It's football content season again, everybody! With less than four weeks to kick-off, it's time for the return of The Enemy, Ranked (as well as Football Bits later this week). Just like last year, we will be counting down Michigan's 12 opponents ranked by each positional group, but this year we will be counting down from worst to first. Today we'll be starting with the quarterback position. 

 

12. Connecticut

Get used to this. I have a feeling most of the articles will be beginning with UCONN in the cellar because *glances at UCONN football's history dating back to the 2011 Fiesta Bowl*. At QB it's no different. Amazingly, the Huskies' likeliest starter is someone B1G fans may be familiar with, Ta'Quan Roberson. He was the backup at PSU last year who was called into game action against Iowa when Sean Clifford went down with injury... it did not end well. Roberson went 7/21 for 34 yards, which, yes, comes out to 1.6 yards per attempt(!!!!!), with 0 TD to 2 INT. It was some of the worst QB play I have ever seen in the B1G, which is not a high bar to clear. Roberson is a former top 300 recruit, so there is some raw talent, but there's a reason he got on the field once in his first three years in State College, and even more reason that he was forced to go to UCONN out of the transfer portal. He's bad. 

If it's not Roberson, it could be Tyler Phommachanh (fun name), a RS FR who got into three games last season to the tune of  48.6% completion at 4.5 Y/A, 1 TD to 2 INT. He was a 2021 recruit who was outside the top 2,000 in the composite(!!), whose other offers included Army, Albany, and Central Connecticut State. As you can guess from the Army offer, he has some running upside, but has not shown much passing. Cale Millen could also be the guy, a similar profile to Roberson as a former Top 300 guy who lost his way, never getting on the field at Oregon, taking a stop-over at Northern Arizona, and now finding the path to Storrs. He attempted 15 passes at Northern Arizona, under 50% completion and under 3 yards per attempt. Yeah. 

 

[Associated Press]

11. Hawaii

The Rainbow Warriors have a cluttered QB room, which is the result of a coaching change after Todd Graham was fired and Timmy Chang was inserted in his place. The one guy who stuck around to see the change through is the nominal leader on the depth chart, Brayden Schager. He was a Who Dat 2021 3* recruit with mostly FCS offers that chose Hawaii despite Todd Graham being the coach and managed to get on the field as a true freshman. Schager did about as well as you'd expect a true freshman thrown into the fire by a dictatorial head coach who the whole team hated to do, 2 TD to 5 INT on 60.2% completion. There were some happy moments, including an upset of Fresno State (Schager's 11-for-27 performance suggests it was in spite of him) and a game where he ripped apart decrepit New Mexico State, but as a whole, he was well below par. There's an optimistic case that with another year of experience and perhaps better coaching, Schager can be better. But will he be significantly better by week two? Doubtful. 

If it's not Schager as the signal-caller, it might be Joey Yellen, a former Top 300 recruit who is now on his third program in four seasons, with five career appearances to his name. His performance as a true freshman in 2019 for ASU showed some glimmers that were then washed out in 2020 and he did not get on the field for Pittsburgh a year ago. Cammon Cooper also transfers in with a similar recruiting profile in his past, although he has just 23 career attempts in regular season action. It's hard to know who the starter will be and if any of these guys will be good. Right now, there's no reason to suggest they will be, and certainly not for week two, which is why they're 11th. 

 

10. Colorado State

One thing to know about the Rams is that they basically copy-and-paste'd the entire Nevada program to Fort Collins by hiring Jay Norvell in the offseason. Some pieces were lost in translation, but a huge chunk of the Wolfpack program packed up its bags and followed their coach two states over. One such member of the program was Clay Millen. First off, I will acknowledge that just three teams into this piece we have a "Cale Millen" and a "Clay Millen". You are correct, they are brothers. Unlike Cale, Clay is expected to start for his new school, as he exited spring practice with a firm grip on the starting job. We don't know a ton about Clay Millen; he was a 3.5* star recruit in the 2021 class for Norvell and then threw two passes as a freshman while maintaining his redshirt. That's it. Assuming he gets the start on September 3 in the Big House, that will be his first career NCAA start. Could be great! Could be terrible!

I ranked Colorado State at 10, ahead of 11, because I think there is a decent chance Millen will be better than Schager when they see Michigan. Both are 2021 recruits and though Schager has more experience, Millen is the one who has had the same head coach for both seasons, even if he transferred. Therefore, I expect him to be a bit ahead of Schager developmentally, with the same coach and system in front of him both years. Moreover, given Norvell's track record of QB development in producing Carson Strong, I'll slot CSU ahead of Hawaii if both have relative unknowns at QB, which they do.

[AFTER THE JUMP: some bad B1G QBs]

 

[Syracuse.com]

9. Illinois 

Now we cross over into the B1G, but the run of transfer QBs isn't over. Illinois saw Old Friend Brandon Peters graduate and decided to replace him by going out and getting Tommy DeVito from Syracuse. DeVito was a rather highly rated QB prospect way back in the 2017 class who spent a couple seasons on the bench before getting the starting job full-time in 2019. That year was pretty solid, with DeVito throwing 19 TDs to 5 INT on 63.2% completion with 7.0 yards per attempt. At that point, it seemed as if 'Cuse had something on their hands. The next two years went haywire. DeVito struggled in early 2020 and then was deemed out for the year in October with an injury. He returned in 2021 to pretty middling results in the non-conference, ultimately resulting in Dino Babers pulling the plug, benching DeVito, which led to DeVito quitting and entering the portal. 

Now at a different school that also wears orange and blue, DeVito gets a fresh start. The player he was in 2019 would be rated a little higher on this list, but we have to be cautious and hedge given the injury history. At his best, he's a decent game manager who can move around a little bit. At his worst, he's a good bit below average. Thing is, that's still probably better than Artur Sitkowski, who remains the backup. In spot duty last season, Sitkowski put up 50% completion on 4.8 Y/A. You can never take away from him the fact he went to IMG, though. 

 

8. Iowa 

If you thought Iowa's QB play during the B1G Championship Game was bad, good news, it's not gonna be any better. Spencer Petras is back for Year #3 as a starter in Iowa City. After replacing NFL first round pick Nate Stanley, Petras has been a subpar version of the stiff game manager types that Iowa normally has. In two seasons at the helm, Petras is firing at 19 TD to 14 INT on ~57% completion at 6.5 Y/A. I cut Petras some slack in FFFF last season because his WRs were incapable of getting open and protection was generally poor. Still, it was a coinflip as to whether he could deliver a catchable ball even when given time. Petras' feasted in the non-con last season and then had a negligible impact in B1G games, often being lifted as the offense was stuck in the mud time and time again. When you mix in the fact that Petras gives you little on the ground, you can see why he's here. 

When Petras was being lifted, it was for Alex Padilla, who also returns. He was even worse, although he is a bit younger. Padilla was sub-50% in completion percentage and had a penchant for bugging out of the pocket too early and for making bad decisions throwing the football. Maybe there's a chance Padilla improves with another year under his belt and jumps Petras but that feels unlikely given Iowa's track record of everything having to do with offense. It's grim! 

 

[Patrick Barron]

7. Rutgers

There's a QB competition brewing in Piscataway! Multi-year starter Noah Vedral returns but much like Michigan, there's a young up-and-comer prized recruit nipping at his heels. Let's start with Vedral: in two seasons as Rutgers' starter, he's led them to a 7-13 record, which, given the program's history in the B1G before that, isn't awful. Vedral has fit what Rutgers wants to do on offense the last two seasons, and his ability to get yards on the ground with his legs is very useful. That said, Vedral limits your team if he's the starter because his arm is lacking the strength to threaten vertically, and as a whole, the Scarlett Knights have really just asked Vedral to throw screens and slants. Vedral is a decent QB if you want to get four yards on each play, but the big play dynamite is not there. 

It might be for Gavin Wimsatt, though. Wimsatt was #202 in the composite in the 2021 class, a ranking that, for Rutgers, is the equivalent of being a 5*. Wimsatt was a player who was once seen among the best QBs in the cycle before falling quite a bit. Rutgers, desperate for a recruiting win, didn't care and snapped him up, even convincing Wimsatt to reclassify up and join the team last year. They got him into the maximum allotted four games, including the Gator Bowl against Wake Forest, and it did not go well at all, but this is a true freshman we're talking about. The package of skills is enticing. Wimsatt's arm is better than Vedral's and he is considered a dual threat prospect, running for 38 yards on 4 carries in that bowl game. In many ways, this is the Rutgers version of the Michigan QB battle. A more veteran QB who limits the offense's ceiling trying to hold off the talented second year player who has a better arm and better legs. The problem is that this is still Rutgers and Vedral is much worse than Cade McNamara and Gavin Wimsatt is much worse than JJ McCarthy. Which is why they're 7th. 

 

6. Indiana 

Indiana?!? This high?! I know what you're thinking, but things have changed since that gnarly carcass of a team showed up in Ann Arbor last November. I don't think they'll be a ton better as a whole, but the QB situation is indeed different. This time last year the Hoosiers were the #1 team on this edition of The Enemy, Ranked due to the return of star Michael Penix Jr.. We all know what happened next: Penix turned out to be late stage Devin Gardner reincarnate, broken to his soul and inoperable as a QB, playing five games before injury consumed him. From there it was a rotating cast of characters until true freshman QB Donaven McCulley was thrown to the wolves and started against Michigan. 

Things have indeed changed since then. Penix has moved on to Washington, where they will try to resurrect his corpse into a living football player, and McCulley has been moved to WR. The current QB battle is between returner Jack Tuttle and transfer Connor Bazelak, who arrives from Missouri. At first glance, Bazelak should be considered the favorite. In two seasons as a starter at Mizzou, Bazelak compiled 23 TD to 17 INT on ~66% completion and ~7.0 Y/A. Great? No. Decent? Yeah. He's not much of a runner, but the total package is much safer than Tuttle, a former prized QB recruit and Utah transfer who has thrown more TD than INT in his collegiate career with under five yards per attempt and only 55.9% completion. Tuttle offers nothing on the ground and so I would be surprised if Bazelak is not the starting QB this season in Bloomington. If he is, he's probably fine, with decent results in a high-end conference, and enough to put IU higher on this list than the likes of Rutgers and Iowa. 

 

[Paul Sherman]

5. Maryland 

If I was arranging this list into tiers, there would be a sizable break between #6 and #5, where you go from teams where you cannot expect the starter to win you games and cross over into flawed starters who can be really good on the right day. That encapsulates Taulia Tagovailoa, who returns as the hoss for Maryland. Here's a quick quote from last year's FFFF that serves as an intro: 

Put another way, (Tagovalioa's) good moments are NFL starter caliber and his bad moments are "that guy can't be the starter of a B1G team" caliber.  

You can click the link and scroll back to see some of the throws I clipped for that piece. They're legit! Tagovalioa has a great arm and he shoulders a ton of responsibility, attempting 40-50 passes a game against elite defenses last season. He throws to an insanely good WR group but with a very poor offensive line in front of him. That puts Taulia in some rough situations and sometimes he pulls the rabbit out of the hat and sometimes he runs around for 10 seconds before chucking the ball into triple coverage. He is the ultimate Madden QB, blending an NFL arm and athleticism with an 11-year-old's command of the joystick to run in circles. Taulia's tendency to take backbreaking, -15 yard sacks that he creates by running straight backwards in the face of pressure is what makes him so maddening. 

The stats, though, are good. Well, with an asterisk. Taulia beats up on the lesser competition and struggled mightily against better defenses. In the non-conference games against WVU, Howard, and Kent State, as well as the bowl game against Virginia Tech (sans a coach to, you know, coach the defense) and lower-rung B1G teams Rutgers, Indiana, and Illinois, Tagovailoa was basically flawless. He put up 17 TD to 1 INT at close to 75% completion(!) in those contests. Against Iowa, OSU, Minnesota, PSU, MSU, and Michigan, he threw 9 TD to 10 INT at 64.4% completion, with 6.5 Y/A. The Taulia against lower competition is challenging CJ Stroud. The Taulia against better competition is closer to Noah Vedral than even Sean Clifford. That's the enigma here. There's a lot to like, the "wow" plays he can make and the big play ability on the ground, but the inconsistency and pattern of wilting against tougher foes makes me put him here, below guys who made big plays in big games at #3 and #4 on the list.  

 

4. Penn State  

In an attempt to set the record for most brain damage sustained by a QB in one college career, Sean Clifford returned to State College for year #4 as a starter. He has taken a lot of hits over the years but few QBs I have seen in recent memory take punishment as well as him. Clifford is far from a perfect QB, but he's a solid starter who does a tough job with decent results. Sure, his stats have never really improved over his career, with the 21 TD to 8 INT on 61.0% line last season being not much different than his first year as a starter in 2019, but Clifford's level of play is enough to take a good team a long way. The team around him has sagged in recent years, but you couldn't watch PSU's offense last season and think Clifford was the problem. Indeed, a lot of QBs in this league would do far worse given the offensive line in front of him.

I watched Clifford against OSU last season for FFFF and saw him take a pounding snap after snap, yet still stand in to make tough throws in tight windows just seconds before a rusher collided with him. Then that bore out again against Michigan, who sacked him a stunning seven times, yet he A) finished the game in one piece and B) didn't throw an INT. I give points for that. Clifford's a warrior, willing to take the beating needed to give his team a shot and as someone who watched Shea Patterson bug out of clean pockets in 2019, I respect a gamer who stands in and gets rocked but gives his team a chance to win. I couldn't justify any higher than this, but #4 feels alright for PSU. 

 

3. Nebraska 

Maybe the most surprising ranking on this list are the Huskers, who lost Adrian Martinez to the QB transfer carousel but gained a pretty damn good option in Casey Thompson, formerly of Texas. Thompson was a 4* Top 300 recruit in the class of 2018 who was used rather sparingly in 2019 and 2020 but then won the starting job in 2021. Thompson appeared in all 12 games and threw 24 TD to 9 INT on 63.2% completion and a respectable 8.1 yards per attempt, while providing a dual-threat component on the ground, with 4 rushing TDs. He had three games of 5+ TDs but despite all that, Texas couldn't manage a winning record and their hunt for a star QB led them to throw the bag at Quinn Ewers. As a result, Thompson hit the portal and wound up in Lincoln. 

Nebraska checks in this highly on the ranking because Thompson's ability on the ground is extremely important and his track record as a starter in a good program was quite strong. There will likely be some transition costs in switching schools, but if Thompson can replicate his performance at Texas, that alone puts Nebraska pretty high. The Huskers also have a backup with some experience in Logan Smothers, which gets them a few points on the margins as well. I couldn't go any higher than #3, but I like this transfer pickup for Scott Frost's crew. 

 

[Bryan Fuller]

2. Michigan State

MSU was the inverse of Indiana last year. The Hoosiers was ranked very highly on The Enemy, Ranked QB but then had horrendous production, while the Spartans were ranked low and then got terrific production from Payton Thorne, who had the best year from a Spartan QB since the Connor Cook days. As a result, State moves up near the top of the list and deservedly so. Thorne had a really good season, 27 TD to 10 INT as a first-time starter, completing 60.4% of his passes at 8.3 yards per attempt, while also cashing in 4 scores on the ground. Thorne is not an elite runner, but they build in a few plays for him in addition to the capable scrambling. It all comes together for an appetizing QB package, a signal-caller with a great deep-ball who made some big time throws. 

There is a trend in the stats, much like Taulia Tagovailoa, that we have to acknowledge, where Thorne's numbers against inferior competition were vastly better than against high end opponents. Thorne was masterful against the likes of Miami, Youngstown State, and Maryland, but against Nebraska, Michigan, Ohio State, Purdue, Penn State, and Pitt, Thorne was 9 TD to 6 INT on a completion percentage well below 60%. Thorne wasn't as good in the big games, but unlike Tagovailoa, he was still solid and came up big in big moments. Just re-watch the Michigan-Michigan St. game. Thorne made a couple tremendous throws in huge moments that swung the game, and his performance in the Peach Bowl was pretty good as well. I'm going to acknowledge this but mostly deem it inconsequential. Thorne and MSU deserve to be at #2 on the rankings. 

 

1. Ohio State

This had to be OSU, right? Look, I think there are elements of the game that CJ Stroud needs to improve on, and yes he generally has good protection and throws to the best receiving room in America yada yada, but you cannot look at his numbers and the way Ohio State's offense eviscerated every team on the schedule not named Michigan and rank the Buckeyes anywhere other than #1. The dude threw for 4,435 yards and 44 TD to 6 INT on 71.9% completion with 10.1 yards per attempt as a first year starter. Stroud has a lot of things made easy for him with the team he plays on, but watching the tape reveals a QB with excellent tools. He's poised and accurate and does a great job putting the football in positions to maximize YAC and create those devastating big plays that OSU produced easily throughout last year. 

Stroud has his weaknesses. NFL teams will want to see him handle pressure a little better than he did against Michigan and adding a more mobile component of his game could go a long way (as could learning to play IN THE SNOW and while "sick"), but Stroud is a heck of a player already. With another year under his belt, there will likely not be a B1G QB on his level, unless Aidan O'Connell (who isn't on Michigan's schedule) goes crazy or JJ McCarthy does the thing, and then Stroud will be off to the top of the NFL draft. For now, he settles for the top of this list. 

 

[Bryan Fuller]

Where would Michigan rank? 

As we always do, we conclude this piece by looking at my conjecture of where Michigan would size up if I were placing them on this list. I think they'd rank around 4th to be honest, maybe in line with PSU. Cade McNamara right now does not have a statistical argument to be higher than that. You can counter that by saying he wasn't really asked to, which, sure, but there's also somewhat of a reason for that. He's a fine player, and as we saw last year, did turn out to be good enough to beat Ohio State and win the B1G with. But given his present workload and all the other factors (the reality that he's more game manager than someone who's going to win you a tight game), I think somewhere around the Clifford level feels apt. 

Now, Michigan does win points on the margins by the presence of McCarthy. If McCarthy is the starter week one, then we will start Michigan here, because the assumption would be he's as good as last year McNamara, but the ceiling is much higher. A McCarthy-led team that sees him begin to reach his ceiling, yeah, that could rocket Michigan all the way up to near the top of the list. But we're several steps away from that happening. However, the presence of a very capable backup no matter who is the starter, and the higher upside conveyed by McCarthy's presence, gives Michigan a clear boost over a team like Maryland, and you can make the case for over PSU too. Michigan has far from a bad QB room, but they also are a bit lower on this list than they will be for any of the other offensive positional groups because right now, those spots are where the strength of the offense comes from.