Midseason Big Ten quarterback power rankings top 10: Drew Allar has taken the leap

The Big Ten has never been the conference of quarterbacks and after losing JJ McCarthy from Michigan to the NFL last season, the state of the conference’s QBs could have gotten much worse. Except that the Big Ten decided to expand, adding UCLA, USC, Oregon, and Washington, and those teams have greatly upped the passing proficiency across the league. 

However, expansion isn’t the only reason that the quarterback position in the Big Ten is much better than it was last season, you can also point to the transfer portal, which brought Will Howard to Ohio State to replace Kyle McCord and found a Power 4 home for Ohio’s Kurtis Rourke at Indiana, and you there’s still just good old fashion development. Penn State’s Drew Allar has taken a significant step forward under new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki in 2024 and even Illinois’s Luke Altmyer has grown from a question mark to an exclamation point for the 6-1 Fighting Illini. 

Still, it is the Big Ten, so we’re going to cut this list off after 10 QBs because after that it starts to get ugly. 

• Passing yards: 1,941
• TD/INT: 15/3
• YPA: 10.7
• EPA/Dropback: 0.61 (1st)
• Success rate: 64.5% (1st)

It may seem ridiculous that the sixth-year MAC transfer is ranked No. 1 over the preseason Heisman Trophy favorite and a former five-star who has been unlocked in a new offense, but there is no good argument I’ll hear for Dillon Gabriel or Drew Allar over Kurtis Rourke this season. Rourke is No. 1 in college football in yards per dropback, EPA/dropback, and success rate. He’s an elite downfield thrower hitting 57% of his attempts over 20 yards downfield and with his size and maturity, is unphased by pressure, leading the conference at 10.3 yards per attempt on his pressured dropbacks. Rourke is out for an indefinite period after injuring his thumb against Nebraska and he’s a massive loss for the Hoosiers because no quarterback in the Big Ten is playing better. 

• Passing yards: 2,077
• TD/INT: 15/4
• YPA: 9.1
• EPA/Dropback: 0.24 (20th)
• Success rate: 51.3% (12th)

It took Gabriel a bit to adapt to his new offense under offensive coordinator Will Stein, but against Ohio State in the Duck’s statement win, Gabriel was lights out. He finished the game 23/34 for 341 yards and two touchdowns with four rushes for 32 yards and another score. He has just enough mobility to threaten defenses and is a highly accurate passer. There are concerns about Gabriel’s arm strength and have been since he became the starter at UCF back in 2019, but that hasn’t limited Oregon’s downfield passing game. Gabriel is completing over 60% of his deep throws and averaging a staggering 24.5 yards per attempt on throws over 20 yards downfield. 

The funny thing about deep shots is that they’re far more about accuracy than they are about arm strength. Where his lack of horsepower becomes a deficiency is the red zone where he struggles to fit the ball into tight windows which led to two red zone interceptions against Michigan State. 

• Passing yards: 1,492
• TD/INT: 11/4
• YPA: 10.2
• EPA/Dropback: 0.37 (4th)
• Success rate: 54.4% (4th)

Drew Allar throws interceptions now and that actually might be a good thing. A season ago, Allar only turned the ball over twice, but that was more a product of his hesitancy to push the ball downfield than anything positive about his game. Well, now Allar pushed the ball downfield as well as any QB in the country. Under new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, Penn State has improved its explosive pass rate from 7.3% to 12.4%, a jump from 11th percentile in the country to 92nd. Penn State still doesn’t have elite wide receivers for Allar to throw to and he can be a bit streaky, but by leading a game-tying drive against USC in Week 7, Allar proved he’s a trustworthy playmaker who just might get the Nittany Lions over the hump in the Big Ten and into the College Football Playoff. 

• Passing yards: 1,567
• TD/INT: 14/3
• YPA: 9.6
• EPA/Dropback: 0.44 (3rd)
• Success rate: 54.5% (3rd)

Ryan Day sent Kyle McCord packing for Will Howard because he wanted a more dynamic option at quarterback who because of his mobility could handle pressure more effectively. However, despite his five rushing touchdowns, Howard has yet to rush for more than 30 yards in a game this season and when pressured he’s completing under 40% of his throws and averaging 4.5 yards per attempt. That’s right in line with what McCord did a season ago when pressured and Howard’s legs have not been the get-out-of-jail-free card Day hoped for. Howard has still been wildly efficient as the point guard of the most loaded offense in the country and he played well in the loss to Oregon, but Howard hasn’t done much to elevate the Buckeyes. 

• Passing yards: 1,506
• TD/INT: 15/1
• YPA: 8.2
• EPA/Dropback: 0.16 (37th)
• Success rate: 46.3% (32nd)

So many teams try to solve the quarterback position with a one-year stop-gap transfer. Sometimes that becomes Dillon Gabriel at Oregon where a veteran play has a quick onboarding process and dominates, but other times it’s DJ Uiagalelei at Florida State who is just flat-out bad or Riley Leonard at Notre Dame, who is just now rounding the corner as a passer in a new system. 

So, it often pays off when your transfer quarterback has multiple years of eligibility left. Altmyer was shaky his first season at Illinois after leaving Ole Miss, but in 2024 he’s taken a huge step forward. Against quality defenses, he’s still struggled a bit, but he has just one turnover on the year and Illinois does such a great job getting him on the move because he’s excellent throwing on the run. His efficiency numbers are a clear tier below the top four guys in the conference, but his quality of play has been right on par, especially considering his roster compared to Howard’s in Columbus. 

• Passing yards: 2,112
• TD/INT: 13/4
• YPA: 7.5
• EPA/Dropback: 0.09 (60th)
• Success rate: 44.7% (47th)

When Taulia Tagovailoa left Maryland, most expected a significant drop off in quarterback play, including the Maryland coaching staff. Early in the season, Maryland leaned on the run game and had Edwards throwing plenty of screens, but coming off the Terrapins upset of USC, Edwards has attempted over 50 passes in back-to-back games and has an average depth of target of nearly nine yards downfield. Edwards has been very effective on a high number of dropbacks this year, he hasn’t taken many sacks or turned the ball over much. Through Week 8, he ranks sixth in the country in sack-adjusted yards. 

• Passing yards: 1,820
• TD/INT: 13/2
• YPA: 8.5
• EPA/Dropback: 0.21 (27th)
• Success rate: 49.1% (15th)

Will Rogers never made much sense to me as Michael Penix Jr.’s replacement for Kalen DeBoer at Washington, but once DeBoer left for Alabama and Jedd Fisch came to Seattle, it made a ton of sense for Rogers to stay. In Fisch’s pro-style offense, Rogers, who thrived in Mike Leach’s air-raid at Mississippi State, has excelled.

Fisch hasn’t asked Rogers to throw the deep crossers that DeBoer and Penix lived on, but when he does take shots, they’ve used play-action and have been very effective. On play-action throws, Rogers has an ADOT over 10 with a time to throw of 2.89 and is averaging 10.6 yards per attempt. He’s an accurate passer who makes quick decisions, but his arm strength limitations have forced Fisch to create packages for run-first freshman QB Desmond Williams Jr. on third down and in the red zone. 

• Passing yards: 1,947
• TD/INT: 14/6
• YPA: 6.8
• EPA/Dropback: 0.09 (59th)
• Success rate: 47.0% (25th)

No quarterback has ever had a particularly easy time replacing a Heisman Trophy winner, though the ones on Lincoln Riley’s teams have had more success than most. Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray won back-to-back Heisman Trophies at Oklahoma in 2017 and 2018, but at USC, Miller Moss is not on that same trajectory in his quest to fill 2022 Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams’s shoes. 

Moss has been solid, far from the biggest issue for USC along its 3-4 start to the season, though in an offense loaded with playmakers, he hasn’t produced dynamic results. Riley has never needed a true-dual threat at quarterback, though he thrived with Murray and Jalen Hurts, but he has always needed a player with mobility like Mayfield and Williams, for his offense to succeed. Moss’s underwhelming athleticism has obviously placed limitations on Riley as a play-caller and has increased the emphasis on his team’s struggling offensive line. 

• Passing yards: 1,589
• TD/INT: 9/6
• YPA: 7.4
• EPA/Dropback: 0.09 (61st)
• Success rate: 45.1% (44th)

Dylan Raiola does not ascribe to the theory of underpromise and over-deliver. From the moment he stepped on campus at Nebraska as the No. 1 QB in the 2024 recruiting class, the former Ohio State and Georgia commit has been method-acting for the lead in an upcoming Patrick Mahomes biopic. He has the look down, it’s the on-field production that still needs some work before they begin shooting. 

Raiola has all the talent in the world. He's a true trick-shot artist who can make every throw from every angle. He’s just a true freshman navigating his first season in the Big Ten, and it shows. In two years, he’ll be topping these rankings. His stellar early-season performances were just the beginning. 

• Passing yards: 1,064
• TD/INT: 7/5
• YPA: 7.9
• EPA/Dropback: -0.01 (83rd)
• Success rate: 42.3% (70th)

Locke turned a few heads when he took over for four games at the end of 2023 as a freshman and now he’s playing even better after replacing veteran transfer Tyler Van Dyke who was lost in Week 3 to injury. He hasn’t been consistently accurate underneath, but on deep and intermediate shots, he’s developed into one of the better passers in the conference. Locke has unlocked Wisconsin’s offense, and so did playing Purdue, Rutgers, and Northwestern in consecutive games. Now, the Badgers have a real test against Penn State in Week 9 and we’ll see if Locke is up to it.