Was looking through a few QB stats that may be of interest.

ESPN has its own QB rating called QBR that it uses - the concept is familiar to most. It's a rating of player efficiency.

There is another tool they use called PAA which is supposed to measure the total points that a player contributes to a team. It is a cumulative stat, so a player that plays in more games, and makes more plays will accrue a higher PAA. Here is a summary of the top PAA seasons in CFB since 2004:

Based on these results, ranking by PAA seems to be a good proxy for elite QB play in CFB. Yes, there are a few system QBs in there (Colt Brennan, Case Keenum, Chase Clement), but in general these are Heisman trophy candidates and a few G5 players that were probably underrated given their subsequent NFL performance (Kaepernick & Carr). 

The two most dominant college seasons I can think of were Cam Newton and Jameis Winston, who show up at #25 and #26 on this list, so PAA may not adequately capture the impact of a QB run game. It's also possible that PAA is correctly capturing inefficiencies in those particular QBs' passing games.

Trivia question - Which B1G QB had the highest single game PAA performance since 2004, and against what opponent? (answer at end)

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If we trust PAA as a decent proxy for QB performance, here are Big Ten QB rankings so far this year:

A couple things stand out here:

• Adrian Martinez is performing on a whole different level than the rest of the league. While his efficiency (as measured by QBR) is essentially tied with CJ Stroud, he has put up double the PAA, ranking #3 nationally. This is with far inferior talent around him to Stroud (yes, Stroud did miss one game, but the point stands).
• Graham Mertz is now the lowest ranked QB in the country by PAA, meaning he has done more statistically to hurt his team than anyone else
• Cade has been very middling from a cumulative performance perspective (#69 PAA in the country), but he does rank respectably in terms of efficiency (#4 BIG / #18 nationally in QBR)

For those pushing for Harbaugh to use his QB and the passing game more, I wouldn't get your hopes up. There is a long history of Harbaugh QBs generating high efficiency seasons while making relatively fewer total plays:

 

In general, most QBs have a high correlation between their QBR and PAA rankings. Harbaugh QBs, especially at Michigan, have always had higher efficiency rankings than cumulative play rankings.

Cade's performance is currently stacking up very similar to Speight in 2016 in terms of his efficiency and his utilization level, for better or worse. 

Also, Andrew Luck was incredible.

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Trivia answer - The highest single game PAA performance in Big Ten history since 2004 was Jake Rudock defeating IU in 20T in 2015.

He scored a 19.5 in that game, or 40% of his cumulative PAA for the year. So when we as fans are asking for Harbaugh QBs that can go through a four-receiver progression and hit their target in stride with NFL throws that leave before the WR even breaks, ala Rudock to Chesson in that game, all we're asking for is the greatest QB performance in league history, every week :)