The new reality of college quarterback recruiting
Today's college game is once again dominated by experienced, veteran signal-callers with a new caveat...the transfer portal makes it possible to always have one.
What’s the point in recruiting high school quarterbacks these days? Should you just always take a quarterback in the transfer portal?
Is the best reason to recruit high schoolers to build a relationship with potential star players so you have a better chance to get them in the transfer portal later on?
One of the biggest changes in college football the last few years has been the ascendancy of the transfer quarterback. A number of famous, high profile teams had major success with transfer signal callers and now it’s almost the standard procedure for how to field a winning quarterback.
Here’s the newest college football ranking:
Georgia: homegrown quarterback in his 3rd year.
Michigan: Homegrown quarterback in his 3rd year.
Washington: Transfer quarterback in his 6th year.
Florida State: Transfer quarterback/homegrown quarterback in his 4th year.
Oregon: Transfer quarterback in his 6th year.
Ohio State: Homegrown quarterback in his 3rd year.
Texas: Transfer quarterback in his 3rd year.
Alabama: Homegrown quarterback in his 3rd year.
Missouri: Homegrown quarterback in his 4th year.
Penn State: Homegrown quarterback in his 2nd year.
What do you see and not see in the list above? You see a lot of transfers and a lot of guys who are effectively upperclassmen on the back half of their college careers. You don’t see any freshman and a single second year player (Drew Allar of Penn State) who’s been a notably limiting factor for his team.
We’ve already seen a number of quarterbacks jump into the transfer portal for 2024 and I promise you this could be an extremely wild and important dimension to the next season of college football. Fielding an experienced quarterback has become one of the most important roster-building strategies in today’s game.
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