Early Predictions for CFB's Most Intriguing 2020 Starting Quarterback Battles
All four starting quarterbacks in this year's College Football Playoff once featured prominently in significant offseason quarterback battles. Three of them ended up transferring because they didn't win that battle.
Which noteworthy teams are destined for a similarly difficult decision this spring and summer?
It's going to be a long seven months before we start getting a real sense of the quarterback hierarchy at a bunch of prominent schools, but someone has to replace the likes of Tua Tagovailoa, Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts and Justin Herbert.
Let's take a way-too-early look at those four situations (and four others) to try to figure out who will be behind center in September.
Teams are listed in alphabetical order.
Alabama Crimson Tide
1 of 8
The Candidates: Mac Jones (RS Jr.), Taulia Tagovailoa (So.), Bryce Young (Fr.), Paul Tyson (RS Fr.)
With Tua Tagovailoa making the smart, obvious choice to declare for the NFL draft, the race to determine who leads Alabama back to its usual spot in the College Football Playoff next season is officially underway.
As far as experience is concerned, Mac Jones is the runaway favorite. He completed more passes in the Citrus Bowl (16) than the rest of the returning roster has attempted in its collective career (12).
He stepped up in a big way both times Tagovailoa suffered an injury, playing great aside from a pair of pick-sixes in the Iron Bowl—one of which was a rather large fluke, bouncing off Najee Harris' back and into Zakoby McClain's hands. And he was on point in that Citrus Bowl victory over Michigan, setting the tone with an 85-yard pass to Jerry Jeudy on Alabama's first offensive snap.
If playing well in that game was a prerequisite for entering the offseason with an advantage in this battle, he got it.
As far as last name is concerned, though, edge to Taulia Tagovailoa. He was the eighth-best quarterback recruit in the 2019 class, and his older brother was merely the greatest quarterback in program history. Experience all but necessitated that Jones inherit the starting job when Tua went down, but that won't matter as much now that they have about eight months to prepare for the next game instead of one week.
Definitely do not rule out the possibility of Bryce Young coming in and immediately winning the job, though.
Jalen Hurts did so four years ago—coincidentally against the same season-opening opponent as next season, USC—beating out some extremely talented players who had already been on the roster for at least one season. And Young is much more highly touted than Hurts was. The latter was rated as the 13th-best quarterback in the 2016 class. The former is the No. 6 overall recruit in 2020.
Prediction: Nick Saban insists all spring and all summer that he hasn't made a decision, and perhaps all three quarterbacks get at least a series or two in Week 1. However, it'll be clear by the time Alabama faces Georgia in Week 3 that Young is No. 1 on the depth chart.
LSU Tigers
2 of 8
The Candidates: Myles Brennan (RS Jr.), Peter Parrish (RS Fr.), Max Johnson (Fr.), T.J. Finley (Fr.)
This might be the biggest and toughest one of all: How does LSU replace Joe Burrow?
The good news for the Tigers is that Ja'Marr Chase and Terrace Marshall Jr. will both definitely be back, giving Burrow's replacement at least two elite targets. That's a nice starting point when trying to adjust to life without a Heisman winner who threw for well over 5,000 yards this year.
The bad news is there's no obvious candidate for the job, and the Tigers need to be ready to keep pace with a Sam Ehlinger-led Texas offense by Week 2.
Myles Brennan is the only option with experience, but that game film might not give him any sort of advantage. He struggled during limited action in 2017 and didn't show much promise the following spring, which is largely why LSU snagged Burrow from Ohio State and made him the Week 1 starter after just a couple of months with the program.
Maybe Brennan has made major strides since then, or perhaps the spread offense is better suited for his game than what the Tigers were running three years ago. Still, we're talking about a guy with three interceptions in 70 career pass attempts who hasn't had a full game running an offense since he was in high school.
If the Tigers decide to go with a less experienced option, both Peter Parrish and Max Johnson were 4-star recruits. The former didn't see the field in 2019, but at least he has a year in the system and with the playbook. But Parrish does a lot of damage with his feet while Johnson is a more conventional, tall pocket passer. LSU will need to figure out which style fits better with what it wants to do.
Prediction: Brennan enters the offseason as the favorite, but Johnson comes in and pushes him for the job. The battle spills over into the first week of the season with both guys playing multiple series to figure out who should get the start against Texas.
If and when D'Eriq King transfers to LSU, though, go ahead and wipe this debate from the history books. He'll be just as much of a no-brainer Day 1 starter as Jalen Hurts and Justin Fields were after transferring to Oklahoma and Ohio State, respectively.
Oklahoma Sooners
3 of 8
The Candidates: Tanner Mordecai (RS So.), Spencer Rattler (RS Fr.), Chandler Morris (Fr.)
The bar for playing quarterback at Oklahoma is astronomically high these days. Baker Mayfield finished top-four in the Heisman vote during each of his final three seasons in Norman. He left for the NFL as the No. 1 overall draft pick, then Kyler Murray won the Heisman and also went No. 1. Jalen Hurts came in from Alabama and finished second in the Heisman vote this year.
That's five consecutive seasons with one of the best quarterbacks in the nation, which has also resulted in four trips to the College Football Playoff.
Who takes that torch in 2020?
Recruiting experts would certainly expect Spencer Rattler to be the next Sooners star. He was the No. 1 quarterback in the 2019 class while neither Tanner Mordecai (2018) nor Chandler Morris (2020), though both given 4-star grades, was a top-20 quarterback in his class.
But after Murray and Hurts rushed for more than 1,000 yards in back-to-back years, Mordecai's mobility should keep him in the running (no pun intended) throughout the offseason.
Per MaxPreps, Mordecai rushed for 1,131 yards and 23 touchdowns in his senior year of high school, whereas Rattler had 1,040 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns in his 42-game high school career. And while he hasn't played much over the past two seasons, that extra year in the program could be another reason this ends up being more of a legitimate battle than most seem to expect.
Prediction: Barring a significant development, Rattler is the guy. Lincoln Riley picked up Hurts last January because he didn't want to immediately throw Rattler into the fire, especially since he didn't enroll early. But if he doesn't get the job in Year 2, the 5-star standout will likely follow the recent national trend and explore his many options via the transfer portal.
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Oregon Ducks
4 of 8
The Candidates: Tyler Shough (RS So.), Jay Butterfield (Fr.), Cale Millen (RS Fr.), Robby Ashford (Fr.)
It has been three head coaches since Oregon last had a quarterback battle—unless you want to count frantically trying to figure out what the heck to do when Justin Herbert missed five games due to injury in 2017.
Herbert eventually edged out Dakota Prukop in Mark Helfrich's final season in Eugene. Willie Taggart stuck with him (while healthy) for his lone season on the West Coast. And then Mario Cristobal got to enjoy two years devoid of quarterback drama with Herbert attempting more than 96 percent of the team's passes in both years.
So now what?
Herbert is off to (likely) become a first-round draft pick while an inexperienced quarterback will be tasked with running an offense that is losing at least two of its top receivers (Juwan Johnson and Jacob Breeland).
Tyler Shough is the only candidate with experience. Cale Millen missed the entire 2019 season with a shoulder injury while Jay Butterfield and Robby Ashford are both true freshmen. But it's not like Shough was given a taste of playing in tough situations. He only saw the field four times, and the Ducks were up by at least 30 points in each outing.
Even with that grain of salt, his numbers (12-of-15, 144 yards, 3 TD) were impressive, and experience in blowouts is better than no experience at all, right?
If one of the newbies is going to challenge Shough for the job, it will most likely by Butterfield, both because he has the talent to do so and because of the combination of Millen's injury and Ashford not enrolling early. The 6'6" Butterfield is rated as the seventh-best quarterback in this year's class, throwing for 70 touchdowns over the past two years.
Prediction: Shough gets the first crack at the job, but Butterfield will be breathing down his neck, waiting to take over if things go sideways during Oregon's brutal two-week start to the season (home games against North Dakota State and Ohio State).
Penn State Nittany Lions
5 of 8
The Candidates: Sean Clifford (RS Jr.), Will Levis (RS So.), Ta'Quan Roberson (RS Fr.), Michael Johnson Jr. (RS Fr.)
Five games into Penn State's 2019 season, it would've been ridiculous to suggest a quarterback battle this offseason. Sean Clifford had a passer efficiency rating of 182.8, was averaging nearly 300 passing yards per contest and deserved to be somewhere on the outer edges of the Heisman conversation.
His final seven games were decidedly less impressive.
He had a sub-60 completion percentage in all seven. He only once eclipsed 190 passing yards, and that came during the loss to Minnesota in which he threw three interceptions. Clifford got knocked out of the Ohio State game with an injury, and the offense came to life shortly thereafter with Will Levis running the show. And in Clifford's last chance to make a positive statement, he was nothing special in the Cotton Bowl (11-of-20, 133 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT).
While he provided a spark against Ohio State, Levis flopped the following week against Rutgers, leading Penn State to just 333 total yards against one of the worst Power Five teams. He did run for 108 yards in that one, but he finished the season with just 223 passing yards on 47 attempts—a putrid average of 4.7 yards per attempt.
Both Clifford and Levis finished the season with completion percentages below 60.
Will the Nittany Lions go all-in on one of those two next year? Will they split reps until a leader emerges? Or will one of their two 4-star recruits from 2019 (Ta'Quan Roberson and Michael Johnson Jr.) be given a legitimate shot to run the show?
Penn State has top-10 potential, but this quarterback dilemma might lower the ceiling, just like it has for Miami (FL) the past two years.
Prediction: If for no other reason than his experience this year, Clifford wins the job and at least gets the start in Week 2 against Virginia Tech. But how he fares in that critical, difficult nonconference game will dictate who leads the offense through the Big Ten gauntlet.
Tennessee Volunteers
6 of 8
The Candidates: Jarrett Guarantano (RS Sr.), Brian Maurer (So.), J.T. Shrout (RS So.), Harrison Bailey (Fr.), Kasim Hill (Transfer RS Jr.)
This is the most wide-open, who-the-heck-knows battle, but it is a huge one with Tennessee looking like a fringe Top 25 team heading into next season after finishing this one with six consecutive victories.
That's an incredible feat considering its disastrous quarterback situation.
Jarrett Guarantano was supposed to be the guy this year, but he was all over the place from one game to the next. He likely would have lost the job altogether if Brian Maurer hadn't suffered concussions in back-to-back games against Mississippi State and Alabama, forcing the veteran back into action. He ended up playing in all 13 games despite Jeremy Pruitt's attempt to make Maurer the starter.
And, statistically, Guarantano was Tennessee's best quarterback. He completed 59.1 percent of his pass attempts and threw for 16 touchdowns en route to a respectable 144.0 passer efficiency rating. Meanwhile, both Maurer and J.T. Shrout were below 50 percent, and each only looked good for one half of one game. But Guarantano had enough duds to leave the door more than ajar heading into this offseason.
In addition to the three guys who were already battling for the job in 2019, Tennessee will introduce Maryland transfer Kasim Hill and true freshman Harrison Bailey to the mix. The former is recovering from a torn ACL and is the ultimate wild card if he can get and stay healthy. The latter is a 4-star recruit who could immediately be the best passer the Volunteers have had in at least a decade.
Prediction: By the end of the spring, it's a toss-up between Maurer and Bailey, leading Guarantano to pursue his options on the grad-transfer market. If Maurer, who recently underwent knee surgery in addition to the aforementioned concussions, is anything close to 100 percent by the start of spring camp, the job is his to lose. Bailey might force him to lose it, though.
UCF Knights
7 of 8
The Candidates: McKenzie Milton (RS Sr.), Dillon Gabriel (So.), Darriel Mack Jr. (RS Jr.), Quadry Jones (RS So.)
This is the only Group of Five battle we're looking at today, but it could have major Power Five implications.
No one thought Dillon Gabriel would become the starter as a true freshman. This was supposed to be a coin flip between Darriel Mack Jr. and Notre Dame transfer Brandon Wimbush. But the former suffered a broken ankle in July, and the latter lost his job to Gabriel when he was unable to play in the Week 2 game against Florida Atlantic.
Gabriel made the most of his opportunity, though, throwing for 3,653 yards and 29 touchdowns. He torched Stanford for 347 yards and four touchdowns in Week 3 and was interception-free in 10 of 13 games this season.
He did lose three games, though, which is three more losses than UCF suffered in the previous two regular seasons. And in those three losses—each of which was decided by three points or fewer—he tossed a combined seven interceptions.
With McKenzie Milton potentially returning from his gruesome injury at the end of 2018 and with Mack presumably fully healthy, UCF has three legitimate starters to choose from.
While he probably isn't truly in the running for the 2020 job, let's also point out that Quadry Jones has a career 517.0 passer efficiency rating (4-of-4, 120 yards, 2 TD).
Prediction: Gabriel loses the starting job, but he sticks around, possibly taking a redshirt year while preparing to get the gig back in 2021. The battle between Mack and Milton will be closely monitored, as the loser would become a highly coveted portal candidate, particularly if it's Milton. But I expect Milton to get his job back, followed by Mack transferring to Virginia (he's from Norfolk), possibly to replace Bryce Perkins.
Wisconsin Badgers
8 of 8
The Candidates: Jack Coan (Sr.), Graham Mertz (RS Fr.)
Jack Coan was adequate in helping lead Wisconsin to the Big Ten championship and the Rose Bowl. He completed nearly 70 percent of his passes and only threw five interceptions—never more than one in the same game.
But while he arguably wasn't the reason Wisconsin lost a few games, he wasn't often (if ever) the main reason it won, either. There's no question that running back Jonathan Taylor and the Badgers defense were more indispensable to this team's cause.
Coan was a solid game manager, but there's room for improvement, which Graham Mertz could provide if given the opportunity.
Rated the No. 65 overall recruit in last year's class, Mertz was the second-best recruit to choose Wisconsin in at least a decade. (The other was 2019 5-star offensive tackle Logan Brown.) He tossed five touchdowns in the 2019 All-American Bowl and went to Madison with a real chance of starting as a true freshman. However, Paul Chryst went with the veteran who then never played poorly enough to lose the job.
Mertz only appeared in two games, completing 9 of 10 pass attempts against teams from the Mid-American Conference. He'll get to take a redshirt for this year and will enter the offseason with designs of landing at the top of the depth chart.
Prediction: Because Taylor is leaving for the NFL, Wisconsin might need a lot more playmaking from its quarterback than it did for the past three years. And if that's the case, Mertz should be the guy.
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