QB U: Remembering Some Guys from Texas, Michigan and the Rest of the Week’s Top Matchups
QB U: Remembering Some Guys from Texas, Michigan and the Rest of the Week’s Top Matchups
Let's highlight the top modern quarterback seasons from the Wolverines and Longhorns, plus Boise State, Oregon, Tennessee and NC State.
Welcome to QB U, another (hopefully) regular feature I’m introducing at this here Substack, in which I rank 5 6 items vaguely related to college football quarterbacks throughout the season. Why quarterbacks? I have this schedule-adjusted Points Above Replacement (PAR) metric for QBs going back to 1956, and I figure I should do something with that. If you have a QB U idea you’d like me to cover, email me1 and I’ll feature it in a future column!
🏈 This Week’s Theme: Best QB seasons (by schedule-adjusted Points Above Replacement) since 1956 for the two ranked matchups of Week 2 — Texas-Michigan and Tennessee-NC State — plus another game that was close to being ranked, Boise State-Oregon. For each team, I’ll also list a “Forgotten Gem”: a season that doesn’t always get brought up when talking about great QB campaigns of the past.
🏈 Texas Longhorns
Top season: Colt McCoy, 2008 (175.1 PAR per 13 team games)
Vince Young’s 2004 — and especially his 2005 — come close, as he was bolstered by at least 1,000 rushing yards and 12+ TDs on the ground each of those years. But McCoy gets the nod after setting school records for TD passes, yards, completions and efficiency rating in a single season in 2008. Both Young and McCoy were Heisman Trophy finalists, too, but fell short; however, Young did what McCoy couldn’t, piloting Texas to a BCS championship game victory.
Forgotten gem: James Brown, 1996 (82.1 PAR/13)
Texas has had other, more productive QBs over the years — from Major Applewhite and Chris Simms to Sam Ehlinger and now Quinn Ewers. But we can’t forget the year James Brown had in 1996, when he broke his own school record for passing yards and helped engineer a massive upset over Nebraska in the first-ever Big 12 championship game, thanks in large part to this gutsy play-action pass on a crucial fourth down:
🏈 Michigan Wolverines
Top season: Denard Robinson, 2010 (135.3 PAR/13)
Michigan has had a number of talented pro-style QBs over the years who started in the NFL, including Tom Brady, Jim Harbaugh, Brian Griese, Elvis Grbac, Chad Henne, Todd Collins, John Navarre and more. But ironically, the best Michigan QB season belongs to Robinson, who also went on to play in the NFL… as a running back, that is. In college, Robinson was a dual-threat terror who in 2010 became the first player to ever throw and run for 1,500+ yards in the same season, while also recording 32 total TDs in Rich Rodriguez’s offense. (He was actually in the 2,500/1,700 yard club, which still only has two members.)2 Michigan was undone by a horrendous defense that year, and Robinson’s numbers weren’t as dominant over the next few seasons while battling injuries as a senior, but his 2010 still stands out among the best by a QB in Big Ten history.
Forgotten gem: Bob Timberlake, 1964 (111.9 PAR/13)
Old-timey option QBs are a little tough to judge using modern statistical calculations, which is how a guy with 807 passing yards, a 49.6 completion % and a 5-5 TD-INT ratio comes out with more PAR per game (relative to the nation) than J.J. McCarthy had last year. But it’s also true that Timberlake was a first-team All-American, Big Ten MVP and finished fourth in the Heisman voting in 1964, when Michigan went 9-1 and won the Rose Bowl for the first time in 14 years. (As a bonus, check out this old story by my former Messenger colleague
about how Timberlake came to be arguably the worst kicker in NFL history.)🏈 Tennessee Volunteers
Top season: Peyton Manning, 1997 (148.9 PAR/13)
Kind of a no-brainer pick here for the Vols, as Peyton ranked third in the nation in passing yards and TDs while finishing runner-up to Charles Woodson in the 1997 Heisman voting. UT had been building up its QB U bona fides through Johnny Majors’ run and early under Phil Fulmer — shoutout to Tony Robinson, future U.S. Congressman Heath Shuler and Andy Kelly — but Manning took Tennessee to a new aerial level. It’s just a shame he could never beat Florida, and thus never led the Vols to a national title.3
Forgotten gem: Erik Ainge, 2007 (106.1 PAR/13)
There are a few to choose from here, from Josh Dobbs in 2016 (116.4 PAR/13) to the aforementioned Andy Kelly in 1991 (104.9). I even think Joe Milton’s reasonably solid performance last year (88.1) will be lost to memory, sandwiched between Hendon Hooker’s outstanding 2022 and Nico Iamaleava taking over this year. But I wanted to highlight Ainge because he was the best from the revolving door group of touted post-Manning, post-Tee Martin QBs who could never quite return the Vols to greatness under Fulmer. A.J. Suggs flopped, Casey Clausen flamed out early, and his brother Rick was not the answer, either. But Ainge, nephew of former NBA player/exec Danny Ainge, gradually earned more playing time and showed vast improvement in his junior and senior years. In 2007, he finished second in the SEC in pass yards, third in TDs and third in passer rating as UT won 10+ games for just the fourth time since the 1998 title run.
🏈 NC State Wolfpack
Top season: Philip Rivers, 2003 (163.7 PAR/13)
The No. 1 slot here isn’t even up for debate, as Rivers is by far the best QB in NC State history, and 2003 was when he reached his absolute pinnacle as a college signal-caller. Rivers was ready to lead new coach Chuck Amato’s Wolfpack right away, having graduated high school early so he could enroll at NC State and participate in spring practice before his freshman year. The passing prodigy immediately guided NCSU to their best record in 6 years, setting an ACC freshman record for yards, and as a junior he set a new career yardage high while leading the Wolfpack to a franchise-record 11 wins. But he obliterated the conference record book in 2003, setting new ACC marks for yards and TDs in a season and a career yardage mark that still stands today.
Forgotten gem: Ryan Finley, 2017 (102.5 PAR/13)
The Wolfpack have boasted a handful of NFL QBs over the years, including not just Rivers but also Russell Wilson, Roman Gabriel, Jacoby Brissett, Mike Glennon and Erik Kramer. The best of the non-Rivers bunch in college, though, was Finley — the former Boise State transfer who took over as starter in coach Dave Doeren’s fourth year and proceeded to pass for at least 3,000 yards in each of his three seasons in Raleigh. His best season by adjusted PAR came in 2017, when his connection with Kelvin Harmon and Jakobi Meyers helped NC State win 9 games (their most since 2010) despite facing a difficult schedule.
🏈 Oregon Ducks
Top season: Marcus Mariota, 2014 (176.4 PAR/13)
It was really close between Mariota’s 2014 and Bo Nix last season (168.2); in fact, Nix and Mariota each own two of the four best QB PAR seasons in Ducks history. Justin Herbert’s 2019 is also in that mix, alongside Joey Harrington and Dan Fouts. But it’s tough to go against Mariota’s Heisman Trophy-winning campaign — not when he had such sick numbers (4454 pass yards, 42-4 TD-INT ratio, plus another 770 yards and 15 TDs on the ground) and claimed 90.9 percent of all possible Heisman votes, the third-highest share ever at the time.4 His 57 total TDs are tied for the second-most ever by a power-conference QB in a season, and his Ducks went all the way to the very first CFP title game before losing to Ohio State.
Forgotten gem: Akili Smith, 1998 (129.2 PAR/13)
There were a few directions to potentially go here, as Dennis Dixon (109.4 PAR/13 in 2007) was the first great Oregon QB under the revolutionary Chip Kelly system, followed by Jeremiah Masoli and Darron Thomas. We also have future Falcons QB Chris Miller (110.4 PAR/13) under Rich Brooks in 1986. But I’ll go with the greatest of the Mike Bellotti-era QBs, Smith, who is now mainly remembered as a massive NFL draft bust after going No. 3 overall to the Cincinnati Bengals ahead of a bunch of Hall of Famers and other assorted stars. Smith didn’t burn bright for long in Eugene; he only started a year and a half after his pro baseball career fizzled out. But in 1998, Smith dazzled with 3,307 yards and 30 TDs against 7 INTs, leading the Pac-10 in passing across the board.
🏈 Boise State Broncos
Top season: Kellen Moore, 2010 (121.9 PAR/13)
Long before he was an NFL offensive coordinator, Moore was a sweet-slinging lefty QB in coach Chris Petersen’s offense — starting as a freshman and throwing for more than 3,400 yards and 25+ TDs in all four seasons on the blue turf. Moore’s 2010 and 2011 campaigns are roughly interchangeable; he had more TDs in 2011 but also more picks, and did it against a weaker schedule, which ultimately gave 2010 the PAR nod. Another note on Moore: He went an incredible 50-3 in his college career, the first QB to ever hit the half-century mark for lifetime wins.
Forgotten gem: Bart Hendricks, 2000 (104.8 PAR/13)
Since Jared Zabransky could never be forgotten after the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, we’ll go with Hendricks here as the Broncos’ first big-numbers QB after joining the FBS in 1996. The Nevada product flourished in coach Dirk Koetter’s offense, pacing the Big West in TD passes in 1999, then leading the entire nation with 35 scores in 2000. Hendricks’ performance helped set the stage for the subsequent success of Ryan Dinwiddie, Zabransky, Taylor Tharp and, ultimately, Moore — a long lineage that extends all the way to starter Maddux Madsen today.
Filed under: College Football, QB U
Yes, I’m using the same email as for Baseball Bytes, LOL.
Only one of which (Robinson) was in a power conference — sorry, Jordan Lynch.
Though he did win the SEC in 1997, as UF was tripped up by LSU and UGA and failed to make the SEC title game for the first time in the event’s history. (Full disclosure: I was a huge Gators/Spurrier fan in that era. So I didn’t actually consider Peyton’s record a shame, LOL.)
Joe Burrow’s subsequent 93.8% share would leapfrog Mariota in 2019.