Your grandfather’s idea of a perfect starting quarterback is endangered.
The redshirt junior quarterback who stuck around to finally take over that starting job is a rare breed in today’s world of college football, especially for the upper echelon of programs contending for titles. Quarterbacks everywhere wrestle for the keys to the car every year, but something has changed.
Behind the center of almost every championship-hunting squad is either the transfer quarterback or the freshman that forced the transfer to leave by taking their job.
The Rebels are an extreme exception with their young quarterback room, but even that is a result of about six years of exceptional transfer quarterback play.
The emergence of the transfer portal as a vital tool for coaches hunting for their next perfect passer and the strong probability of said player passing waivers to play immediately has brought us a step closer to that once-distant utopia of college football free agency. It’s so damn fun.
Alabama has Tua Tagovailoa who beat out Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts. Ohio State got Justin Fields after he lost the starting job to Jake Fromm at Georgia. Trevor Lawrence forced Kelly Bryant to Missouri after an impressive freshman season at Clemson. Joe Burrow came to Baton Rouge as the savior for the LSU offense and has delivered to say the least.
Oh and by the way, that 2020 five-star dual threat quarterback your team really wanted just committed to one of these contenders.
The last two Heisman Trophy winners, Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray, transferred from other schools and this year’s winner could very possibly be the same with three of the top five on the Heisman watchlist being transfers.
It is fair to say, however, the transfer lifestyle is not the lifestyle for every program. For every Hurts, Fields or Burrow, there’s Riley Neal, Ben Hicks or Nick Starkel. The difference is, some teams scrape from lower-level programs to fill a need while top-programs move laterally to reload with the best talent available. These guys are proven.
Luckily for Missouri, their free agent has been more like Burrow than Hicks or Starkel. Kelly Bryant has done almost everything right on the field since arriving in Columbia. Besides a head-scratching loss to Wyoming in the season opener, the Tigers have handled all opponents this season with Bryant dealing. Even in that loss, Bryant had 423 yards passing with two touchdowns.
His 1,246 yards and 11 touchdowns to three interceptions gives the senior a 77.6 QB Rating, 16th among college quarterbacks according to ESPN, but the Tigers dodged a bullet after he went down with a leg injury right before halftime of the win over Troy last weekend.
The team confirmed it was a minor knee sprain, and he’s been practicing in a knee brace all week but is expected to play. Even if Bryant does start against the Rebels, the first few drives for the Missouri offense will be crucial in seeing if he’s 100%.
Bryant is most effective when he can use his legs to extend plays and scramble when needed, forcing the pass rush to maintain rushing lanes. If he’s not full speed, the improving Ole Miss defensive front will be able to sell out to fluster a quarterback bracing for his first contact in a week.
