2019 college football quarterback rankings on the Hourglass

Quarterback - just the name says more than any other named position in football, and rightfully so it should.

In a game where there are halves and have not’s, quarterback can take you from average to good, good to elite and even elite to great. It’s why the position is one of four key components to determining and projecting the success on our metric system.

So far we released our initial power rankings and if you missed those, you can read about those here. We also dropped our coaching rankings and they are available here as well.

Monday we will drop our final poll, which will have records of each team , a final four and an national champion; we will also begin to get into conference primers next week as well. But - today it’s about the most important position on the football field. Without good quarterback play, an elite team can become average really quick or a good team really bad.

We see this time and again, and just last year we saw mid tier recruiting Washington State take elite coaching under Mike Leach and transfer Gardner Minshew and break the school record for wins with 11. Minshew was an average rated quarterback on our system, but propelled his game and his team to a magical season.

Tyree Jackson and what he was able to do at Buffalo the last two years is another great example.

Our metric on quarterbacks are based on college data, data and stats of that quarterback. So sometimes we will have a quarterback ranked lower than they probably should be, then they move up our charts based on play. It is because we have limited data on the player. Take Auburn for instance in 2019. Their quarterback position is ranked close to the bottom on our list of Power Five quarterbacks, because we have no idea who the starter will be and limited data. The quarterbacks recruiting ranking is already mixed in with our composite recruiting scores of that team.

Due to the nature of four wide, side line to sideline play, college football has become a scorers game. True you have to play elite defense; our ODE tracker, which we will discuss in the coming weeks proves that.

But - just look at last year’s College Football Playoff and the elite quarterback play of all four teams throughout the 2018 season.

Quarterback play will likely determine if LSU wins 9 or competes for the West in 2018. Quarterback play will likely determine if Ohio wins the MAC or if FIU can win CUSA.

There is a reason Oklahoma went and grabbed Jalen Hurts once he hit the transfer portal.

If you don’t have it at the IT position, you won’t have it.

Below are our rankings of the Power Five and Group of Five quarterbacks. As always we encourage interaction on Twitter @jakewim or @cfbhourglass.

Our average quarterback ranking for Power Five quarterbacks in 2019 is 9.9, and 8.4 conversely for Group of Five quarterbacks. You are looking at guys like Peyton Ramsey at Indiana or Sam Harman at Wake Forest. And - guys like Isaiah Green at Marshall or J’Mar Smith at Louisiana Tech in the Group of Five.

Editors Note: All photos courtesy of 247sports.com

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