Looking ahead to 2026 QB class … It certainly appears that there is a growing consensus that this year’s QB crop is not as good as last year’s stellar group which saw 6 players at the position selected in the first dozen picks last April. And that has a lot of people, especially fans and media of QB needy teams with high picks this year, wondering whether those teams might be wiser to pass on the position this coming April in anticipation of maybe getting a better prospect in 2026. Time will tell whether that actually bares out. Of course, 2026 will be the first year that Arch Manning of Texas, nephew of former NFL star QBs Peyton and Eli will be draft-eligible. He’ll almost assuredly enter the season as the #1 prospect overall for that draft. However, while Manning III (actually !V as grandpa Archie was also a star NFL QB) has played well for the Longhorns when he has played 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.
There will likely be several other intriguing 3rd year QBs out there in college football including Nico Iamaleava of Tennessee, Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza, John Mateer of Oklahoma and Maalik Murphy of Oregon State, each of whom has all the tools, but like Manning need to prove it against top-flight competition on a consistent basis. Meanwhile, both Garrett Nussmeier of LSU and Penn State’s Drew Allar would have almost certainly been first-round picks this year had they not decided to return to school, but its not clear if either would have necessarily graded out higher than Cam Ward and/or Shedeur Sanders, the top 2 QBs in this year’s class. Both have high-end tools, but both also have a hole or two in their respective games; Nussmeier, for example, ended up throwing more picks than TD passes in conference play this past fall, while Allar doesn’t always deal with pressure all that well. At the same time, there are several other veteran QBs who at one time or another have been considered to be a top prospect including Carson Beck, who’ll suit up with Miami this fall, Connor Weigman, who moved downstate from Texas A&M to Houston, and Cade Klubnik who’ll be back at Clemson in 2025. Bottom line is that it appears there will indeed be a lot of talent in the 2026 QB class (assuming of course that all, or at least most, opt to enter that draft), but there is still much to prove. Stay tuned. For now, here is a very preliminary listing of the top QB prospects for 2026. .
