0 Shares Print Ohio State’s embarrassment of riches at quarterback scintillates as the big story of the college football offseason, but that’s a false cue for the national theme concerning sports’ most celebrated position heading into the 2015 season. While the Buckeyes might be approaching a Year of the Quarterback(s), a notable number of teams with realistic hopes to dethrone the defending national champions are uncertain behind center. Just six of the top 15 teams from Mark Schlabach’s “Way-too-early top 25” welcome back their starting quarterback. Last year, nine of the top 11 teams and 11 of the top 15 from the preseason AP poll featured a returning starter. Perhaps, at least from a preseason perspective, 2015 looks like “Not the Year of Quarterbacks.” While Ohio State with Cardale Jones, J.T. Barrett and Braxton Miller, TCU with Trevone Boykin, USC with Cody Kessler, Michigan State with Connor Cook and Clemson with Deshaun Watson, provide a solid crew of headliners, the list of perennial powers with questions at the position is curiously long, spanning the college football nation from Florida and Florida State, to Alabama and Auburn, to LSU, to Texas, to Oklahoma, to UCLA, to Oregon, to Michigan and back down to Georgia. This isn’t a case of a massive attrition of talent toward the NFL either. While Florida State’s Jameis Winston and Oregon’s Marcus Mariota went 1-2 in the draft this past April, another QB wasn’t selected until 73 picks later. In total, just seven QBs were picked this spring, the fewest since 1955 and the first time since 1998 that fewer than 10 QBs were selected. In the 2014 draft, 14 QBs were picked. It would seem, at least according to conventional wisdom, that contenders with quality experience at quarterback will have a, well, arm up this fall. Fifth-year senior and third-year starter Cody Kessler boasts considerable experience as USC’s quarterback, uncommon among many of this season’s elite teams. Kelvin Kuo/USA TODAY Sports”For us, it’s a huge factor because we’re still a youthful offense,” USC coach Steve Sarkisian said of third-year starter Kessler. “When you have a veteran at that position it helps when you are dealing with younger receivers, offensive linemen, some running backs who might be inexperienced.” These QB quandaries are hitting the Power 5 elite at a higher rate than the FBS hoi polloi: 89 of 127 FBS teams — 70 percent — welcome back their starting quarterback, according to returning starter figures compiled by Phil Steele. Among the Power 5, 43 of 65 starters are back, though many of those returning starters at places such as Florida, Texas, LSU and Oklahoma are facing significant competition to hold on to their jobs. In fact, one controversy this offseason — at least among some coaches and administrators — has been the QB transfer roulette as teams unhappy with their situations look for a veteran solution. It started with Vernon Adams, an FCS standout at Eastern Washington, transferring to Oregon to thicken the plot to replace Mariota…
Continue Reading: Experience at QB: How much does it matter?
