Ranking College Football’s Top Quarterbacks from 2016

It’s late April and NFL scouts are desperately looking for reasons to justify whether or not their teams should pick certain QBs in this week’s NFL Draft. Let’s give them yet another metric to agonize over while bumbling through the internet at 3 in the morning; let’s compare college football’s QBs with the QB Score. Before we delve into the QB Score, however, we first have to recognize what’s missing from the the most common QB metric, the collegiate passer efficiency rating (PER). Behold the PER, in all its glory (trigger warning: extremely basic math lies ahead).

The PER is a fine metric for passing, but it has some unusual traits. For example, QBs can improve their PER solely by completing passes. A QB may be able to increase his PER by completing several 0-yard passes in a row. That’s a rather odd metric to include given that the PER already rewards QBs for yards, which should naturally result from completed passes. I’d expect this kind of stat-padding from those coddled Lobsterbacks across the Bay, but we can do better. Of course, that’s only a minor quibble with the PER. One of the biggest complaints about the PER is that it only captures passing (I’ll give you a minute to process this profound insight).

By only recognizing passing, the PER overlooks a QB’s ability to manufacture yards on the ground. A statuesque QB might surrender 30 negative yards per game on sacks and a nimble QB might run for 150 yards per game; but if their passing stats are identical, the PER will give them identical ratings. Clearly one is much more productive than the other, so let’s find a way to incorporate rushing statistics into our measure of QB performance.

Sports economist David Berri developed a metric that accommodates both running and passing QBs, a metric he calls the QB Score. It's a pretty simple formula:

QB Score = Total Yards - (3 x Plays) - (50 x Turnovers)

While the QBs can improve their PER by accumulating yards, throwing TDs, completing passes, and avoiding interceptions, the strategy to improve one’s QB Score is more straightforward: accumulate yards, don’t take too many plays to accumulate those yards, and don’t turn the ball over.

I collected passing, running, and turnover stats for over 150 FBS quarterbacks and plugged the numbers into the QB Score. The QB Score works best with large sample sizes, so I've only included quarterbacks who threw more than 100 passes last season. While the focus in this piece is on the QB score, I've included the PER to provide a point of comparison. Let's take a look at the results, starting with the top ten quarterbacks from 2016.

In this and all following tables I provide the QB Score, the player's national ranking in QB Score, his PER, and his national rank in PER.

2016’s Top Ten Quarterbacks

There is clearly a healthy amount of agreement between the PER and QB Score, as half of the QB Score’s top ten also finished the year with a top-ten PER. While the QB Score incorporates rushing into its metrics, QBs can still achieve stellar performances without relying on rushing yards. The top QB of 2016, Ryan Higgins (who?) passed for nearly 4900 yards on a stellar 9.3 yards per passing attempt, with 43 TDs to only 8 interceptions. He also ran for a respectable 277 yards and 4 TDs. Second place goes to Patrick Mahomes, the primary reason our good friend Davis Webb transferred to Cal. While Mahomes’ 5,052 passing yards exceeded Higgins’ yardage, Mahomes needed nearly 100 more passes to achieve that number. Mahomes was productive on the ground (285 yards, 12 TDs), but Higgins was more efficient through the air.

In third place is Western Kentucky’s Mike White. White passed for “only” 4,289 yards (with -74 passing yards), but averaged a remarkable 10.5 yards per passing attempt. With only 7 interceptions, his combination of efficiency and ball security gave him a podium finish in our rankings.

If we Cal fans weren’t spoiled with having Jared Goff and Davis Webb back to back, I’d be supremely jealous that Louisiana Tech and Western Kentucky finished in the top-five in 2015 and 2016 with different QBs each year.

The next two QBs, Mike White of South Florida and Lamar Jackson of Louisville, benefited greatly from the QB Score’s inclusion of rushing yardage. Respectively they ranked 20th and 33rd in PER rankings, respectable but not elite. White passed for 2,812 yards (with 24 TDs and 7 interceptions) on 8.5 yards per attempt and Jackson passed for 3,542 yards (30 TDs and 9 interceptions) on 8.7 yards per attempt. Those are solid performances, but not particularly noteworthy. However, White and Jackson rushed for 1,530 and 1,571 yards, respectively. Even more impressive, they averaged 7.73 yards per carry and 6.04 yards per carry, respectively. Those are fantastic averages for anyone, let alone a quarterback. In fact, only one player in the nation, RB Aaron Jones of UTEP, had more carries than White and ran for more yards per carry; and Jones barely finished ahead of White with 7.74 yards per carry.

6th place in our QB Score rankings is Baker Mayfield, the top QB in the nation according to PER. He certainly was effective through the air with 3,965 yards on a spectacular 11.1 yards per passing attempt. His ground game was much less efficient, however. He tallied 177 rushing yards on a lousy 2.27 yards per carry; further, he was dinged for 3 lost fumbles. Under the QB Score the ground game giveth and the ground game taketh away.

9th place finisher DeShaun Watson is an interesting case study. He was one of three QBs in the nation to accumulate over 5,000 total yards. His efficiency didn’t quite match his productivity, however. He passed for 7.9 yards per attempt and ran for 3.81 yards per carry—decent, but not elite. Still, there’s something to be said for piling up over 5,000 yards.

We’ll cover the rest of the nation conference by conference, starting with those lovable scamps in the Pac-12.

Pac-12

For the second year in a row, the Mike Leach family tree reigns supreme. After Jared Goff finished atop our rankings in 2015, Luke Falk inherited the top spot in 2016.

Interestingly, Falk regressed from last year. His QB Score dropped from 1,868 to 1,753 and his PER declined slightly from 145.9 to 145.6. His in-state rival Jake Browning improved tremendously, however. His QB Score jumped from 1,191 to 1,657 and his PER went from 139.7 to a conference-leading 167.5. Our own Davis Webb finished third to give Cal its third consecutive top-three performance in our rankings. I pray to Oski that we get a fourth consecutive top-three finish in the 2017 season, but I won’t hold my breath (in part because I’d be long dead if I held my breath for the next eight months).

Sam Darnold was the second-most efficient QB in the Pac-12 according to the PER, but he finished fourth in the QB Score rankings in part thanks to a run game that hurt his score. His 4.03 yards per carry wasn’t bad, but five lost fumbles put a big, 350-point dent in his QB Score. Without those fumbles, he would have finished second in the conference.

With only 1,348 passing yards (although his 7.4 yards per attempt was decent), Arizona’s Brandon Dawkins was a surprise at 6th in the conference. His score was buoyed by a fantastic 7.21 yards per rush.

Look at those Leland Stanford Junior University quarterbacks’ QB Scores. That David Shaw can routinely churn out 10+ win seasons with these putrid offenses is an affront to humanity.

Now let’s go through the rest of the nation, starting with the rest of the Power 5 conferences in alphabetical order.

ACC

With 5 QBs in the national top-20 (all of whom will likely be drafted this week), the ACC had arguably the best quarterbacking in the nation last season. Their top two QBs have a good chance of being the first two QBs drafted this week and four of their QBs could be off the board by the end of Day 2.

Deshaun Watson regressed from 2,465 to 2,140, which allowed Lamar Jackson to claim first place (a big jump from his QB Score of 1,170 last season). Both QBs tallied over 5,000 total yards, but were hurt by turnovers. Jackson lost 6 fumbles while Watson threw 17 interceptions.

Fortunately for us Cal fans, UNC’s Mitch Trubisky will be drafted (likely the first QB off the board) this weekend and will take his excellent reliability (68.4% completions, 30 TDs to 6 interceptions) to the NFL. He’ll be replaced by LSU grad transfer Brandon Harris, who didn’t play enough to qualify for our rankings this year. Last year Harris posted a respectable 1,059.

Big 12

There was some great quarterbacking happening in the state of Oklahoma last season. The same cannot be said for Kansas, whose QBs have had a habit of finishing near the bottom of our QB Score rankings each year.

Those Kansas’ QBs stats aren’t as awful as I had initially expected. Stanley, Cozart, and Willis respectively completed 59.6%, 58.5%, and 61.5% of their passes on 6.1, 5.7, and 6.9 yards per attempt. Those are bad, but not turrible. What really hurt them is that all of those QBs tossed more interceptions than touchdowns. It’s a shame that Rob Likens and Zach Yenser weren’t been able to get much going with Kansas’ offense over the past couple seasons. They seemed like good hires at the time, but no one seems to know how to fix the wasteland that has been Kansas football over the past several years.

Big Ten

I technically live in the Big Ten footprint now that the conference has expanded to the mid-Atlantic, so I’m surprised that I don’t remember Penn State’s Trace McSorley. He must have been a pleasant surprise for Penn State after years of watching Christian Hackenburg underperform.

McSorley only completed 57.9% of his passes, but he averaged a great 9.3 yards per attempt and tossed 29 TDs to only 8 interceptions. An Ohio State University’s J.T. Barrett made a substantial improvement over last year, as his QB Score rose from 688 to 1,198. Barrett’s passing was okay: 61.5% completions on 6.7 yards per attempt, although he took care of the ball with 24 TDs and 7 interceptions. He was productive on the ground with 845 yards (4.12 yards per carry).

Tommy Armstrong certainly is consistent. He had a 1,080 in 2014, 1,130 in 2015, and 1,071 in 2016.

CJ Beathard plummeted from 1,260 in 2015 to 264 in 2016. Although throwing the same number of TDs (17) in 2015 and 2016, he threw twice as many interceptions (10) in 2016 and threw one-third fewer yards (2,809 vs. 1929). Particularly damaging to his QB Score is that he ran 83 times for -17 yards this season, compared to 237 yards on 100 rushes in 2015. Beathard is not particularly mobile and had trouble avoiding sacks.

Does Rutgers only recruit Italian quarterbacks?

SEC

The SEC didn’t produce too many top QBs this season. It clearly must be a result of those vaunted SEC defenses.

Chad Kelly suffered a surprising drop; he finished 7th in our overall rankings last year with a QB Score of 2,197. His total yardage, yards per passing attempt, rushing yardage, yards per carry, and TD-to-interception ratio all declined this past season, leading to a substantial decline in his QB Score.

And now to the Group of 5 conferences...

AAC

Oklahoma, Connecticut, Florida, Ohio—the AAC has a rough travel schedule.

Quinton Flowers boosted his QB Score by nearly 1,000 over last year, which was good enough to bump him into the top five of our rankings.

Memphis fared pretty well replacing Paxton Lynch, who finished 6th in our rankings last year.

Conference USA

Two of the top three this year. Two of the top four last year. And neither Louisiana Tech nor Western Kentucky returned last year’s QB. That must be agonizing for the rest of the Conference USA to watch.

David Washington nearly tripled his QB Score from last year. His strong performance helped Old Dominion finish 10-3, a particularly impressive feat considering they’ve only been in FBS for three seasons.

Independents

DeShone Kizer leads the independents for the second year in a row. BYU’s Taysom Hill had a fantastic season in 2014 before injuring his knee. Unfortunately he couldn’t replicate those great performances over the course of the season in 2016

MAC

I miss the days when Toledo, Northern Illinois, Ball State, and Ohio QBs were regularly putting up wild combinations of rushing and passing yards. The MAC is in danger of losing its MACtion moniker.

Poor James Knapke. He has the distinction of being the worst QB in our rankings. He completed half his passes, threw twice as many interceptions as touchdowns, and somehow managed to celebrate his senior year with the worst stats of his career.

MWC

Brett Rypien leads the Mountain West, as Boise State QBs often do. Colorado State is turning into a productive home for QBs, as another of their QBs finishes in the Mountain West’s top-three for the third consecutive year.

Hawaii finally found a quarterback! I had a good time mocking analyzing Hawaii’s passing game ahead of our matchup with them, so I’m particularly impressed to see that Nick Rolovich was able to field a respectable passing game last season.

Sun Belt

When someone mentions the “Sun Belt,” what is the first state that comes to mind?

I guarantee it is not Idaho.

More than 150 quarterbacks later, we’ve gone through all the FBS conferences. Given that our own Davis Webb finished 69th in PER but 19th in QB Score, I think it’s fairly obvious that the QB Score is the superior metric. If he’s drafted in the first round tonight, it will be abundantly clear that NFL scouts agree with me.