Power Ranking College Football's Top 15 QBs Heading into Week 5
Now more than ever, college football is a quarterback's game. Don't have a good one and a team's chances for success are drastically lowered, since monster running backs who can carry an offense like LSU's Leonard Fournette are the exception rather than the rule.
Take a glance at the latest Associated Press Top 25 and you'll find that most of the highest-ranked teams are led by a top-notch quarterback. It's not the only reason they're succeeding, but it certainly helps. It's also a contributing factor for most of the teams that are off to better-than-expected starts, as strong quarterback play has paced the early achievements.
A number of factors go into determining how good a college football quarterback is, however. With so many different systems in use, not every one has the same kind of numbers that would allow for a strict numerical comparison, so in power ranking the best in FBS we've put together a formula that takes into account total offense (and the percent of a team's output they're responsible for), completion percentage, yards per pass attempt, touchdown and interception rate and quarterback rating as well as how well their team is performing in 2015.
Check out our ranking of the top 15 quarterbacks in college football heading into Week 5, then give us your thoughts in the comments section.
Honorable Mention
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We looked at dozens of quarterbacks for this ranking, taking into account those who sat at the top of various statistical charts and those who've made the biggest headlines this season. We narrowed the field down to 15, but here are some of the others that just missed the cut:
- Tommy Armstrong Jr., Nebraska
- Jacoby Brissett, North Carolina State
- Connor Cook, Michigan State
- Luke Falk, Washington State
- Kevin Hogan, Stanford
- Brad Kaaya, Miami (Florida)
- Dak Prescott, Mississippi State
- Josh Rosen, UCLA
- Mason Rudolph, Oklahoma State
- Anu Solomon, Arizona
- Deshaun Watson, Clemson
14. (tie) Patrick Mahomes II, Texas Tech
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Patrick Mahomes II has accounted for two-thirds of Texas Tech's offense this season, with 1,421 passing yards and 165 rushing yards along with 16 total touchdowns. Last week he fought through an ankle injury to tally 428 yards of total offense and three total TDs in the Red Raiders' near upset of unbeaten TCU.
The sophomore, whose father Pat Mahomes pitched for 11 years in the major leagues, is the latest in a long line of prolific passers that Texas Tech has churned out in its Air Raid offense. But he brings the added element of mobility that most of his predecessors haven't had, as his 269 rushing yards in 11 career games is more than all but 15 other quarterbacks in school history and the most since Zebbie Lethridge ran for 845 yards from 1994-97.
Mahomes had the best overall game of his career last November against Baylor, the team Texas Tech faces this weekend. In their last meeting, Mahomes threw for 598 yards and six TDs, both career highs.
14. (tie) Jared Goff, California
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Jared Goff appears headed for a big payday in the spring if he decides to turn pro after his junior season. Bleacher Report's Matt Miller has him atop his 2016 NFL draft big board, and as Goff continues to push California toward its best season in years, his stock is going to continue to rise.
But so far in four games in 2015 he's actually trending slightly below what he did last season as a sophomore.
Goff is averaging 310 passing yards per game with 11 touchdowns and two interceptions, and last week he threw for 342 yards with two TDs and a pick in a win at Washington for the Golden Bears' first 4-0 start since 2007. In 2014, Goff threw for 3,973 yards and 35 TDs with only seven interceptions in 509 throws.
Already Cal's career passing yardage leader (and tied with Kyle Boller for the school TD mark at 64), Goff is in line to be the Bears' first quarterback drafted since Aaron Rodgers in 2005.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
13. Dane Evans, Tulsa
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Dane Evans is reaping the benefits of getting to work with new coach Phillip Montgomery, who has brought the high-powered offense he ran as Baylor's offensive coordinator to Tulsa with good results so far. The Golden Hurricane are 2-1, matching last season's win total, ranking fourth in FBS in total offense at 607 yards per game.
Evans is third nationally in passing, at 390.7 yards per game, with the junior throwing for 427 yards and four touchdowns in a 52-38 loss at Oklahoma two weeks ago. He was intercepted 17 times last year and threw two picks in Tulsa's opening win this season against Florida Atlantic, but he's gone without one over his last 93 attempts.
12. Matt Johnson, Bowling Green
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If you don't know who Matt Johnson is, it's either because you don't pay enough attention to quarterbacks that come out of the Mid-American Conference or aren't a fan of Maryland, Purdue or Tennessee. Those are the power-conference teams he's torched with his passing this year, to the tune of 1,317 yards and nine touchdowns, helping Bowling Green win at Maryland and Purdue.
Johnson leads the nation in passing yards, at 440 per game, with 13 TDs. He threw for 3,467 yards and 25 TDs as a sophomore in 2013 and threw for 313 yards in Bowling Green's 2014 opener before going down with a season-ending hip injury.
If the Falcons can win the MAC's East Division and thus be able to play 14 games this season, Johnson has a chance to challenge the FBS passing record of 5,833 yards set by Texas Tech's B.J. Symons in 2003.
11. Kyle Allen, Texas A&M
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Kyle Allen took over as Texas A&M's quarterback midway through his true freshman season in 2014, and his play down the stretch helped the Aggies go 3-2 and beat West Virginia in the Liberty Bowl. This year A&M is unbeaten after one month, with Allen piloting an offense that averages 41.5 points and 471.5 yards per game.
But Allen was briefly benched in A&M's season-opening win over Arizona State in favor of freshman Kyler Murray, though he ended up being the quarterback making the big plays down the stretch in that game and since then he's been nearly flawless. In two of the past three games, Allen has completed at least 75 percent of his passes, and he's coming off a career-high 358 yards with two touchdowns in the overtime win over Arkansas.
10. Chad Kelly, Ole Miss
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Ole Miss only had one question mark on offense heading into the 2015 season, that being who would come in and replace gunslinger Bo Wallace at quarterback. Chad Kelly was that man, and to this point he's had plenty of positive answers.
The junior, who began his career at Clemson before getting booted from that program and spending a year in junior college, has been an integral part of the Rebels' stellar offense and a key reason they're 4-0 and ranked third in the country. He's thrown for 1,219 yards and 10 touchdowns so far, adding three rushing scores for good measure.
Kelly has topped 300 passing yards in his last three games, including Ole Miss' 43-37 win at Alabama when he threw for 341 yards and three scores. Last week he was intercepted twice in a sluggish victory against Vanderbilt, though, which took some of the shine off his performance this season.
9. Seth Russell, Baylor
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Seth Russell has made it look way too easy this season as Baylor's quarterback. Then again, the Bears offense is so explosive and the scheme is so flawless there's a wonder if it's possible for someone to not have success playing that position.
Russell is tied for the FBS lead in touchdown passes, with 15, and he's done that in just 80 attempts. That's a score on 18.8 percent of his throws, far and away the best among full-time starters, and last week against Rice six of his 12 completions were for TDs.
The junior has some accuracy issues, though, having thrown four interceptions already this year compared to the seven that Bryce Petty had in 428 attempts in 2014. Baylor's offense scores so fast and so frequently it can afford to make a few mistakes, but as the games get tougher now that Big 12 play is starting, Russell will need to work on this.
8. Trevone Boykin, TCU
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Since we used a statistical formula to put this ranking together, the numbers played a major role in how things ended up. That explains why Trevone Boykin isn't higher on this list, despite ranking second in the country in total offense at 415 yards per game.
When lined up against the other top quarterbacks in FBS, though, his other stats haven't been as strong so far. Boykin is without question a great athlete and the player who makes TCU's potent offense move so well, but he's not without his mistakes. His 64.7 percent completion rate is a career high, but it's only tied for 40th in the country. While his 14 touchdown passes is third nationally, he's needed 153 attempts to get them.
And Boykin has thrown three interceptions, one in each of the Horned Frogs' first three games, though last week in the crazy win at TCU he was mistake-free while accounting for 527 yards and four TDs.
As the year moves on, expect Boykin to rise on this list as long as he continues to lead TCU to wins and puts up big numbers.
7. Brandon Doughty, Western Kentucky
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Brandon Doughty led the nation in passing yards (4,830) and touchdowns (49) in 2014, and that was supposed to be the final season of his injury-riddled career. But in December the NCAA granted him a sixth year of eligibility, making up for two that were almost completely taken away by knee surgeries, and now he's on his way to another big year.
Through four games, Doughty has thrown for 1,591 yards with 11 touchdowns on 74.2 percent passing. He only had 209 yards and a TD in the opener, but that was enough for Western Kentucky to win at Vanderbilt, and since then he's topped 400 yards in each game. That includes going for 457 yards with six TDs against Miami, Ohio.
That was Doughty's seventh 400-yard game and sixth with at least five TD passes.
6. Greg Ward Jr., Houston
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There were a lot of reasons why Tom Herman was able to land the Houston job last winter, most notably how well he handled Ohio State's unique quarterback situation in 2014 as the team's offensive coordinator. The way he turned J.T. Barrett from an inexperienced redshirt freshman into the owner of numerous school records was integral to the Buckeyes' run to a national title.
Now Herman's doing the same with his new team and new quarterback, Greg Ward Jr. A wide receiver who moved back to QB midway through the 2014 season, Ward accounted for 19 TDs that year and got the Cougars to eight wins. This year, with Herman's guidance, the junior has become one of the best dual-threat passers in the nation.
He's averaging 358.3 yards of total offense per game, throwing for 785 yards (on 75.3 percent passing, third-best in FBS) and eight TDs while rushing for 290 yards with four scores. Not surprisingly, Houston is 3-0 with a win at Louisville to its credit, and the offense is putting up more than 48 points per game.
5. Paxton Lynch, Memphis
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Memphis used to be one of the worst programs in the country, winning only 12 games in a five-year span from 2009-13. Paxton Lynch was the Tigers' starting quarterback as a redshirt freshman in 2013, with only nine touchdowns and 10 interceptions during a 3-9 season.
Since then, Lynch—and the Tigers—has been nearly unstoppable, going 10-3 last year and sharing the American Athletic Conference title and starting this season 4-0. Lynch threw for more than 3,000 yards with 22 TDs and set a school record for total offense thanks to 13 rushing TDs.
But none of that compares to what Lynch has done this year. He's thrown for 1,230 yards with eight TDs and zero interceptions while completing 73.5 percent of his throws, coming off a career-high 412-yard performance in Memphis' wild 53-46 win over Cincinnati last week.
4. Greyson Lambert, Georgia
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From dethroned starter at a low-end ACC school to the offensive guide of one of an SEC (and national title) contender, Greyson Lambert has had a wild last few months.
During the spring he lost out to Matt Johns for the quarterback job at Virginia, despite starting nine games there in 2014. He graduated in May, and with two years of eligibility remaining he transferred to Georgia in hopes of being able to contribute on a winner, and he ended up beating out several other players for the starting gig.
Not much is being asked of Lambert because Georgia has such a strong crop of running backs, first and foremost being sophomore Nick Chubb. But instead of just being a so-called "game manager," Lambert so far has been an integral part of the offense thanks to his amazing accuracy of late.
A 59 percent passer last season (and 44 percent as a freshman), Lambert ranks second in FBS with a 76.5 completion rate. He's thrown two incompletions in Georgia's last two games, going 24 of 25 against South Carolina on Sept. 19 to set a national record for accuracy.
3. Baker Mayfield, Oklahoma
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The choice to go with Baker Mayfield as its starting quarterback for 2015 seemed to make sense in that the Texas Tech transfer already had experience operating the Air Raid offense the Sooners were set to use this season. And through three games, he's made sure that decision wasn't a bad one.
Mayfield is coming off a school-record performance against Tulsa when he had 572 yards of total offense, throwing for 487 yards and adding 85 on the ground while accounting for six of Oklahoma's seven touchdowns in that game. For the year, the junior is averaging 400.3 yards of total offense per game and has registered 14 TDs (10 passing, four rushing).
His first two games this year were hot and cold, as he didn't show much in terms of mobility in the opener against Akron or early on at Tennessee while in that game he struggled throwing the ball too. That is, until the fourth quarter and overtime when on four consecutive drives he either threw or ran for a TD.
"It shouldn't come as a huge surprise that Mayfield has performed so well," Bleacher Report's Ben Kercheval wrote. "He was the Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year at Texas Tech in 2013. It's not like he came out of nowhere."
2. Skyler Howard, West Virginia
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West Virginia's defense, which ranks first in the nation in allowing 7.7 points per game, has been the main reason the Mountaineers head into their Big 12 opener at Oklahoma at 3-0. But that unit might not be able to be as aggressive and take as many risks if Skyler Howard weren't operating the offense so well.
In his first season as a full-time starter, the junior has thrown nine touchdown passes with one interception and is completing 69 percent of his throws. That's a vast improvement over last year, when after taking over midway through a November loss to Kansas State his completion rate was 51.8 percent over three games. In West Virginia's bowl loss to Texas A&M, he was just 20 of 45, albeit for 346 yards and three TDs.
Howard is averaging 305.3 passing yards per game this season, and though he's been sacked six times he's also gained 88 yards via scrambles and designed runs.
1. Cody Kessler, USC
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There were quite a few stories during the offseason about how underrated Cody Kessler has been throughout his career, particularly in 2014 when he was outshined in his own league by the likes of Oregon's Marcus Mariota and UCLA's Brett Hundley despite putting up great numbers. The same could be the case this year, but the senior continues to produce at a stellar rate.
Kessler is tied for the FBS lead with 15 touchdown passes through the first month of his senior year, and last week he threw his first interception since December's Holiday Bowl. He's completing 73 percent of his throws, better than the 69.7 percent he had in 2014 that was a school record, and he's averaging 10.6 yards per pass attempt.
And though USC slipped at home two weeks ago against Stanford, it wasn't because of his play. Kessler was 25 of 32 for 272 yards and three TDs, then followed that up with his fourth career game with at least five TD passes in a blowout win at Arizona State.
"He's a better athlete than people probably give him credit for," USC coach Steve Sarkisian said, per Gary Klein of the Los Angeles Times. "He's worked at it this off-season and it showed the other night."
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
