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CHESTNUT HILL, MA - NOVEMBER 15: Dylan Lonergan #9 of the Boston College Eagles passes against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets during the game at Alumni Stadium on November 15, 2025 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo By Winslow Townson/Getty Images) | Getty Images
It’s that time of year when sports writers, especially those who cover college sports, get creative. It’s more likely that they’re desperate because, for the most part, not much is going on. Yes, there are still NCAA championships going on, but unless a sport rhymes with sootball or tasketball, the vast majority of people are waiting until late August to get excited.
Which means that for the most part, there’s a lot of “click bait” out there to get you to read something. I really try not to do that. I would much rather give you something worthwhile to read. I’ll admit, sometimes it might be a bit silly and lighthearted, like this. Or you might feel that it isn’t critical to your well-being, like this. There is a little tongue in cheek, a wink of the eye, a bit of snarkiness. But, I never misstate facts, at least not intentionally; I try to make it worth your while to read it. And, I scroll my feed looking for stuff that might pique your interest.
But, sometimes with these posts, teams that aren’t “bluebloods” – like Rutgers isn’t – get lumped together and treated with a bit of indifference. “Hey, so I wasn’t accurate. Who cares? It’s only Rutgers; nobody will know.” Yeah, well, we know.
Take this article from David Hale at ESPN. The headline read Ranking all 138 FBS QB situations ahead of the 2026 season. And I thought, hey, this would be interesting. Then I read his comment in the section where Rutgers was listed.
Tier 15: Everyone gets lucky sometimes: Well, the good news for folks at Rutgers, Iowa, Wisconsin or Boston College is that there’s really nowhere to go for the offense but up. It was bad last year. It has been bad for a while. The options for 2026 aren’t markedly worse than the options in each of the past few years.
Uhh, really? Did they see our offense last year? You know, the one that was led by the guy who got drafted by the Commanders? Hmmm, just put a lot of Hale’s story in question.
Regardless, the piece did spark my interest, and so that you don’t have to read “click bait”, I did it for you!
Hale created 25 tiers of quarterbacks, from Tier 1a: Room at the top to Tier 25: Better than all but .00002%. Here’s the bad news: Rutgers QB is not in the top 14 tiers. But, here’s the good news: he’s not at tier 25!
If you’re a careful reader, you already know that Rutgers’ quarterback – oh, by the way, David Hale has decided that Dylan Lonergan is our QB1 – is in Tier 15.
To keep this readable, let’s just focus on where each Big Ten team sits.
Tier 1b: Great but also has Jeremiah Smith
It’s Ohio State’s Julian Sayin. And if you or I was a QB who had Smith as a target, we’d be listed here, too.
Sayin vs. ranked Power 4 opponents: 2-2 record, 59.2 QBR, 68% completion rate, six TDs, four INTs, 6.9 yards per dropback
Sayin vs. unranked Power 4 opponents: 8-0 record, 92.8 QBR, 80% completion rate, 19 TDs, one INT, 8.41 yards per dropback
Before you ask, Tier 1a: Room at the top had Darian Mensah (Miami), CJ Carr (Notre Dame), Trinidad Chambliss (Ole Miss), and Arch Manning (Texas).
Tier 2: Are you not entertained?
It’s USC’s Jayden Maiava along with Oregon’s Dante Moore and Dylan Raiola. See? You can include QB competition, Mr. Hale.
Raiola moved on from Nebraska, while the other two are returning to their 2025 team. From the original story: For the QBs in Tier 2, we’ve got a pretty good idea of who they are. They’re very good — and have been for a while. How much better can they be in 2026? Perhaps it’s just a matter of an already established track record over multiple seasons, but these guys feel like safer bets for an impressive repeat of past success than a sudden uptick into a whole new stratosphere.
Tier 3: The Sean Clifford Zone
With Fernando Mendoza in the NFL, Indiana will have a new signal caller and that’s Josh Hoover. Likewise Rocco Becht at Penn State. Here’s the lede for this tier and the basis for its title: Sean Clifford won 32 games as Penn State’s starter. He was nearly always somewhere between solid and quite good. Against teams that finished the year ranked, however, he was a woeful 4-11. This, of course, was the story for nearly every quarterback under James Franklin at Penn State, but it’s also true for a lot of others and this presents a delicate situation for schools like those Nittany Lions teams. They have legitimate national championship hopes. They have QBs good enough to get them close — but maybe not close enough.
Tier 4: Better than you thought
Hale’s comment: Hype in college football can be as much about presentation as actual success, and for the QBs in Tier 4, the numbers suggest they should be getting a lot more love than they do….Tier 4 isn’t chock full of the biggest names, but five of these quarterbacks are among the best in the country.
The B1G representative in this tier is Demond Williams Jr. from Washington. His 25 TDs vs 8 INTs is pretty good. Over 3000 yards in the air plus another 611 yards rushing; not too shabby.
Tier 5: The Christian Hackenberg Paradox
PSU getting two tiers named for past quarterbacks! Here’s the reason, per Hale: Already picking on former Penn State quarterbacks, let’s use Hackenberg as another example of a unique QB subset.
Flashback to 2011, when Hackenberg, a 6-foot-4 archetype for a quarterback, earned Penn State’s starting job as a true freshman and wowed, throwing 20 touchdown passes and announcing himself as a burgeoning star, a near certain first-round NFL draft pick.
From there, things didn’t quite go as planned. There was a coaching change and too many turnovers and, while he did ultimately get drafted in the second round due almost entirely to his measurables, his NFL career amounted to just a few snaps in the preseason. I was watching the draft with a group of Jets fan, when Hack’s name was called; the collective WTF!!! still reverberates in my head. But I digress.
Michigan’s Bryce Underwood represents the Big Ten in Tier 5. Impressive numbers as a freshman. Lots of potential. But, fast starts don’t necessarily translate to long term success or hearing your name called in the first round in April 2029.
Tier 6: Welcome to the big leagues
There were 24 players named in the first seven tiers (remember there was 1a and 1b), bringing us up to a group of quarterbacks who are all moving up to P4 from the Group of 5. And as David Hale writes: Sometimes, the talent translates. Sometimes it doesn’t. Scheme, fit, supporting cast — all of that matters as much as the raw talent, but playing with the big boys also means the weaknesses that might’ve escaped scrutiny at a lesser level will get exposed eventually. Interestingly, Nebraska’s Anthony Colondrea has actually already played in P4, putting in two years at Virginia before regrouping at UNLV where things came together for him.
Tier 8: Learning to fly
Maryland’s Malik Washington, along with the others in Tier 8, have talent and a lot of good points along with some question marks.
Tier 13: Coordinators make them interesting
Big jump down to get to Aidan Chiles of Northwestern. Chiles was at Michigan State but departed with the arrival of Pat Fitzgerald. Like the others in this category, who is calling his plays might be the key to success.
Tier 14: Living dangerously
And the title means what? At one point, the QBs in this tier were rising stars, the hope for a program. Just last year, Lagway [DJ Lagway, Baylor] was among the hottest names in the sport. Iamaleava was college football’s first NIL superstar. [West Virginia’s Michael] Hawkins started games for Oklahoma as a true freshman. [Boise State’s Maddux] Madsen helped lead Boise State to the playoff.
But not everyone progresses in a straight line. Heck, some guys don’t progress. So, Tier 14 represents dimmed prospects and enough hope for the future to make these players intriguing.
In the Big Ten, that’s Minnesota’s Drake Lindsey and UCLA’s Nico Iamaleava. By the way, Maddux Madsen definitely makes my 2026 All-Name Team.
Tier 15: Everyone gets lucky sometimes
Here we are, folks. As previously noted, the article puts Lonergan ahead of AJ Surace (not that Surace is even mentioned), and doesn’t even consider the competition between them. And ironically, Boston College – Lonergan’s last stop – is in this tier, too.
Some stats on Lonergan last year at BC: vs. Stanford, Michigan State and Georgia Tech: 70% completion rate, 73.3 Total QBR, 7.8 yards per dropback, seven touchdowns, two turnovers
vs. all other FBS opponents: 56% completion rate, 60.6 Total QBR, 5.6 yards per dropback, six touchdowns, seven turnovers
Tier 18: Free fallin’
It’s been a long and winding road. If you’re still reading, thank you. If you’re not….never mind.
I guess the best you can say about Alessio Milivojevic from Michigan State and Purdue’s Ryan Browne is that they aren’t in tier 25! And from a Rutgers perspective, we do play MSU this year.
And, no, Milivojevic does not make my All-Name Team.
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