Armed and dangerous: an early preview/ranking of the 2024 QB class … It is probably a little early to be calling 2024 ‘the year of the QB’ when it comes to next year’s draft, but it is certainly setting up to be a very interesting class. Of course, it starts with Southern Cal’s Caleb Williams, this year’s Heisman trophy inner, who looked all the part of the second coming of Patrick Mahomes and is the early consensus favorite to be the #1 pick at next April’s draft. There also isn’t much doubt that Williams would have been the runaway choice to be the first player selected this year if he had been draft eligible. A pretty good case could also be made the North Carolina’s Drake Maye would also have been the first player selected had he be been eligible for the 2023 draft.
At the same time, there is something of a drop-off to the next tier of QBs, although there are several other intriguing young passers around the country who could get some later first-round interest including Quinn Ewers of Texas, Jayden Daniels of LSU, Michigan’s JJ McCarthy and KJ Jefferson of Arkansas. However, what makes the 2024 QB class so interesting is the inordinate number of veteran QBs who had been expected to enter this year’s draft who opted to stay in school for another year (although several also transferred). That list includes Michael Penix Of Washington, Spencer Rattler of South Carolina, Tyler Van Dyke of Miami, Devin Leary now at Kentucky, Oregon’s Bo Nix, Shedeur Sanders now at Colorado, DJ Uigalalei now at Oregon State, Cameron Ward of Washington State, Sam Hartman now at Notre Dame, Cameron Rising of Utah, and Phil Jurkovec now at Pittsburgh. And several of those guys could very well also get some late first, or at least strong second day consideration, next April depending on how their seasons go this fall particularly, Penix, Rattler, Van Dyke, Leary and Sanders. we actually could have gone for awhile. For now, here is our preliminary ranking of the 2024 QB class, although clearly there is a lot of sorting out still to be done before next April.
