Notre Dame is set to break in a new starting quarterback in 2022 as rising sophomore Tyler Buchner looks to be the heavy favorite to win the job going into spring practice. The Californian picked up some experience as a change-of-pace mobile option to the more, ahem stiff, Jack Coan who now exhausts his college eligibility and is currently at the NFL Combine.
Last year, we broke the regular season schedule into 2 parts in order to examine the opponent quarterbacks the Irish are set to face and it’s time to take a quick look for 2022.
Composite score as recruits included
Game #1 Ohio State
C.J. Stroud, r-SO 0.9780
Kyle McCord, SO 0.9858
Devin Brown, FR 0.9761
At times it was a bizarre situation in the Ohio State quarterback room leading up to 2021 as the program looked to replace 2-year starter and 1st round pick Justin Fields. With no one having thrown a pass in college–and strict state of Texas NLI laws playing a part–2022 freshman and No. 1 overall recruit Quinn Ewers re-classified for 2021 and enrolled on campus right before fall camp.
It was a bold move that didn’t pay off. Betting favorite C.J. Stroud won the starting job rather easily and would go on to an impressive first season by leading all Power 5 quarterbacks in passer rating with a 4th place finish in the Heisman race. Ahead of Early Signing Day this past December, Ewers announced his intent to transfer and now heads back to Texas, the team he was committed to for 6 weeks back in the summer of 2020.
This off-season, 2020 low 4-star quarterback Jack Miller transferred to Florida while former preferred walk-on Jagger LaRoe (previously a transfer from Texas A&M) is in the Transfer Portal. In an interesting decision, the Buckeyes allowed then true freshman Kyle McCord to play a 5th game in 2021 and use a year of eligibility. Ohio State welcomes the No. 42 overall player and Utah quarterback Devin Brown to campus as a freshman.
Game #2 Marshall
Henry Colombi, 6th SR 0.839
Luke Zban, 5th SR
Cam Fancher, r-FR 0.8248
Chase Harrison, FR 0.8579
Cole Pennington, FR 0.8411
Peter Zamora, FR 0.8263
Grant Wells was a 2019 recruit who enrolled early at Marshall and eventually started the past 2 seasons for the Thundering Herd. In a blow to the program, he entered the Portal in early January and has since enrolled at Virginia Tech.
Marshall looked set to rely on backup and former walk-on Luke Zban or rising redshirt freshman Cam Fancher before welcoming Henry Colombi from Texas Tech. Colombi was a little-used backup to Jordan Love at Utah State before earning 9 starts across 2 years for the Red Raiders.
The Thundering Herd signed 3 freshmen in their 2022 class, including Cole Pennington, son of legendary Marshall quarterback Chad Pennington.
Game #3 California
Jack Plummer, 5th SR 0.873
Ryan Glover, 6th SR 0.8207
Zach Johnson, r-SO 0.8397
Kai Millner, r-FR 0.9023
Fernando Mendoza, FR 0.7932
Cal is looking for a new quarterback after Chase Garbers decided to go pro following a career with 6,580 yards and 50 touchdown passes. Like many schools, the Golden Bears turned to the Portal and brought in Purdue transfer Jack Plummer. He’s thrown for 3,405 yards and 26 touchdowns across 3 seasons with Boilermakers, including starting (and later being benched) against Notre Dame this past season.
Former Western Carolina and Penn players Ryan Glover transferred in prior to last year and offers some backup experience. 2021 quarterback Kai Miller was California’s 4th best recruit from their class 2 years ago.
Game #4 North Carolina
Jacolby Criswell, R-SO 0.9070
Drake Maye, r-FR 0.9724
Conner Harrell, FR 0.8647
Jefferson Boaz, r-SO 0.8572
It’s felt much longer than 3 years since Sam Howell started for the Tar Heels. He finally moves on to the NFL after 10,283 passing yards, 1,009 rushing yards, and 111 total touchdowns in Chapel Hill.
North Carolina is expecting an off-season battle between Jacolby Criswell and Drake Maye with both receiving some backup snaps this past season.
The team brought in 3-star recruit Conner Harrell from Alabama while Jefferson Boaz was a recruited tight end who has been playing quarterback for a couple seasons.
Game #5 BYU
Jaren Hall, 5th SR 0.8549
Jacob Conover, r-JR 0.9005
Cabe Fennegan, 5th SR 0.7853
Sol-Jay Maiavva-Peters, r-SO 0.8521
Like many BYU players, Jaren Hall has experienced quite the long career. Originally a recruit from the 2016 class, he went on his 2-year mission to California and came back to Provo for the 2018 season. By 2019, Hall was a backup with Baylor Romney and then missed all of 2020 with a hip injury. He won the job last year and played pretty well with 2,583 passing yards, 307 rushing yards, 23 total touchdowns, and just 5 picks.
Baylor Romney, himself no spring chicken as a 2015 signee at Nevada, has decided to move on from BYU and possibly may not be playing football anymore.
The Cougars have Cabe Fennegan a former Boise State quarterback on the roster who will battled Jacob Conover for backup reps.
Game #6 Stanford
Tanner McKee, r-SO 0.9764
Jack West, 5th SR 0.9115
Ari Patu, r-FR 0.8894
Charlie Mirer, FR
Tanner McKee opened the 2021 season looking like a future Heisman candidate and ended it with questions about his long-term productivity for the Cardinal. Fortunately for him, Stanford really doesn’t have much to challenge him this off-season.
Former walk-ons Dylan Plautz and Isaiah Sanders offered depth in the past and should be moving on. Jack West has had every opportunity to beat out McKee–including starting last year’s opener–and couldn’t get it done. Ari Patu made a couple appearances (including 1 start) as a freshman and apparently needs a lot more seasoning.
Stanford also signed Charlie Mirer out of Cathedral Catholic in San Diego. He’s an unrated quarterback and son of former Notre Dame quarterback Rick Mirer.
Nice outlook. Just gotta weather Stroud in the first game and the rest of the QB’s in the first half look like a list that the ND defense has feasted on over the past few years, with some of them being repeats (Plummer, McKee).
I’ve seen the rankings say Marshall is perhaps a better team then might be expected (i.e. they stack up as good as any non-Clemson ACC team), BYU is always feisty so some of those games might be tricky but at least they don’t have a Day 1 or 2 NFL draft QB to lead them.
I would not short change Hall at BYU. I saw him play a couple of times and he has a very strong arm. FWIW Zach Wilson was not high on draft boards before his last season at BYU.
Fair enough, you make good points. Zach Wilson wasn’t high on draft boards because he also wasn’t that good of a QB in his first two years..Hall in 2021 was way better than early-BYU Wilson, so I will withdraw the sentiment BYU won’t have good quarterbacking, that was overly disrespectful. I still don’t think Hall is a future high NFL pick, though.
I’ve read this sentence four time and now I don’t know if it’s a typo or if I’m not understanding something.
OSU people are feeling pretty optimistic about the opening weekend matchup, which is irritating. I’ve been to the Shoe to watch high school football, and I’ve been to the Shoe to watch Notre Dame play Ohio State in lacrosse, but I’m definitely looking forward to my first OSU football game at the Shoe; hopefully it’s at least one of a great atmosphere and a Notre Dame win.
I don’t see a typo. The point of the sentence is they signed 3 freshmen QB’s – with one of them being Chad Pennington’s son.
I would be pretty optimistic if I were an OSU fan too.
I think he’s joking saying there’s no way Pennington has a son in college already. Outside of that explanation, I agree with you don’t see any typos.
I guess so. I wasn’t floored by that one, it seems about right to me. But the passage of time is a funny thing. I was shocked to see Patrick Surtain Jr make it through the ranks (it felt to me that regular Patrick Surtain just retired, even though he’s been out of the NFL since 2008…I woulda guessed like 2014 or something). And Surtain and Pennington are roughly the same age.
Nope, my apologies. I read it as their class was three people, one of whom was freshman QB Pennington and for whatever reason I couldn’t read it the other way until you clarified.
Oh, I see what you mean.
Wait, now I can’t read it the right (intended) way.
Well, the article provides no evidence that they did sign more than 3 players. It would be an entirely QB based class, which would be tough. But until someone proves otherwise, you weren’t necessarily reading it wrong.
Is Jack Plummer related to Jake? It’s amazing to see that all the OSI QBs are so highly rated and all are probably higher rated than Buckner.