SEC football dominates recent lists of the top 2018 college quarterbacks with Alabama football and five other SEC school’s Qb’s in the top 20.
College football offseason is list season for the media. Recent top quarterback lists show the most QB talent in the nation will be playing SEC football this fall.
Athlon Sports made the huge effort to rank 130 quarterbacks. Sporting News took on the more reasonable task of projecting only the top 25. For our review, we narrow the two lists down the top 20.
Combining the two lists for a total of 40 slots allows a comparison of which conferences have the most top QB’s. SEC football leads all the Power Five conferences with seven quarterbacks filling the combined 40, top 20 selections. Those seven Qb’s are: Tua Tagovailoa, Jake Fromm, Drew Lock, Nick Fitzgerald, Jarrett Stidham, Jake Bentley and Jalen Hurts. All but Hurts made both top 20 lists. The seven SEC football Qb’s occupy 13 of the 40 slots.
The other Power Five conferences are well behind SEC football. The B1G and the Pac 12 filled up seven and six top spots, respectively. The ACC QB’s took up four slots and the Big 12, only three. All other conferences combined, filled only seven of the forty slots.
Let’s take a look at the two lists
Sporting News
- Trace McSorley – Penn State
- Tua Tagovailoa – Alabama
- Jake Fromm – Georgia
- Khalil Tate – Arizona
- Will Grier – West Virginia
- Jake Browning – Washington
- Drew Lock – Missouri
- Brian Lewerke – Michigan State
- Jarrett Stidham – Auburn
- McKenzie Milton – UCF
- Jalen Hurts – Alabama
- Nick Fitzgerald – Mississippi State
- Kelly Bryant – Clemson
- Justin Hebert – Oregon
- Shea Patterson – Michigan
- Dwayne Haskins – Ohio State
- Jake Bentley – South Carolina
- Kyler Murray – Oklahoma
- Brett Rypien – Boise State
- Nathan Rourke – Ohio
Athlon Sports
- Will Grier – West Virginia
- Tua Tagovailoa – Alabama
- Trace McSorley – Penn State
- Khalil Tate – Arizona
- McKenzie Milton – UCF
- Drew Lock – Missouri
- Jake Browning – Washington
- Justin Hebert – Oregon
- Jarrett Stidham – Auburn
- Nick Fitzgerald – Mississippi State
- Jake Fromm – Georgia
- Brian Lewerke – Michigan State
- Ryan Finley – North Carolina State
- Jake Bentley – South Carolina
- Shea Patterson – Michigan
- Mason Fine – North Texas
- Brett Rypien – Boise State
- Brent Stockstill – MTSU
- Josh Jackson – Virginia Tech
- Kelly Bryant – Clemson
The other SEC football quarterbacks listed by Athlon were: No. 24, Shurmur (Vandy); No. 29, Ta’amu (Ole Miss); No. 42, Starkel (TAMU); No. 72, Chryst (Tennessee); No. 85, Brennan (LSU); No. 89, Kelley (Arkansas); No. 94, Franks (Florida) and No. 95, Wilson (Kentucky).
What do these projections mean? First, it takes a bunch of information to fill the space of the college football offseason. Second, SEC football should be known as a quarterback league. Third, former SEC Qb’s are popular in other conferences (three to be exact) and fourth, the Big 12 is again not very good at anything.
Next: Post-spring Crimson Tide Depth Chart
It is interesting that Tua got so much recognition for a total of 77 passes in 2017 – and of course, one marvelous half of championship football.