensive coordinator said. “He can throw it, he can scramble and they can call runs for him. Those kinds of guys are the ones hard to defend. Very fearless. He’s got all the moxie and the intangibles to go with it.”
Mateer’s intrepid approach jumped out to those who faced him in 2024. But how will he transition to the SEC?
“He’s going to be one of the better quarterbacks in the SEC,” said a coach who faced him in 2024. “If he can stay healthy — because they run him like a running back — they’ll be a much better team. He’s the type of guy who can change your whole culture.”
Mateer’s durability could be the biggest factor in his performance. He’s solidly built at 6-foot-1 and 224 pounds. After setting a WSU record with 178 rushing attempts in 2024 — fifth among quarterbacks and tied for 53rd nationally — Mateer’s workload as a ball carrier will be closely watched.
“He doesn’t look very big,” an SEC defensive coordinator said. “The human body can only take so many hits, and if you’re not a big dude in this league, it’ll take its toll.”
3:34
John Mateer highlights the improvements of Oklahoma’s offense
Mateer joins SEC Now and discusses his plans of stepping up as a leader this season and the impact that offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle has already made on the Sooners’ offense.
Lagway played more than Manning did in 2024, but the two quarterbacks are often paired because of their relative youth and potential. Mississippi State coach Jeff Lebby, who saw both players in 2024 and will face them in consecutive weeks this fall, said of the tandem, “Those are both guys that have got a chance to be elite players, and probably guys that are going to have great control of the offense and their systems.”
After taking over for the injured Graham Mertz, Lagway went 6-1 as Florida’s starter and helped the team to signature wins against Ole Miss and LSU, while capping the season by winning Gator Bowl MVP honors against Tulane. Lagway’s overall arm strength and the variety of throws he makes, especially as a relatively inexperienced quarterback, jump out to coaches.
“He’ll throw off the weirdest platforms,” an SEC coach said. “His feet won’t be in the ground, and the guy still throws at 60 yards. Like, what the f—? It shouldn’t be humanly possible.”
The 6-foot-3, 247-pound Lagway enters the season with some injury concerns, as lingering shoulder issues limited him during the spring, and he sustained a calf injury shortly before training camp.
“With DJ, it’s being able to keep things alive, arm strength, arm angles, all the off-platform things that he can do,” Lebby said. “DJ’s just a great talent.”
Everyone around college football is buzzing about Manning, but coaches understandably are taking a more measured approach toward evaluating a quarterback who hasn’t logged significant snaps. So what do they know about him? He has handled the spotlight well so far, and he brings a new element of athleticism to Texas’ offensive backfield.
“I’ve been watching a lot of his press conferences, and he seems like a pretty level-headed kid,” said a coach who will face Texas this year. “Pretty low-key.”
The coach’s opinion echoes what Texas has seen internally with Manning, with one source there saying, “It’s not lost on him that he’s Arch Manning, that he’s a Manning, what the expectations are. None of that stuff is lost on him. He’s just learned to manage it internally.”
Another of his strengths is movement, which Manning showed last season when he received his most significant playing time against UTSA and Mississippi State. When starting quarterback Quinn Ewers returned from injury, Texas used Manning mostly as a running threat. A Texas source noted that although comparisons will be made to Manning’s uncles, Peyton and Eli, Manning plays more like his namesake, grandfather Archie Manning, who rushed for 2,197 yards in his NFL career, significantly more than Peyton and Eli’s combined total of 1,234 yards.
“He comes from a good bloodline,” an SEC defensive coordinator said. “I know he’ll have all the attributes, the want-to and how to work, all those things.”
Reed opened the 2024 season as Conner Weigman‘s backup but soon became Texas A&M’s starter, displaying impressive dual-threat skills that helped him lead SEC quarterbacks in both rushing yards per game (49.4) and yards per carry (4.7). He had a big performance at Florida and rallied Texas A&M past then-No. 8 LSU with three rushing touchdowns.
The redshirt freshman finished the season with 1,864 passing yards, 15 touchdowns and 6 interceptions. When training camp opened, Reed addressed the perception that he’s a run-first quarterback with limited passing ability, and there’s hope internally that he will display significant growth this fall.
“You’re hoping to see the natural development of him as a leader,” coach Mike Elko told ESPN. “This is his offense now. He’s had the ability to make those connections, to do the leadership things behind the scenes, and then him on the field, it’s him being fully comfortable in the schemes, in the progressions and the passing game. He got a little bit more comfortable, and we got more comfortable, too.”
Reed’s development has been consistent, and Texas A&M’s coaches think he can thrive in throwing the ball to NC State transfer KC Concepcion, among others.
“He threw the ball well,” an SEC defensive coordinator said. “They return a lot, offensive line, him. They had a bunch of receivers transfer out, but I think they did a good job in the portal.”
ACC
Coaches view Klubnik through a similar lens to Nussmeier, with respect for his talent level, experience and development.
The difference is Klubnik will be entering his third season as Clemson’s starter and third under offensive coordinator Garrett Riley. Klubnik has amassed 7,180 career passing yards and 57 career touchdowns, and made significant jumps for both yards (795) and touchdowns (17) from his sophomore to junior season.
“He’s gotten so much better,” an SEC coach said. “When you watch him versus Georgia [in the 2024 opener] to the Texas game, it’s incredible. What makes him dangerous is his ability to tuck the ball and get vertical. … Their best play is quarterback draw.”
Several coaches echoed that observation about Klubnik, who last fall had about the same number of carries as he did in 2023 but saw a nice jump in rushing yards to 463 and had seven rushing touchdowns.
“He’s not just like a pure dropback, that’s not him,” a Power 4 defensive coordinator said. “He’s good at that, but that’s not his strength. It’s when he has to create something, that’s what makes him dangerous.”
Klubnik has established himself as a top college quarterback, but coaches think there’s another step to his game.
“He’s good, but he ain’t Trevor Lawrence,” an ACC coach said. “I don’t think he’s a first-rounder. He’s a good player, but if it’s covered, he’s not throwing it. He doesn’t have the faith to do that.”
2:16
Cade Klubnik’s best TDs from this season
Check out some of Cade Klubnik’s best touchdowns from this season as he announces his return to Clemson.
Beck is one of the more fascinating quarterbacks to analyze, and also among the most polarizing for coaches. He had an undeniably great season in 2023, when he completed a blistering 72.4% of his passes for 3,941 yards and 24 touchdowns with Georgia. Without two-time John Mackey Award winner Brock Bowers and others last season, Beck looked shakier, throwing 12 interceptions during a six-game midseason stretch.
He completed at least 69.7% of his passes in four of the first six games but then eclipsed 65% just once the rest of the season. After surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his right (throwing) elbow, Beck joined Miami for his final college season.
“He always played well against us, and I thought a lot of him,” an SEC defensive coordinator said. “He maybe threw some balls he shouldn’t have, but he was super talented and he has a lot of confidence. It’ll be interesting [at Miami].”
Miami coach Mario Cristobal has been very pleased with Beck since his arrival this winter.
“You start observing practice and you see some of the things that he gets us into in an awesome way, and some of the things he can get us out of,” Cristobal told ESPN. “And then the autocorrect when we don’t have a positive play, the ability to bounce back from that and take ownership for it, even if it’s somebody else’s doing. He’s going to find a way to bring people together.”
Some coaches can’t get past Beck’s midseason struggles in 2024.
“He’s a turnover machine,” an SEC coordinator said. “There might have been some drops, but there might have been some dropped interceptions, too. The guy just throws it to the other team. He makes some good throws, but as a quarterback, that’s tough to overcome. He was just fortunate how good they were on defense.”
Beck averaged 1.62 yards per carry as Georgia’s starter, raising some questions about his mobility. “Beck’s good, but Beck can’t move,” an ACC coach said. But Cristobal has been surprised by how Beck moves around
“He’s athletic, man,” Cristobal said. “He can throw it, he can throw it on the run, he can run it. He’s a big cat. I didn’t realize how big he was until he got here. So there’s a lot of things to be excited about.”
1:57
Carson Beck’s best plays of the season for Georgia
Take a look at Carson Beck’s best plays of 2024 for Georgia after announcing his intention to enter the transfer portal.
Jennings is another interesting quarterback to evaluate, as he helped SMU to an unlikely playoff appearance in its first year as an ACC member but fell apart at Penn State in a first-round loss, throwing three interceptions, two of which were returned for Nittany Lions touchdowns. Jennings also was intercepted in an ACC championship game loss to Clemson and threw three picks in an overtime win at Duke.
He completed 65% of his passes for 3,245 yards and 23 touchdowns, and was a solid run threat, especially in the first half of the season.
“He’s unorthodox,” an ACC defensive coordinator said. “When you first watch him, you think, ‘OK, this kid’s not fundamentally sound, and his footwork is bad, and his mechanics aren’t great honestly,’ but then it’s like, dang, he just keeps making accurate throw after accurate throw on the move. He’s so unorthodox, but he’s so effective, and he can run. So I think he’s legit good.”
SMU coach Rhett Lashlee likes what he has seen from Jennings since the Penn State game, both from a physical approach and mentally.
“He’s probably put on 10 or 12 pounds in the offseason, which is great,” Lashlee said. “Just a bustle that helped his frame. And mentally, he’s an unquestioned leader of our team. He’s been awesome. He’s got a lot of confidence. He’ll be him, he’ll be fine.”
Moss had his breakout performance at USC against Louisville in the 2023 Holiday Bowl — 372 passing yards, six touchdowns — and now joins the Cardinals as the latest transfer quarterback under coach Jeff Brohm. He had some good moments with the Trojans, including the 2024 opening win against LSU, but struggled with interceptions and in road games.
A fifth-year senior, Moss follows NFL second-round draft pick Tyler Shough with Brohm, whose creative and aggressive offensive system gives Louisville a chance in every game.
“Miller Moss is good. I liked him, always, out of high school, and then Brohm’s really good,” an ACC coach said. “Miller is in a system that fits him.”
Moss is a smart and skilled quarterback, but some wonder about his ability to improvise.
“He’s a really good system guy,” a Big Ten defensive coordinator said. “Brohm will do really well with him because he’s such a quarterback-friendly coach. Moss is very systematic. If things get off schedule, he struggles. He can’t create with his legs. He doesn’t make a lot of creating-type plays, but if everything’s on schedule, he’s a machine. He’s a robot.”
Brohm told ESPN that Moss, like Shough in coming in from Texas Tech last year, is eager to prove himself. Brohm has tried to put Moss in pressurized situations against the starting defense to improve his decision-making and limit the mistakes that surfaced during the middle part of the 2024 season.
“He’s an intelligent quarterback,” Brohm said. “He can control where he’s throwing it, which not everyone can do. When he’s confident and things happen in rhythm and he knows where to go with the ball, he can produce. It’s the times when things aren’t in rhythm and the timing isn’t quite there and he’s got to adjust and he’s got to make decisions and be a quarterback who can handle a broken play here and there.”
Mensah wasn’t the biggest name on the quarterback transfer market, but his move to Duke — and the reported $8 million deal that came with it — generated significant attention. Duke went all-in to land Mensah, who has three years of eligibility left after an impressive redshirt freshman season at Tulane, where he completed 65.9% of his passes for 22 touchdowns and never had a multi-interception performance.
The Mensah move showed that “Duke is serious about football,” coach Manny Diaz told ESPN, especially coming off three consecutive seasons with eight or more wins. Diaz also liked how Mensah fits with offensive coordinator Jonathan Brewer’s vision. Duke was willing to part ways with quarterback Maalik Murphy, who had a team-record 26 touchdown passes last season.
“He can make the throws similar to what we have to have in our offense, but the mobility is key,” Diaz said. “Not just in terms of QB run game, but the ability to extend plays, make things happen, scramble to throw, scramble to run. Those things, you can already see the difference.”
Some coaches are curious about whether Mensah, who thrived in Tulane’s play-action passing attack, will perform in a Duke offense that has emphasized tempo and quick screens and other passes.
“He’s not a no-brainer,” a Power 4 coach said. “Maalik has a bigger arm than he does.”
“It was a head-scratcher for some that they invested what they did in him,” an ACC defensive coordinator added.
King turns 25 in January and has seen just about everything at the college level. He could be set for his last and best season this fall with Georgia Tech, which is hoping to eclipse seven wins for the first time since 2016 and become an ACC contender. King is among the toughest quarterbacks in the country, having fought through several significant injuries.
He showed much greater accuracy in 2024, throwing only two interceptions in 269 pass attempts and completing an ACC record 72.9% of his passes. King became the first FBS player since at least 1956 to record 2,000 passing yards, 10 touchdown passes, a 70% completion percentage and two or fewer interceptions in a season.
“The sky’s the limit for Haynes,” Georgia Tech offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner told ESPN. “The biggest thing we’ve hammered is: If we can make the routine plays all the time, we’re going to be really tough to handle. It’s continuing to shorten up his stride, shorten up his delivery. He’s a very conscious kid, great football player. We want to hone in the fine details of playing quarterback.”
The challenge for King is staying on the field without overly limiting his aggressive style of play. After recording 737 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns in 2023, King ran for 587 yards and 11 touchdowns last fall.
“Haynes is a tough sucker,” an ACC defensive coordinator said. “Just a great, great player, and a great fit for what they do.”
BIG TEN
Arguably no national championship contender has greater urgency than Penn State, and no quarterback carries a heavier burden than Allar. He looks like a top NFL draft pick at 6-foot-5 and 235 pounds. After two seasons as the starter, he ranks among the top 10 in team history in most statistical categories and in the top five in several, including first in career completion percentage (62.9) and interception percentage (1.19).
The knock on Allar, fair or unfair, is the same as the one against Penn State under coach James Franklin — the inability to win the biggest games. He’s still searching for his first win against Ohio State, Michigan or Oregon, and his struggles against Notre Dame in a CFP semifinal loss left him teary-eyed and determined to rewrite his story.
“He played so poorly against Notre Dame that he just got destroyed the whole offseason, but in some ways that can be good,” a Big Ten defensive coordinator said. “He’s got all the tools. Obviously he’s big, his body looks good. He’s got better receivers around him. The receivers have been so ineffective there.”
The additions of transfer wide receivers Trebor Pena (Syracuse), Devonte Ross (Troy) and Kyron Hudson (USC) should help Allar, who hasn’t seen an 800-yard wide receiver during his time at Penn State. Franklin told ESPN that Allar has “gotten better every single year,” and he should benefit from his best supporting cast.
“Whether it’s his understanding, whether it’s his command, whether it’s his athleticism, he’s made significant jumps,” Franklin said. “The other thing is going out and finding some guys that are going to make some more plays for him.”
New Penn State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles has a distinct perspective on Allar, having faced him the past two seasons at Ohio State, and now seeing him daily in practices.
“I didn’t know him as a person, but he’s got a great work ethic and wants to learn,” Knowles told ESPN. “It’s like when I first got to Ohio State and CJ Stroud was asking me all kinds of questions. You don’t know any of this when you play them, but he’s got those leadership skills and traits, and the team really follows him.”
0:58
How will Drew Allar respond to pressure this season?
A.Q. Shipley joins “The Pat McAfee Show” to discuss how Drew Allar will respond when his back is against the wall.
Altmyer grew up loving the SEC and began his college career in his favorite conference, but he has made a much bigger impact since leaving Ole Miss for the Big Ten and Illinois, where he enters his third season as the starter. He can go down as an Illini legend, as the team has a realistic chance for its first CFP appearance and consecutive 10-win seasons for the first time.
Despite receiving overtures from Tennessee to transfer, Altmyer is back with Illinois, where he went through some challenges in 2023 and nearly quit after the season, only to return and pass for 2,217 yards with 22 touchdowns and only six interceptions last fall.
“He’s a good player; he’s going to be third year in the system,” a Big Ten defensive coordinator said. “I think he’s a good athlete. He can throw it.”
Last season restored Altmyer’s confidence, and Illinois’ coaches expect him to adjust well to the inevitable ebbs and flows.
“The biggest difference in him is his volume [of play], which is reflected in his confidence, not just for him, but his players around him, and then just the experience,” Illinois coach Bret Bielema told ESPN.
Added Illinois offensive coordinator Barry Lunney Jr.: “You’re going to come up short and make mistakes, but he’s at the point of his career, he’s played enough ball that he knows how to navigate away from those.”
The Hoosiers have given themselves a chance to sustain success, in part because of key portal pickups including Mendoza, who started 19 games at Cal and last season had one of the school’s top 10 passing seasons (3,004 yards, 144.59 rating, 68.7% completions). Although Kurtis Rourke is a big loss, Mendoza brings Power 4 experience and had success despite some trouble spots around him at Cal.
“He’s a big, tall guy, very mobile, and has a quick release with a strong arm, throws the ball well from the pocket and on the move,” Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti told ESPN. “He’s got a body of work from Cal. He’s got areas to improve and he knows that, but he certainly has a lot of talent. I feel really, really confident in him.”
The 6-foot-5, 225-pound Mendoza had only 191 net rushing yards during two seasons at Cal, but he can scramble to find space to throw. He cut down his interceptions total last fall and improved his completion percentage by 5.7 points. A Big Ten general manager said of Mendoza, “You’re watching a first-round quarterback when you watch that guy throw routes.”
“He’s very similar to the guy they had last year, Rourke,” a Big Ten recruiting director said. “They’re similar builds, they have similar games. They’re both not going to kill you with legs, they’re not going to be able to really drop it into a bucket from that far out. But they have the arm strength, there’s a big frame, they work well within the offense, and they play to their skill set.”
Williams is technically a new starter but gained valuable experience last fall, starting the rivalry game against Oregon and the Sun Bowl against Louisville, where he threw a pick-six on his first pass attempt, then proceeded to complete 26 of 31 attempts for 374 yards and four touchdowns, while adding 48 rushing yards and a score.
He also saw meaningful playing time against UCLA, Iowa and Penn State, and finished the season with 944 passing yards, completing 78.1% of his attempts.
“Starting those last two games was huge for him, and it was great that he played in all the games,” Washington offensive coordinator Jimmie Dougherty told ESPN. “You see those reps have added up. Now he has some experience to draw from, and he’s just getting rid of the ball. He’s making great decisions. And he’s always been a great decision-maker.”
Williams, who followed the coaching staff from Arizona to Washington, has become the “unquestioned leader of the team” this offseason, Dougherty said. While many quarterbacks with Williams’ athleticism lean toward running the ball when the opportunity arises, the redshirt freshman has shown an inclination to remain in the pocket. A Power 4 coordinator said he has some Kyler Murray in his style of play.
“It’s much harder to coach guys the other way, the guys who have relied on their feet most of their careers, to now get them to be comfortable sitting in the pocket and going through a progression,” Dougherty said. “We love the fact that he wants to get rid of the ball and hit his receivers on time, get the ball out of his hand. That’s been the biggest thing that I’ve seen in fall camp is how fast he’s getting rid of the ball now, making good, clean decisions in the pocket.”
Coaches outside of Eugene, Oregon, haven’t seen much of Moore since the 2023 season, which he opened as UCLA’s starter after arriving as the nation’s No. 2 overall recruit. He went through some predictable struggles that fall, and one coach who faced the Bruins said it “looked messy” back then.
But Moore transferred to Oregon and has had more than a year to prepare for the starting job, playing behind Dillon Gabriel last fall and attempting only eight passes in four games.
“I see the arm talent, the ability to operate, very similar to what Bo [Nix] and Dillon had done,” Oregon coach Dan Lanning told ESPN. “He can check plays. He’s probably more similar to Dillon from a pocket presence standpoint, but more similar to Bo in the ability to really put us in really advantageous plays.”
Lanning views Moore more in line with predecessors Gabriel and Nix, but opposing coaches don’t expect him to be nearly as mobile. Gabriel had 25 rushing touchdowns in his final three college seasons (one at Oregon), while Nix rushed for 20 scores during two seasons at Oregon.
“Dante is pro-style,” a Power 4 coach said. “If Dante ran a 40, he’d run a 4.9.”
UCLA made the biggest splash of the spring portal in adding Iamaleava, who helped Tennessee to a CFP appearance last season, his first as the Vols starter. A former top 25 national recruit, Iamaleava grew up not far from UCLA’s campus but went to Tennessee on a then-historic NIL deal.
The 6-foot-6, 215-pound Iamaleava has undeniable physical gifts and a full year as an SEC starter under his belt. But he had only the late spring and summer to connect with his teammates and absorb the offense under new coordinator Tino Sunseri. Iamaleava had 2,930 passing yards and 21 touchdowns at Tennessee, while throwing only five interceptions and adding 435 rushing yards and six scores.
“He’s a true leader and I just love how he approaches the day, how he just approached our players, how he approached coming into the team so late,” Bruins coach DeShaun Foster told ESPN. “It wasn’t just like, ‘I’m Nico’ and this. He wanted to really get in there and work. I wanted to see him in the huddle. I had already seen him in high school and all of that before, so that was good. It was just more, I wanted to see him command, and how is he around the other players? But he’s been great.”
The talent is there with Iamaleava, whose ability to adjust quickly will be tested.
“That’s a kid that is tough as nails,” said a defensive coordinator who will face UCLA this fall. “When he runs, he doesn’t look to slide. He can sling it. With development, he’s going to be one of the top dudes in the country. He’s 6-6, tough to take down, can throw every ball. Needs a little bit more accuracy in the deep ball, but can throw it wherever he needs to put it. His eye progression needs a bit of work, but my guess is with another year, he’s worked through that.”
BIG 12
Leavitt led Arizona State to an unlikely Big 12 title and CFP appearance in his first season as the Sun Devils’ starter last fall. He displayed a skill set that coach Kenny Dillingham expects will propel him to the NFL, setting a team freshman record with 3,328 yards of total offense, and posting a 21-4 touchdown-to-interception ratio during his final nine games.
His decision-making stood out for a young quarterback, and he didn’t shy away from shot plays, recording eight completions of 50 yards or more, most in the Big 12 and tied for second most in the FBS. Leavitt handled pressure well and was an effective scrambler with 435 yards, second most among FBS quarterbacks.
“The way this guy can make plays with his feet, he’s got great instincts,” said a coach who faced Arizona State in 2024. “He can diagnose. Really an elite player for them. The plays he was able to make on third down and create with his legs, it was all year long and pretty special.”
Arizona State finished 18th nationally in third-down conversion rate, as Leavitt moved the chains both with passes under pressure and scrambles. Leavitt told ESPN his goal this fall is “to get to the point where I feel like me and my coach are at the same spot in how we view the game.”
“All the football stuff, everybody sees, everybody sees the talent,” Dillingham said. “He cares. He’s intelligent, he’s competitive, he has the off-the-field X factors that allow him to achieve that level.”
A Big 12 defensive coordinator added of Leavitt: “If you’re going to say, ‘Who’s your top competitor?’ It’s probably that kid.”
Hoover has started the past season and a half for TCU and last fall set the team single-season passing record with 3,949 yards. He was a chunk-play machine, leading the Big 12 and ranking fifth nationally in completions of 20 yards or longer (61). His performance hasn’t generated much national attention, partly because of the team’s uneven starts.
But Hoover will be in the spotlight right away this fall as TCU opens at North Carolina in a standalone Monday game, the first of the Bill Belichick era with the Tar Heels.
“He’s really talented,” coach Sonny Dykes told ESPN. “He throws the ball as well as any of the guys I’ve coached, and we’ve been lucky to coach some good ones. He’s not as big as some of them, he’s not as fast as others, but just purely throwing the football, he’s really, really good. That can get you in trouble sometimes because he’s like, ‘I can make this throw,’ or he gets bored of checking it down and he wants to challenge himself a little bit more.”
If Hoover balances the wow plays with the mundane ones, he could be among the nation’s best quarterbacks this season.
“He does not take sacks,” a Big 12 defensive coordinator said. “He gets rid of the ball quickly, makes good decisions. I really liked him. He’s tough, good decision-maker, gets the ball out on time.”
When Will Howard transferred from Kansas State to Ohio State, there was a sense within some corners of the Big 12 that the Wildcats would upgrade at quarterback with Johnson. A blazing-fast top 100 recruit from the state, Johnson gave Kansas State a different dimension in the explosive run game. He set a team record with 25 passing touchdowns last fall, while throwing 10 interceptions and adding 605 rushing yards and seven touchdowns.
Johnson’s accuracy and efficiency fell off during the back half of the season, but he entered this fall with higher expectations as a passer. He accounted for all three touchdowns — two passing, one rushing — in Saturday’s season-opening loss to Iowa State in Ireland, completing 21 of 30 attempts for 271 yards with no interceptions.
“It’s just not trying to do so much,” Johnson told ESPN. “Getting the ball to playmakers, letting guys do their things with the ball, not trying to force things, taking checkdowns and then whenever you do get big-play opportunities, you’ve got to connect on them.”
Coaches see Johnson’s throwing ability but say he still must master the nuances of the passing game.
“Extremely athletic,” said a coach who faced Kansas State last year. “As a freshman, he still needed so much more polish, and then the ability to sit in the pocket and go through reads. Looks like he’s still needing some of that.”
Anyone who watched Iowa State’s Week 0 win against Kansas State in Ireland got to see the essence of Becht, who is in his third year as the starter. He had some early struggles on a slick field and would end up completing only half of his passes (14 of 28). But Becht avoided an interception and accounted for all three ISU touchdowns — two passing, one rushing — and the game-clinching pass to Carson Hansen on fourth-and-3.
Becht’s resolve to make winning plays might be his best trait.
“He is a really good quarterback, and he’s got escape-ability, he’s got an incredible feel for the game of football, he can use his feet to make the special play,” ISU coach Matt Campbell told ESPN. “But I think one of the things that makes him really special is that locker room. Boy, they believe in him, maybe as good as any football player that I’ve coached.”
Campbell added of Becht’s best on-field trait: “He’s never pressed to make the wild plays, always makes the right decision on every play. Can he keep doing that at an elite level?”
Becht’s numbers are solid but not league-leading. He was 10th in the Big 12 in completion percentage last season (59.2) and fifth in passing yards per game. But he has a lot of respect around the conference.
“I’m always impressed with what he does for Iowa State,” a Big 12 coach said. “He’s so consistent and steady. He’s kind of like [Brock] Purdy was for them. He just wins games.”
Added a Big 12 defensive coordinator: “I have so much respect for that kid. Tough kid.”
0:37
Rocco Becht dives into the end zone for a Cyclones TD
Rocco Becht scrambles his way into the end zone to put the Cyclones up 24-14.
After being recruited to Mississippi State by the late Mike Leach, Robertson transferred to Baylor and started four games in 2023 with shaky results. He then became Baylor’s QB1 in Week 3 last season and looked very much like the top-60 national recruit he was coming out of Lubbock, Texas. Robertson eclipsed 3,000 passing yards while throwing 28 touchdowns and only nine interceptions.
Despite only 14 starts at Baylor, Robertson ranks among the top eight in team history for categories like passing efficiency (fifth, 144.4), yards per pass attempt (sixth, 8.113) and completion percentage (eighth 60.8). He also has played in three offensive schemes with Leach and Baylor offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes and Jake Spavital.
“I’ve developed a lot as a quarterback,” Robertson said. “I learned a lot from Leach, mentally, how you approach the game, all that stuff, and getting to play for Grimes, pro-style, under center, getting reps at that were great for me. And then now playing for Spav, he’s such a good mental leader. … It’s not something I had on my bingo card playing for three different offensive coordinators, but I think it’s just helping me develop.”
Big 12 coaches are mixed on Robertson, as one said he’s “not as dynamic as the others” in the league’s top QB group. But his strong finish to the 2024 season, plus some long-awaited continuity under the same playcaller, should help his development.
“Just the variations of coverages and blitzes and stuff like that, I thought he handled it well,” a Big 12 defensive coordinator said. “He played pretty comfortably, so they’ve got a chance to be pretty good.”
Daniels is certainly a familiar name around the Big 12 after starting games in each of the past five seasons. He has been a big-play juggernaut when healthy but lost most of the 2023 season to injury and portions of others. Daniels finally made it through a season last fall and had solid passing (2,454) and rushing (439) yards totals, but his accuracy fluttered and he and the team didn’t really surge until later in the season.
He’s back for a sixth year, playing in an offense directed by longtime KU quarterbacks coach Jim Zebrowski. Daniels was near-flawless in Saturday’s season opener against Fresno State, completing 18 of 20 passes for 176 yards and 3 touchdowns, while adding 47 rushing yards.
“I really like the Kansas guy, he’s probably my favorite in the league,” a Big 12 coach said. “When push comes to shove, that guy knows how to just stay calm and make stuff happen.”
Other coaches need to see more consistency from Daniels, especially after last season.
“The Kansas kid is hit and miss,” a Big 12 defensive coordinator said. “He’s kind of hot and cold, but he’s a heck of an athlete.”
The Big 12 is heavy on returning starters, but the most intriguing quarterback transfer in the league arrives at Utah, where quarterback play cratered the past two seasons largely because of Cam Rising’s injuries. Utah went the package-deal route to repair the offense, plucking both Dampier and offensive coordinator Jason Beck from New Mexico, where they averaged 6.9 yards per play and finished No. 24 nationally in scoring on a shaky team.
Dampier earned first-team All-Mountain West honors in 2024 after finishing second in the league in passing yards (3,934) and third in rushing yards (1,116), while leading the league in yards per carry (7.5) and finishing second — behind Heisman Trophy runner-up Ashton Jeanty — with 19 rushing touchdowns. Although Rising had some mobility when healthy, Dampier will bring a dramatically different element to the offense.
“Having him here in spring was huge for us,” coach Kyle Whittingham told ESPN. “He was like another coach on the field because obviously he knows Jason’s offense inside and out. So being able to install a new offense with a new coordinator, with a quarterback who knows it, that’s a big advantage for us. He’s been a huge help for his teammates.”
The challenge for Dampier and Beck is how much to run the 5-foot-11, 210-pound junior, who had 15 or more carries in half of New Mexico’s games last season.
“With a running quarterback, you’ve got to stay healthy,” a Big 12 defensive coordinator said.
Another coach in the league added: “He’s going to see a different kind of athlete in the Big 12, and he was used to in the Mountain West. It’s hard to stay healthy when you’re playing like that.”
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Chris Low
Alabama could be without team captain and starting defensive tackle Tim Keenan III for Saturday’s opener against Florida State after he suffered a lower-body injury in practice.
Coach Kalen DeBoer said Wednesday that Keenan would “probably not” be full go for the game and that he was still being evaluated.
“We’re waiting for the update,” DeBoer said. “I don’t know if I can give you a percentage (on Keenan’s status) and be confident on that. We’ll see.”
Keenan, a fifth-year senior, is one of the anchors of an Alabama defensive line that should be one of the strengths of the team. He’s a two-year starter and one of the strongest leaders on the team.
The Crimson Tide were already without starting running back Jam Miller, who dislocated his collarbone in a scrimmage and is expected to miss multiple games.
Offensive lineman Jaeden Roberts‘ status for Saturday’s opener is also uncertain, according to DeBoer. The fifth-year senior, who has started 21 games over the past two seasons, has been “very limited” in recent practices as he works his way through the NCAA’s concussion protocol.
“He’s making progress, but it’s slow and steady,” DeBoer said.
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