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FOOTBALL How many top QB recruits transfer? The staggering attrition of CFB’s most coveted players - The Athletic

For college quarterbacks, transferring is now standard operating procedure.

If you’re not playing, you’re leaving. If you are playing and one thing goes wrong, like a season-ending injury or a coaching change, you’re probably leaving.

The Athletic studied the careers of the top 50 high school quarterbacks who signed with FBS programs in the recruiting classes of 2017 through 2020. More than 70 percent have transferred during their time in college.

We did this same study at the end of 2019 for the top 50 QB recruits of the 2014-2017 classes and found that 57 percent had transferred from the school they initially signed with out of high school. At the time, that seemed like a high percentage. Not anymore.

Based on these recent classes, if a top-50 QB signee doesn’t start one game in his first two years on campus, there’s an 87 percent chance he’ll end up leaving the program. But among the quarterbacks who did earn a start in their first two years, more than 60 percent still ended up transferring during their careers.

It’s not that these players are all bad at picking schools. This is just the state of quarterback development at the college level. They enroll, learn the offense and compete for the starting job. If they’re not the guy, the typical next step is entering the portal and trying again somewhere else.

Three key changes occurred over the past three years to accelerate the trend. The extra year of eligibility every player was given for 2020 has extended the college careers of these quarterbacks. The one-time transfer rule went into effect in 2021. And then came NIL. All of those factors help incentivize the decision to transfer.

Yet at the same time, we have collectives trying to turn top quarterback recruits into millionaires. The saga of new Arizona State commit Jaden Rashada and his $13 million deal with Florida that fell through is certainly a more extreme sign of the times, but it does raise a valuable question: Is offering six- or seven-figure deals to high school quarterbacks actually a good investment?

To better understand the ROI of quarterback recruiting these days, let’s take a closer look at four recruiting classes and see how many QBs actually succeeded where they signed.


If you dig into the careers of top quarterback recruits from 2017 to 2020, you’ll find a wide spectrum of outcomes. There are NFL Draft picks, Heisman Trophy contenders, multi-year starters and transfer success stories. And there are plenty of players whose college careers didn’t work out like they’d hoped.

We looked at the top 50 recruits in each class according to the 247Sports Composite rankings. From that group of 200 passers, let’s start by removing 22 players who moved to another position in college.

There are some talented players in that group — running backs Roschon Johnson (Texas) and Ja’Quinden Jackson (Texas/Utah), wide receivers Keytaon Thompson (Mississippi State/Virginia) and Isaiah Williams (Illinois) and tight end Jelani Woods (Oklahoma State/Virginia) — who thrived by making a change. Arkansas’ Connor Noland focused on baseball, developed into an ace pitcher and got drafted by the Chicago Cubs.

Let’s also take out 10 players who retired for medical reasons or quit football with eligibility remaining. That leaves us with 168 college quarterbacks who were top-50 recruits.

So far, 126 of the 168 quarterbacks have transferred. That’s 75 percent.

That’s right: Only 42 of these quarterbacks stayed at one school during their career. As you’d expect, there are a bunch of big names in that pool of players. There’s the Alabama trio of Bryce Young, Mac Jones and Tua Tagovailoa. There’s Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, Pitt’s Kenny Pickett and six more NFL Draft picks. Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud, TCU’s Max Duggan, UCLA’s Dorian Thompson-Robinson and several more are hoping to get drafted in April.

They played early in their careers, proved themselves and found success. There are a few examples like Jones or Stanford’s Davis Mills who waited until they were third-year players to get their shot, but most (30 of 42) earned starts in their first two years on campus.

The increasingly common occurrence now is quarterbacks earning starting jobs early on and still choosing to transfer during their career. Bo Nix, Jayden Daniels and Dillon Gabriel were all true freshman starters. Spencer Rattler, Devin Leary and Graham Mertz won starting jobs as redshirt freshmen. Among these 168 quarterback recruits, 78 were able to start games in their first two years. It’s an important achievement, but it doesn’t guarantee their college years will live up to their expectations.

FB RECRUITING Cumbie on the 2023 Signing Class - 2.1.2023

Cumbie's thought from Wednesday:

- Great to put a stamp on this class from a high school perspective. It's a great class. We are probably done with high school kids, but we will likely add a couple more transfers if we can find the right guys. Great talent, great character. Testament to the job that our staff did. They put in a lot of work on the road.
- We feel like we improved our football team on both sides of the ball. We still have some work to do on defense in the transfer portal. We can reflect a little bit on it today.
- Lots of good football players in TX & LA. That's what attracted our staff to this job. We don't want to fly anywhere, and we didn't have to for these high school guys. We want to keep that trend going.
- This is our footprint. We have to continue to have a strong presence in the state of LA. We might have faced a little pushback early on being a bunch of Texas guys, but this is our home base. This is the state that we want to serve.
- Charlie Robinson is big and powerful. Great upside. We need help in the pass rush and hope he can help with that. Coach Camp and Coach Turner did a great job with him.
- Ked Harper, we think he's going to be a great player for us. He'll play the field side. He's very long. He's very fast. He has so much upside. We'll add a lot of strength to him. State Champion, knows what it is like to win. That background attracted us to him as well.
- I think you are always looking at your own process in terms of evaluation and the offer process. How early you might offer a kid, that type of stuff. The two junior days we had last year were primarily kids from Louisiana & Texas, a lot from Louisiana. 8 of our 12 from LA were at one of those junior days. It speaks testaments to the types of kids we recruited. Our W/L record wasn't where we wanted it to be, but they stuck with us. Kids that are coming here for the right reasons. We will always look for more efficient ways to do things. We feel like we want to just continue picking up steam in LA and string some wins together and continue bringing in better talent.
- It was a balanced class offense and defense. We improved a lot at LB and DE in the portal, upgraded at QB. Two HS QBs we signed throw the ball well, and they are winners. Evan went 13-1. Furthest the school has ever gone. Our OL staff knocked it out the park. One of the best OL classes I've ever been around, regardless of where I've been previously.
- We don't look at recruiting rankings too much. We evaluate film and go off our evaluations. 3-4 years from now I hope we can look back at this class and say those guys won a bunch of football games. Hopefully they bring us a conference championship and play in a lot of big bowl games.

FB RECRUITING Official Visits - (1.27.2023 - 1.29.2023)

I will update the list throughout the week.

DE Carlos Hatcher - Tulane Transfer (He's really coming this weekend. This one feels like it's pretty much a done deal)

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S Daniel Cobbs - Tyler JC

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S/Nickel/CB Isaiah McElvane - San Diego State Transfer

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LS Gabe Pugh - Alabama Transfer

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BTB RADIO Season 15 Episode 24

BC & Beck are back on the air for our next-to-last BTB Radio show of the season! SportsTalk 97.7 FM at 6 PM!

- Dunkin' Dogs & Lady Techsters Update + a look at the C-USA Standings

- Milton Williams, Boston Scott, and L'Jarius Sneed headed to the Super Bowl

- What should we expect to see in the late signing period for Louisiana Tech? (I should have the full breakdown some time tomorrow. I don't think it will come with a lot of drama.)

- Lane Burroughs joins us at 6:30 to preview the 2023 season that is slated for first pitch on February 17th

- Regardless of sport, what is your favorite Tech game of all time?

*Unless it goes public, we won't mention the coaching changes.

Calls/Texts - (888)-993-7762

Vote for Kenny Lofton Jr NBA G League All Star

Vote for Kenny Lofton Jr. To play in the NBA G League All Star Game on Feb. 19th in Salt Lake City. He is listed on the First Forwards. You have to vote for 2 guards, 2 Forwards and 1 center. Vote as much as you can until Feb. 3rd.

BASKETBALL GAME THREAD | Dunkin’ Dogs vs UAB (Round 2)

8 PM tip-off on CBS Sports Network.

Both teams at 4-5 in conference play.

Will be interesting to see if Jelly Walker is back in the lineup for UAB.

Tech will have to rebound well if they want to win.

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