We’ve been trying to come up with a word or phrase that best describes the QB class for the upcoming draft. And the phrase we settled on is: To be Determined! On the one hand, it appears that will be a lot of talent at the position next fall. At the same time, though, almost all the top QBs in college football this coming fall will have remaining eligibility after the upcoming season and given the new NIL landscape in college football it will certainly be increasingly tempting for young pro prospects to extend their years in school to maximize those payments.
Time will tell how that actually plays out, but we could very well get an early indication this coming season as the two QBs who are generally considered to be the top guys in this year’s class – Arch Manning of Texas and South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellars – will both be in just their 3rd year this fall and both still have things to prove. Manning, for example, who is the grandson of one former #1 pick overall and the nephew of two others, will likely enter the season as the #1 prospect overall for the upcoming draft, has played well for the Longhorns when he has played, but the reality is that he hasn’t played all that much to date. Indeed, he’s thrown fewer than 100 passes thru his first two years in college and hasn’t really been tested yet in SEC play. Meanwhile, for his part, Sellars has elite tools, such that there are whispers that more than one team actually currently has a higher grade on him than Manning, but he’s still rough around the edges as a pocket passer.
Manning and Sellars, though, are not the only 3rd year QBs pro scouts are intrigued to see this fall. One we are particularly interested in watching is John Mateer who transferred from Washington State to Oklahoma where he will be tested by quality SEC defenses, while other top 3rd year QBs include Sam Leavitt of Arizona State and Nico Iamaleava, who left Tennessee for UCLA after a dispute over money.We are also tempted to include Fernando Mendosa of Indiana and Oregon State’s Maalik Murphy in with this group although they are actually 4th year juniors. Mendosa had emerged as something of a cult-figure at California the past couple of years, but somewhat surprisingly made the jump to the Big Ten where he will get the chance to perform on a bigger stage. For his part, Murphy is a former big-time recruit at Texas with increasing raw tools including prototype size and arm strength, but needs some polish.
At the same time, a half dozen or so ‘veteran’ QBs who were considered, at least at some point, to be legitimate first-round prospects last year, but ultimately opted to return to school including Garrett Nussmeier of LSU, Clemson’s Cade Klubnik, and Drew Allar of Penn State along with Carson Beck who transferred from Georgia to Miami and Connor Weigman, who moved downstate from Texas A&M to Houston. Nusssmeier, for example, who very likely would have been the second QB taken after Cam Ward this past April if he had entered the draft; he’s the leading returning passer in college football this fall who is the son of a coach and has elite physical tools, although he did end up throwing more picks than TD passes in conference play last fall. There is a similar story for PSU’s Allar who led the Nittany Lions to the CFP semi-finals last, but but doesn’t necessarily always deal with pressure all that well. In fact, it is possible that if one took a poll of pro scouts on who is the top returning QB this year, Clemson’s Klubnik, who very quietly had a very good year last fall, would actually get the most votes. Meanwhile, one other guy who has been around and is getting a little bit of buzz is Haynes King of Georgia Tech who rates as something of a sleeper; he’s an excellent athlete who can make plays with his legs, but then emerged as one of the most efficient passers in college football last fall.
Bottom line is that it appears there will indeed be a lot of talent at QB in college football next fall with as many as a dozen guys with at least some first round potential, but still no real leader in the Trevor Lawrence-Caleb Williams class. At the same time, it is still very much to be determined which of those top passers opt to actually enter the 2026 draft such that no one should be surprised if 2027 actually ends up being the next ‘big’ draft year at the position. For now, here is our pre-season listing of the top QB prospects.
