Content note: Some readers may know me from my work on hockey and softball over the past years, but I have been lucky enough to be hired by Brian recently to write about football and basketball, so readers who focus mostly on those sports will start to get acquainted with me pretty quickly here. For those unfamiliar, I'm a recently graduated Michigan alum and you can follow me on Twitter at @Alex_Drain. For my first football piece, I'm picking up a series that has been run on this site in the past, ranking Michigan's opponents based on positional groups. Today we start with QB. 

Quarterbacks have always been important in football, but with each passing year (pun intended, I suppose), they become more and more crucial to the collegiate game. With the likes of Justin Fields, Trevor Lawrence, Mac Jones, Tua Tagovailoa, Joe Burrow, and Kyler Murray dominating college football in recent years, the connection between elite teams and elite quarterbacks could not be clearer in the NCAA game. It's incredibly difficult to compete for a title in 2021, B1G or national, without having great QB play, and so we begin this series looking at the most important position on the field. The good news for Michigan is that there really aren't many good QB's on the schedule this year, as the Big Ten's quarterback cupboard has become rather barren. The bad news is that the Wolverines are one of those teams with a lot of uncertainty in the cupboards. Let's dive in with the school that most obviously comes to mind when you think of great quarterbacks. I'm talking of course about Indiana. 

 

Michael Penix Jr. sits atop our list [IU Athletics]

1. Indiana

So, yeah. IU is not really known as a football powerhouse, but what Tom Allen has done in Bloomington has been nothing short of masterful, and last season's 6-1 regular season was the cherry on top. One of the big keys to last season's success for the Hoosiers was star QB and the holder of the B1G's most unfortunate last name, Michael Penix Jr. Penix has played 12 games over the last two seasons and has been nothing short of excellent, throwing for 24 TD's to just 8 INT's, with a 61.6% completion percentage. His performance in Columbus against the Buckeyes last season fully justifies his spot at the top of the conference among QB's, throwing for 491 yards and 5 TD's, while turning it over just once. In those 12 games that Penix has played in 2019 and 2020, the Hoosiers are 10-2, a sterling record for a program whose historical baseline is far below that. 

Penix is an unusual QB because he's a lefty, one with a cannon for an arm that can launch the ball down the field off his back foot and fit the football into tight windows. Accuracy isn't always perfect, but Penix makes things happen and is the key to unlocking the Indiana offense, taking it to higher levels than were possible with the boring and steady Peyton Ramsey. That's why Penix's health is so crucial, and it's the one thing that has held back his career up to this point. He played just three games in 2018 before an ACL tear wiped out his year and forced him to take a redshirt. Then Penix played six games in 2019 before an injury to a part of the body I didn't know existed (the right sternoclavicular joint) put him out for the year, and then his 2020 season ended a few games early due to a second ACL tear. Indiana maintains that Penix is going to be ready for the fall season and is on track to start the opener, but his health is so important to the team. When Penix plays, he's money. But it's getting to the point with Penix where we just have to conclude that he's the kind of terribly snakebitten guy you don't want climbing on ladders or being around mirrors. Which is a bit strange, because Penix isn't terribly mobile. He doesn't run much (except when it's to beat Penn State), and in theory shouldn't be so injury prone. Yet he has been. 

What keeps IU at #1, though, is they have a viable backup option should Penix go down for the fourth straight season, Jack Tuttle. Tuttle was a top 200 composite recruit of Utah back in the 2018 class who transferred to Indiana in 2019. He stepped in to play when Penix got hurt near the tail-end of last season and was fine, posting a 61.1% completion clip with 2 TD and 1 INT to beat Wisconsin and Maryland, but the Hoosiers lost to Ole Miss in the bowl game. Tuttle is not Penix, but Tuttle is still a better backup than a lot of teams have, and that's good insurance if their star goes down. But for the Hoosiers to have any chance of coming out of the B1G East, they need 12 healthy games from Penix. 

 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More QB's!] 

 

2. Ohio State

There's a very good chance that the Buckeyes end up 1st on this list within a couple games of the season beginning, but since none of their QB's have ever made a collegiate start, the Hoosiers get the ceremonial nod to start the season. The OSU QB room is loaded, and that's what you'd expect for a program with as much talent as Ohio State has. The contenders are numerous and they all possess flashy 24/7 recruiting profiles. The leader at the moment seems to be CJ Stroud, although that's more speculative and seems to be based on observers who obsessively track practice rumors (surely none of those types read this site) than from the coaches themselves. Stroud's got a lot to like, a 6-3, 205 QB who was the #2 composite Pro-style QB in the 2020 recruiting class. He got his redshirt last season, appearing in one game, a 48 yard TD run against MSU. That play is particularly interesting because Stroud is not really known for his running ability, instead priding himself on his rocket launcher arm and smooth delivery. Michigan wanted Stroud after JD Johnson had to medically retire, and there's a decent chance he'll suit up for the Scarlett and Gray at the Big House in November. 

The other contenders include Jack Miller and Kyle McCord. McCord is a true freshman who was a 5*, the #28 overall player in the 2021 class. Miller was "only" a 4*, #13 pro-style QB in the 2020 class who got to play a little bit last season as well. The last name is the wild-card, Quinn Ewers. Ewers was the #1 overall recruit in the 2022 class who is reclassifying up and recently arrived on campus. His late arrival means that there's little chance Ewers starts week one against Minnesota, but there is a possibility he could be the starter by the time The Game rolls around. Ewers is considered the best QB prospect to leave HS since some guy named Trevor Lawrence, and others wonder if he's the best QB prospect ever (*screams at the child running this OSU dynasty mode simulation on NCAA Football '05 that we are all now living in*). 

Basically, the favorite is Stroud, but it could be McCord. Or Miller. Or by the end of the year, Ewers. Either way, this is a program that pumps out great college QB's like they're on an assembly line. Whoever they pick will probably end up being really good, and could very well be the best signal caller in the conference by October. But some growing pains are possible given the inexperience. 

 

The dark horse QB on Michigan's schedule [WMU Athletics]

3. Western Michigan

Wait... what? I honestly don't know if this is the right place to slot in Western's starter, because he hasn't played non-MAC opponents in three years, but given that every other B1G QB room has major question marks, I thought we might as well recognize a guy who had a great COVID season in a lesser conference. That guy is Kaleb Eleby. In six games last season, Eleby threw for 1,699 yards (11.2 yards per attempt) on 64.5% completion, with 18 TD's to just 2 INT's, while adding 4 rushing TD's. His passer rating of 194.8 was third best in the FBS (!), trailing only first round draft picks Mac Jones and Zack Wilson. Eleby is highly intelligent, has a very accurate arm that makes up for its mediocre strength, and his reads at the line of scrimmage are crucial for making the WMU offense go. 

Eleby arrived on campus in 2018 and played in five games as a true freshman, putting up middling numbers. He didn't see game action in 2019, taking a redshirt year, and then came back to appear in every game for the Broncos last season, leading them to a 4-2 record. That performance led some to wonder if he would enter the portal, where there would have been plenty of interest from power five schools, but he was not interested and decided to return to Kalamazoo, a decision you really have to respect. If WMU makes a bowl this season, it will be in large part because of Eleby. Again, it's hard to know how the new, rebuilt version of Eleby holds up against non-MAC teams (I guess we'll find out week one against Michigan), but I can't find a ton of holes in Eleby's game the way I could with every other QB to follow on this list. Maybe it's a #MACtion mirage, but Mike Macdonald & Co. should not underestimate Eleby's prowess in their WMU gameplan. 

 

 4. Wisconsin

There's a big drop-off in terms of B1G QB's that Michigan will see this season between IU/OSU and everybody else, which is why I slotted Eleby in the middle there. These next four or five teams seem virtually indistinguishable, all touting QB's with experience and reasons to be excited, but also lots of reason to worry. I would be fine ranking them in almost any order, so don't lob hate mail at me in the comments. Wisconsin's reason for optimism surrounding the QB position is what we saw out of Graham Mertz the night of October 23. Against Illinois in his first game as The Guy in Madison, Mertz went 20/21 for 248 yards and 5 TD's and had the collective Wisconsin fanbase aroused. The hype train had officially left the station. There was a lot of reason to believe in Mertz at that juncture, as he boasted an impressive recruiting profile, having been the #3 composite Pro-style QB back in the 2019 class, the best QB recruit to ever play for Wisconsin. For a college football program that typically has boring game manager types at QB, Mertz seemed to be their best shot to be an impact player at the position since Russell Wilson exited and the Wisconsin football apparatus went "yeah, that was cool and all, but let's go back to the Alex Hornibrooks". 

But then COVID struck Mertz and Wisconsin, as the Badgers didn't play for two weeks before rolling into Ann Arbor. A blowout that I assume all readers are trying to forget ensued, but lost in the shuffle of the "FIAR HARBAUGH" discourse was the fact that Mertz... wasn't great. That began a six-game stretch to close out the season where Mertz wasn't close to the same player that torched the Illini in October. After that Illinois game, Mertz threw 4 TD's to 5 INT's at just a 57.0% clip, finishing with just 6.4 yards per attempt for the entire season. By the last two games it was clear that the coaches didn't trust Mertz at all and largely took the ball out of his hands: after attempting an average of 38 passes in the preceding three games, he averaged just 18.5 in his last two. The team still did fine (because Wisconsin is used to playing with game managers), beating Minnesota and Wake Forest to close out the season, but the hope for Mertz was that he'd elevate the QB play in Madison, not just be Jack Coan With A Better 24/7 Page. 

It's hard to know what to expect from Mertz going into Year #2 as the starter. He's in a great situation, with the perennially great Wisco OL in front of him and returning pass catchers with tons of experience in Danny Davis, Kendric Pryor, and Jake Ferguson. The talent is there, and the glimmer of brilliance in that one Illinois game combined with the good situation around him was enough for me to give Mertz the best shot to jump up into the Penix/Unnamed OSU QB Who Will Inevitably Be Great tier, but Paul Chryst also needs to have more faith in Mertz than was shown at the end of the season. He needs to be allowed to mess up, or else Mertz will just end up another game manager in a long lineage of similar players. 

 

Clifford is one of the few QB's Michigan has seen a couple of times before [Patrick Barron] 

5. Penn State

The Nittany Lions had a year similar to Michigan's in terms of disappointment, and a big chunk of that was driven by a bad season from Sean Clifford. I was never much of a Clifford fan, even when he was coming off a good statistical 2019 season, and 2020 seemed to confirm many of my doubts with him. The Lions started last season 0-5 and a big part of that was Clifford turning into a turnover machine, throwing 8 INT's and losing two fumbles that were returned for TD's in those first five games, compared to 11 passing TD's and one rushing TD. His erratic performance made the option of running-oriented backup Will Levis seem appealing, with Clifford being benched in the Nebraska game. Levis was even worse in the Nebraska game (45.2% completion!) and Clifford got his job back quickly. Penn State fans will point to Clifford's strong close to the season in the last three games (5 TD's/1 INT's, 68% completion) as evidence that he's back on track, but I'd pump the breaks on that by listing who the opponents for those three games were: Rutgers, MSU, Illinois. Not exactly top tier competition. 

Clifford has some traits to offer to the offense, a dual threat ability and a decent passer when he's not throwing interceptions. The 2019 Clifford was good enough to lead PSU to an 11-2 record, but let's also be clear that Clifford at his best still isn't Trace McSorley. Getting Clifford right is an important objective for James Franklin's staff and new OC Mike Yurcich. I ranked Clifford here because his overall body of work through his NCAA career is better than that of any other QB who will follow, but Clifford's flaws are more apparent than that of Mertz's, and his ceiling is lower. We know who Clifford is, PSU just needs to make sure it's Good Clifford on the field. 

 

6. Maryland 

Taulia Tagovailoa, brother of Tua, is back in College Park and is slated to lead the Terps in 2021 after getting a majority of the work a year ago. This Tagovailoa brother transferred from Alabama to Maryland and after an ugly first game against Northwestern (0 TD's/3 INT's), he torched Minnesota in a Friday night game you may remember from thinking "wait, if Maryland is thumping Minnesota, maybe Michigan isn't that great" hours before the MSU game confirmed it for you. In that one game against the Gophers, he became just the third B1G player in the last 20 seasons with 350 yards, 3 passing TD's, and 2 rushing TD's in a single game (hat tip to Lindy's Sports for that stat). He was equally good the next week in shredding PSU for 282 yards on 69.2% completion and 3 scores. But then after a COVID pause, a lackluster performance against Indiana and an injury ended Tagovailoa's season. 

That four game ride showed off all Tagovailoa can be: brilliant as a passer with some dual-threat ability that could fit perfectly into Mike Locksley's system of spread offense. Tagovailoa has maybe the highest ceiling of anyone in this group besides Mertz (you could definitely argue that Taulia's potential > Mertz's potential) and has as many flashes of reaching that ceiling as anybody. This is the make-it-or-break-it year for the Locksley regime and a lot comes down to how much he can get out of his undersized Hawaiian QB. I ranked him this highly based on the potential, as well as his 2020 stats, which were better than Martinez's. 

 

The last time Adrian Martinez saw Michigan, it didn't go well for him [Eric Upchurch]

7. Nebraska

Remember when Adrian Martinez was hyped as a Heisman candidate? That was only two years ago, when Martinez was coming off a great freshman season in 2018 that saw him be an effective quarterback through the air and on the ground. Some 730 days later and Martinez has never been close to the player he was expected to be in 2019, throwing for just 14 TD's and 12 INT's over the past two seasons combined. Last year was a bumpy up-and-down season that saw his yards per attempt drop to a career-worst 6.6 and saw him throw just 4 TD's in seven games, losing his job to Luke McCaffrey at times during the season. He reclaimed the starting role down the stretch and McCaffrey is now gone, meaning all the weight's on Martinez's shoulders now. At his best, he's a highly effective dual-threat QB who can make things happen on the ground and in the air. While Martinez hasn't been good for a couple seasons now, it's also hard to forget how good he was as a freshman, when he put up 17 TD's to just 8 INT's on 64.6% completion and added 629 yards and 8 scores on the ground, all while doing it on a very bad Year Zero Nebraska team.

That player is still in there, but the mental issues have gotten in the way, exhibiting a tendency to over-think things and panic. Scott Frost has got to figure out a way to fix Martinez if Big Red wants to return to a bowl game and Frost wants to keep angry Husker fans from sieging his house with pitchforks. The reason I ranked Martinez here, despite how poorly he's played in 2019-20, is because the 2018 version of Martinez is a vastly better QB than what we have seen from any of the starters who are ranked directly behind him. Who knows if that Martinez will show up this fall, but the fact he has achieved that level of play before makes me think it's more likely he hits that caliber of play as opposed to someone else who has yet to play at that caliber reaching it. 

 

8. Washington

The Huskies come to the Big House in early September for a big night game matchup and both teams will roll in with major questions at the QB position. Dylan Morris looks to be the starter again in Seattle after a middling RS Freshman campaign. Washington only played 4 games last season amid a shortened PAC-12 season that made you ask the question "why bother?", so the sample size on Morris is quite small. He threw for 4 TD's and 3 INT's on 60.9% completion and 7.7 yards per attempt, leading the Huskies to a 3-1 record. Nothing fancy, and some Washington fans have been clamoring for more and wondering if a switch at the position is in order, but Morris is in command of the job right now. He doesn't add a ton in the running game and his arm won't blow you away, but he throws catchable balls that leave his hand before he's sacked with good consistency, a valuable trait on a team with a questionable OL. Morris will probably be decent again, but there is a chance for more given that he was the #5 pro-style QB recruit back in the 2019 class. 

 

9. Northwestern

Northwestern has struggled to develop QB's in recent years, to put it mildly. They wallowed with one of the worst QB rooms in recent memory back in 2019, but thankfully installed ex-Hoosier Peyton Ramsey to be simply decent last season. Ramsey exits and they've again hit the portal, reeling in Ryan Hilinski. Hilinski started in 2019 at South Carolina and was very solid over 11 games as a true freshman, 11 TD's to 5 INT's on 58.1% completion in an elite conference. He lost his job last season and then hit the open market, and it was a good get for Pat Fitzgerald in my opinion. Though Northwestern fans may be remembering the experience of the last time they reeled in an ex-high end recruit transfer QB (Hunter Johnson, one of the culprits of the disastrous 2019 QB situation), Hilinski has far more experience than the 27 career passes Johnson had to his name back then. 

I've slotted NW in here despite being a fan of the Hilinski acquisition because Northwestern's mundane offensive system constrains QB's heavily. Their track record doesn't make me think they're the right school to turn Hilinski into the star that his impressive recruiting profile indicated he could be, and so his ceiling appears lower than Mertz, Clifford, Tagovailoa, or Martinez. But in terms of being a decent game manager like Fitzgerald likes, I think there's a good chance of that happening given Hilinski's 2019 performance in the SEC. 

 

Vedral is the first solid returning QB for Rutgers in a long time [Mike Mulholland/MLive] 

10. Rutgers

Rutgers actually had a half-decent season last year, going 3-6 with several close losses (don't bother looking up who barely beat Rutgers last year), and part of it was getting improved quarterback play from Noah Vedral, who proved more competent than the now-departed Artur Sitkowski. Vedral wasn't particularly great, but this is the same school that had their primary starter throw 4 TD's and 18 INT's only three years ago, so "wasn't particularly great" is a pretty good spot to be in for Rutgers in their post-2014 history in this conference. Vedral posted 9 TD's to 8 INT's on 61.5% completion, albeit coming from very sheltered passes: he averaged a pitiful 5.7 yards per attempt last season. Still, the Scarlet Knights have a starter who has experience and isn't terrible, which again, baby steps. Their quarterback room also features wildcat QB Johnny Langan, who rushed 56 times (sacks included) with 4 TD's, compared to just 12 attempted passes last year. He's an interesting option for Greg Schiano's coaching staff to play around with, but Vedral should be the primary starter, which is probably okay. Rutgers' QB situation isn't a complete abomination entering a season for the first time since like... 2015 or 2016? But it also isn't good, and I couldn't justify ranking them any higher than 10th. 

 

11. Michigan State

The rebuild rolls along in East Lansing and few questions on this year's Spartans squad are larger— and none are more pivotal— than the one concerning who will be lining up under center for MSU this season. Rocky Lombardi is out (but incredibly not the last time you'll be hearing of him in this piece), and the competition hangs in the balance between Payton Thorne and Anthony Russo. Thorne is a former Who Dat recruit from Illinois in the 2019 class, the son of successful DIII football coach Jeff Thorne, who got into four games last season as a RS Fr, completing 56.5% of his passes and throwing 3 TD's to 3 INT's on 6.8 yards per attempt. The Spartans seem to like his mobility/escapability in the pocket and he's been in the program longer than Russo, who is a grad transfer from Temple. Russo was the starter for the Owls in 2018-19 before playing in just three of seven games a year ago. He's got the bigger arm and far more FBS experience, but high interception rates concern some and he's newer to the scheme and more unfamiliar to the coaches and teammates. It seems tight as to who wins this job right now, so your guess is as good as mine. I think there's definitely the chance the QB situation for the Spartans could be decent, but the level of certainty is quite low given how little experience at MSU either option have. And the Spartans haven't had good QB play since that one season where people half-heartedly thought Brian Lewerke was going to be a Heisman candidate, so they're slotting in towards the back-end of this list. 

 

Rocky Lombardi won't be donning green and white this year [Bryan Fuller]

12. Northern Illinois 

What's the best way to not be last on this list? Have another school on the list be planning to start the guy who was bad for your program last year! That would be NIU and Rocky Lombardi, who the Huskies are slated to start at QB this season. While one MAC team on Michigan's schedule is starting a highly underrated player who was low-key excellent last season, the other MAC team is trotting out a player with 11 career TD's to 14 INT's, a 47.9% completion percentage, and a career average yards per attempt of 5.7. Brutal. Lombardi's struggles have been well documented in B1G circles, and this move to a new school will mean he's playing for his fourth different offensive coordinator in his five NCAA seasons. That adjustment will not be easy, nor will going to a team that went 0-6 last season. Lombardi does not do well if he's forced to make more than one read, a reality that Michigan fans were unable to experience due to his first read always being open last Halloween, and his limitations squarely land him at the bottom of this list. Just please cover his first read this year, and you will reap the benefits. 

 

Where would Michigan slot in?

I think probably in the 9-11 range. They don't belong near Wisconsin/PSU/Maryland/Nebraska, which all have starters who have experience and reasons for optimism, and so a bit lower makes more sense. There are a lot of question marks, as likely starter Cade McNamara has just 71 career passes, while Alan Bowman is new to the system and didn't arrive on campus until after spring practices, and JJ McCarthy is a true freshman. The Wolverines lack the experience of the middle tier teams, and so it makes more sense to put them down below, with teams like Northwestern and MSU, who also plan to be starting QB's who are either brand new or have little experience. Michigan has as many QB questions as anyone in the conference, and I know Michigan fans are tired of hearing about it, but it's the truth. 

Thankfully, they'll slot in a bit higher on our next positional group: running backs.