College crash course for transfer QBs
Southern California lost a transfer quarterback to Ole Miss, which lost a quarterback to Central Florida, which lost a quarterback to Oklahoma.
Oklahoma gained that quarterback from UCF and another from Pitt but saw second-year star Caleb Williams leave for USC and former starter Spencer Rattler depart for South Carolina. Pittsburgh lost one quarterback to the Sooners but gained another from USC.
Ohio State had a quarterback transfer to Texas, which had a quarterback transfer to Nebraska, which had a quarterback transfer to Kansas State.
Texas A&M lost a quarterback to Auburn but gained another from LSU, which recruited a possible starter from Arizona State, which then pulled in a transfer from Florida.
Factors such as the onetime transfer rule, the blanket extra season of eligibility granted by the coronavirus pandemic and rule changes related to name, image and likeness have created a dizzying game of musical chairs among Football Bowl Subdivision QBs, impacting depth charts, offseason competitions and the race for the College Football Playoff.
“It certainly changed the approach to the quarterback position,” said Utah coach Kyle Whittingham. “You can’t really worry about it. You can’t complain about it or bellyache about it, because it’s here to stay. You’ve got to find a way to make the most of it and get your own individual situation solidified. Oftentimes, that comes through the portal.”
While every position has seen similar upheaval, it’s at this vital spot that programs have devoted the most brainpower and resources to evaluating, recruiting and eventually preparing transfer quarterbacks in the abbreviated window of time between the end of one season and the start of another.
“I think you can force-feed those guys an awful lot because they want an awful lot so they can try to master all the pieces as they put the whole package together,” said Kansas State coach Chris Klieman.
The decision to enter the portal is a roll of the dice for almost any player. By choosing to evaluate his options, a transfer may not be able to return to his original school, should that program and its coaching staff have decided to move on and pursue his replacement. With far more transfers in the portal than available Power Five scholarships, for example, a player may get caught in scholarship purgatory, unable to return to his previous school or transfer to the school or schools of his choice.
The risk is less prevalent among quarterbacks due to simple supply and demand. Established starters are at a premium. So are developmental prospects with a high ceiling but no track record of production.
The most common type of quarterback transfer has multiple seasons of eligibility, is transferring from a backup role to chase playing time and is unlikely to contribute heavily in the first year
with his new program. On the other end of the spectrum are the highly coveted plug-and-play veterans capable of stepping right into a starting job.
Experienced transfers are “just so much farther along,” Penn State coach James Franklin said. “Most of them have obviously played significantly at this level. They understand, whether it’s college offenses or defenses. They have a better understanding of the work ethic that it takes at this level. And then usually, most of them, especially if it’s a graduate transfer or something like that, they have a sense of urgency.”
But with so little room for error and limited scholarship space to work with, coaches will do a deep dive into even the most productive quarterbacks on the transfer market, going back as far as his high school experience to glean insights not visible on the available game tape.
“There’s a lot of background that has to be done,” said Western Kentucky’s Tyson Helton. “You’ve got to talk with as many people as you can. Because every coach you can talk to, every person that’s involved with that high school or that program or that university, and say, ‘OK, tell me about this guy.’ You’ve really just trying to find chinks in the armor.
We can find that out pretty quickly.”
In some cases, coaches gravitate toward quarterback transfers they recruited years earlier as traditional prospects, drawing on a built-in comfort level and familiarity that can’t be developed on Zoom calls or official visits. In far rarer scenarios, the head coach will have a personal connection with a transfer’s former head coach and be given a reliable account of that quarterback’s strengths and weaknesses – such as with new Kansas State quarterback Adrian Martinez, thanks to Klieman’s relationships with Nebraska coach Scott Frost and former Nebraska quarterbacks coach Mario Verduzco.
In the best-case scenario, programs are able to recruit a transfer quarterback who previously played for the head coach or offensive coordinator. Two of the most impactful transfers of the offseason fit into this category: Williams at USC, where he’ll play for former Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley, and Oklahoma junior Dillon Gabriel, who played under offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby at UCF.
Most often, however, programs evaluating a transfer quarterback will lean on off-the-record conversations within the coaching fraternity, most occurring between lower-level staffers such as graduate assistants or members of the personnel department. Added together, the stream of information coming from every available avenue helps programs unearth the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between.
“The scrutiny that you look at a quarterback with, I mean, that’s the most important position on the field,” said Whittingham. “There’s no doubt about that. It’s so key to your success or lack thereof, that position. So you’d better be right most of the time. You’re not going to be right all the time, but you’d better be right most of the time.”
For transfer quarterbacks competing for the starting job, the first day on campus triggers a condensed period featuring on-field work, hours of 1-on-1 tutoring with an offensive coordinator or quarterback coach and countless nights reviewing game tape of last year’s offense or the previous day’s practice.
Technological advancements in how teams can produce, edit and share film have helped shorten the learning curve. Once signed and enrolled, a transfer quarterback can immediately access via an iPad every piece of tape at his coaches’ disposal; the staff can put together an entire library of plays, concepts and cutups as a crash course for how the scheme is designed to operate.
Some programs can provide a remarkable amount of specification, such as every third-down throw by any quarterback or any team, college or NFL, in a given season.
“With the technology that we have nowadays, it makes it a lot easier for these guys to get going,” Franklin said.
For transfers being prepped for the starting job, a normal practice during spring drills or fall camp will be followed later in that day by film and accompanying notes from his quarterbacks coach. By the next morning, that quarterback has watched the film, given his own feedback and taken another step toward fully grasping the system.
If done correctly, this offseason cram session can get a quarterback and his new program on the same page before kickoff, achieving in months what was once a multiple-year process — the multiple stages of development from arriving on campus, learning the system and then ascending to the starting job.
It has also helped even the playing field. The top teams in the country can no longer stockpile years of depth under center, spreading talent across the FBS and giving every program the chance to find the right fit at the most important spot on the field.
“The one great thing about our game is that recruiting is not an exact science, especially at the quarterback position,” Helton said. “It doesn’t matter where you come from, how you were rated, you see year after year these quarterbacks who become big-time names that really not a lot of people thought a lot of two or three years ago, you know. That’s what gives everybody a chance to be part of the national conversation.”