Who Are College Football’s Unexpected New ‘QB Factories’?
Who Are College Football’s Unexpected New ‘QB Factories’?
It's always fun when a team suddenly starts slinging it around. Who fits that description lately?
One of the best features of college football from the late 1970s through the 2010s was the ability for a team to transform its entire identity through the passing game. As my former colleague Maya Sweedler (now of the AP) wrote about a few years ago, BYU was a prime example of this under coach LaVell Edwards: A program in relatively remote Provo, Utah — with a losing all-time record and zero bowl appearances before his arrival — used one of the game’s most innovative and influential aerial attacks to become one of college football’s most successful teams, and even win a national championship in 1984.
The Cougars weren’t alone in that kind of out-of-nowhere climb to national prominence. Houston and Hawaii’s run-and-shoot schemes put them on the map in the 1990s and 2000s, respectively, while the Air Raid system of Hal Mumme and Mike Leach helped make Kentucky and Texas Tech contenders (among many, many other schools, a list that also included Baylor in the 2010s). But that was also the era of low-hanging fruit, when defenses had no idea how to defend spread passing schemes, before the entire Big 12 was averaging more than 35 points and nearly 300 passing yards per game.
Things have changed a little as the cat-and-mouse game between offense and defense has evolved. So who are the modern versions of BYU — teams whose recent QBs have been a lot more successful than in the program’s previous history?
Let’s dig into this using a few of the stats I created for Maya’s story. Specifically, we’ll look at quarterback Points Above Average (PAA) and Points Above Replacement (PAR), both of which are based on ESPN’s Expected Points metric —which includes passing and rushing, though most of the value is driven through the air — with an adjustment for the strength of schedule a QB faced. We’ll be ranking off of teams whose QBs are producing the most PAR per game over the past five seasons (2019-2023) after being below the FBS average over the 20 years preceding the most recent five years:
1. SMU
PAR/Gm past 5 years: 6.92 (+3.72 vs previous 20 years)
Best recent QBs: Tanner Mordecai (180.3 PAR); Shane Buechele (150.3); Preston Stone (82.2)
It’s interesting that the previous subpar 20-year stretch for the Mustangs included a 6+ year stint under June Jones, formerly Hawaii’s run-and-shoot guru — but the renaissance for SMU came under Sonny Dykes, a Leach protege who had success in the air at both Louisiana Tech and Cal before installing a prolific passing attack that ranked 14th in yards per game in 2021 with Mordecai at the controls. After Dykes departed for TCU, Gus Malzahn disciple Rhett Lashlee picked up where things left off, improving the Mustangs in 2022 to their best QB PAR/Gm since Mike Ford in 1978. Stone and Kevin Jennings are both back in 2024, so SMU could be looking at even more passing success during their ACC debut.
2. Central Florida
PAR/Gm past 5 years: 6.80 (+2.77 vs previous 20 years)
Best recent QBs: Dillon Gabriel (182.4 PAR); John Rhys Plumlee (148.1)
Speaking of Malzahn, he has picked up the torch from Josh Heupel (now of Tennessee) and continued UCF’s recent status as a QB factory. The Knights were never a consistently big-time QB machine under longtime coach George O’Leary — despite producing future NFL No. 3 overall pick Blake Bortles — but that changed when McKenzie Milton had a massive season (4,037 yards, 37 TDs, 140.5 PAR) for Scott Frost in 2017. Since then, both Heupel and Malzahn have guided good aerial attacks, and former Arkansas Razorback K.J. Jefferson (who had 199.0 total PAR from 2021-22) is poised to keep that rolling in 2024.
3. Virginia
PAR/Gm past 5 years: 5.98 (+1.50 vs previous 20 years)
Best recent QBs: Brennan Armstrong (195.3 PAR); Bryce Perkins (81.1)
UVA was a pretty good QB school under George Welsh and (to a certain extent) Al Groh throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, with Matt Schaub, Marques Hagans, Aaron Brooks and Shawn Moore, but the Cavs struggled late in Groh’s tenure and subsequently with Mike London. Things picked up again, though, with Bronco Mendenhall arriving in 2016, and by 2021 Virginia ranked second in FBS in passing YPG with Armstrong as the trigger man. Mendenhall’s replacement, Tony Elliott, hasn’t found as much success over the past couple of years, but there’s hope that either Tony Muskett or Anthony Colandrea can reset this upward trajectory.
4. Memphis
PAR/Gm past 5 years: 5.77 (+2.18 vs previous 20 years)
Best recent QBs: Seth Henigan (214.6 PAR); Brady White (149.5)
One of the challenges for teams on this list is that, as soon as a talented offensive coach revives the school’s passing attack, they tend to leave for a bigger program. That’s happened to Memphis twice during the span of years we’re looking at: First, when Justin Fuente — architect of Paxton Lynch’s excellent 2015 season (107.0 PAR) — departed for Virginia Tech to replace Frank Beamer; then, when Mike Norvell — architect of Riley Ferguson’s excellent 2017 season (109.2 PAR) — departed for Florida State to replace Willie Taggart. That left Ryan Silverfield to continue the Tigers’ newfound passing tradition, and he discovered his own version with Seth Henigan’s excellent 2023 season (93.9 PAR).
5. Kent State
PAR/Gm past 5 years: 5.62 (+3.78 vs previous 20 years)
Best recent QBs: Dustin Crum (204.6 PAR); Collin Schlee (69.2)
Kent State had some decent QBs (turned NFL receivers, for some reason) over the years in the form of Josh Cribbs and Julian Edelman, but the Golden Flashes’ passing game had been largely moribund for a decade before Sean Lewis arrived in 2018. Quickly, he set about turning things around, with the nation’s 10th-most passing YPG in 2020 (albeit in a Covid-shortened schedule) and another solid showing with Crum (84.3 PAR) leading the way in 2021. Lewis’ successor, Kenni Burns, struggled mightily to coax even an average performance out of his QBs last season, so we’ll see if the Flashes stay on this list in the future.
6. Maryland
PAR/Gm past 5 years: 5.23 (+1.62 vs previous 20 years)
Best recent QB: Taulia Tagovailoa (266.7 PAR)
Though the Terps’ time under Ralph Friedgen held some early promise, yielding a few solid QB performances from the likes of Shaun Hill and Scott McBrien, he was eventually fired after his teams were unable to consistently score points. Maryland then ran through Randy Edsall, Mike Locksley (as an interim coach), D.J. Durkin and Matt Canada before returning to Locksley on a permanent basis in 2019. Ever since his second season of this stint at the helm, Locksley had Tagovailoa (Tua’s brother) as his starter, and Taulia rewrote the school (and conference!) record book for passing success. Although the Terrapins are on this list by virtue of the methodology, one passer does not a “QB U” make, so they’re another case of wait-and-see if they can stick around.
7. Kansas
PAR/Gm past 5 years: 5.20 (+1.73 vs previous 20 years)
Best recent QBs: Jason Bean (147.5 PAR); Jalon Daniels (125.0); Carter Stanley (51.3)
Despite the offensive resumes of coaches like Mark Mangino, Turner Gill, Charlie Weis, David Beaty and even Les Miles, the Jayhawks posted a below-average PAA from their quarterbacks for 11 consecutive seasons from 2010-2020. It wasn’t until Daniels and Bean shared duties the past few seasons under coach Lance Leipold that KU snapped their streak of bad QB play. (Bean threw for a career-best 449 yards and 6 TDs against UNLV in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl last year.)
8. Wake Forest
PAR/Gm past 5 years: 5.12 (+1.33 vs previous 20 years)
Best recent QBs: Sam Hartman (236.4 PAR); Jamie Newman (57.1)
While Demon Deacon quarterbacks had their moments at times under Jim Grobe — see Riley Skinner in 2009 — Dave Clawson raised Wake Forest’s QB production to another level since taking over in 2014. The program has gotten great seasons out of John Wolford and Hartman, with Newman also putting up an average performance (which is good by WF standards) in 2019. The ‘23 Deacs had trouble replacing Hartman, suffering their worst PAA season since Clawson’s debut campaign, but transfer Hank Bachmeier could help Wake rediscover their usual recent form; he has a 56.8 PAR season under his belt from 2021 with Boise State.
We may no longer reside in the prime era of teams like Texas Tech, Baylor, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisville, etc. all crafting dominating passing attacks out of nowhere at the same time, like they could in the late ‘90s and 2000s. (In many ways, it’s the powerhouses — Bama, LSU, Oklahoma, etc — who are at the cutting edge of the passing game now, every bit as much as the smaller programs.) But it’s still very possible for teams to build a lineage of great QB play from scratch, and use it to elevate a program that hadn’t been used to much passing success in the recent past.
Filed under: College Football
As a graduate, I'm legally obligated to remind you to not forget Purdue Neil! The Cradle of Quarterbacks deserves some statistical love too.
Still to not miss the forest for the tree, I do appreciate and admire the far too often forgotten story of LaVell Edwards and how he evolved his offensive strategy to leverage his physically smaller but faster players at BYU by adopting the forward pass while everyone else was trying to run between the tackles. In the 70s everyone parroted back the narrative of the time - BYU was a gimmick offense that wouldn't survive or succeed, nor would its QBs be able to handle the "more complex" NFL offenses.
Air Raid? Rinse and repeat the same failed arguments. It's a great lesson in disruption and hubris, and one that I recently mentioned on another Substack as a counter example to the lack of innovation within the Nebraska program post-Osborne.
Another more subtle lesson, is how much misinformation there is in what should be straightforward history. Did LaVell learn from Bill Walsh as the narrative says today, or did Bill Walsh - and later Mike Holmgren - learn from LaVell Edwards? The body of evidence points to the latter, including Walsh purportedly receiving copies of BYU game films to incorporate into game plans.
Sure, success always has many fathers, but the history of the modern forward pass offense and who we ascribe as the innovator are strangely shrouded in fog and agendas. That history in my view begins with Sid Gillman - a true genius and innovator that at most these days resides in an obligatory footnote as authors pursue more popular and recent head coaches as the supposed creators.
I always admired Al Davis and Don Coryell who would tirelessly remind people that the modern passing game began with Gillman - full stop. Unfortunately, those voices of truth are gone or small and fading these days as the forward pass Big Bang moment in our revisionist history now somehow starts with Walsh.
As a kid in Ohio, I loved Walsh as the cantankerous and quirky AHC for the Bengals who made Ken Anderson one of the great underrated players in football as well as the tragic story of his fractured relationship with Paul Brown. I also respect how he played a part in Virgil Carter (also from BYU...another LaVell Edwards connection to Walsh) developing the now familiar "Expected Points" metric...but regarding modern theories of downfield passing, Gilman preceded Walsh and others by a good measure.
I come not to criticize any of these people. They each in their own and important way played key roles in moving the game forward to where it is today. However, remembering who was the actual originator of these concepts is important work that is crucial to understanding history and how we got here.
To that end, I would encourage everyone to learn more about Sid Gillman - an original and true innovator. Thanks so much again for an inspiring read.