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What a difference a couple of months can make. At the start of the 2026 college football season, when FanSided's own Nick Villano set out to rank the 25 best quarterbacks in the country, names like Keelon Russell and Kamario Taylor were nowhere to be found, still weeks away from establishing themselves as current and future stars. And when our Cody Williams handed out some midseason grades for those same 25 QBs at the start of October, he was unsure about Oklahoma State's Drew Mestemaker, while the stocks of guys like LSU's Sam Leavitt and South Carolina's LaNorris Sellers were circling the drain.
As the calendar flips to November following a surprisingly upset-free Halloween Saturday, we figured we'd run this exercise back one more time. And it's startling just how much has changed over the course of a few weeks, as Mestemaker might darn well be QB1 when the NFL Draft rolls around next spring and Leavitt and Sellers have fully come back from the dead. Which other top QBs get passing grades as this chaotic season reaches the home stretch, and which might need some extra credit? Let's dive in.
What a roller-coaster ride it's been for Raiola, who was initially ranked on this list as a backup poised to take over the QB1 job from Dante Moore in 2027. But Moore's eventually season-ending injury has thrust Raiola into the spotlight, and while it certainly hasn't always been smooth sailing — he got benched in an ugly home loss to UCLA and was largely punchless in a road loss to Illinois last week — you have to give him credit for the way he's stuck with it.
Raiola came off the bench led a stirring comeback against Nebraska two weeks ago, then caught fire in the second half of an upset of Northwestern on Saturday. Especially considering how much dysfunction he's had to deal with around him, from injuries to Oregon's receiving corps to a botched OC hire, he's shown enough to give fans reason to believe in him next year.
I'll admit to to being bullish on Washington taking a step forward under new OC Clint Trickett this season. In a word, yikes: He went just 19-for-29 for 190 yards and a pick against a bad Illinois defense on Saturday, and it simply doesn't seem like the light is coming on for the former four-star recruit. He still has plenty of arm talent, and lord knows he's not the only thing wrong with this Maryland program. But he needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.
Good luck trying to pin a grade on Lagway, and this Baylor offense as a whole. A week after getting Dave Aranda fired with a loss to Kansas, the Bears turn around and drop 41 on UCF, including 319 yards (on just 25 attempts!) and four TDs from the former five-star QB. Lagway is a big-game hunter, and when it's working, his combination of arm talent and athleticism is downright jaw-dropping. Of course, when it's not — when his accuracy starts spraying, and his decision-making spirals — it's downright ugly. With games against BYU, Texas Tech and Houston to close the year, we'll find out a lot more about Lagway's long-term ceiling soon.
Houston is on the outside of the Big 12 and College Football Playoff races after losses to both Texas Tech and Utah, but you can't put that on Weigman. He nearly willed the Coogs to a win in Lubbock all by himself, and while he was less efficient against the Utes, he still hit some big plays and put his team in position to win in a brutally difficult spot. Overall, he's been one of the most productive QBs in the country this year, completing over 65 percent of his passes at nearly nine yards an attempt with 26 total TDs and just two picks. It's hard to ask for more than that.
This may come back to haunt me. Utah has still yet to really face a top-flight defense, and in its stiffest test of the year against Houston, Dampier tossed two early picks that nearly cost his team. Of course, it didn't cost his team because he wound up rushing for 150 yards and two scores, which speaks to how easy it is to get lured in by one of the most dynamic skill sets in the country. Dampier still has to prove he can pilot this offense against elite competition; the Holy War next week will be a prime opportunity. For now, though, I'm buying in.
Since last we checked in on the former No. 1 recruit in the country, he lost his job to freshman Tommy Carr — seemingly for good. Granted, Michigan OC Jason Beck has not exactly covered himself in glory. Then again, Beck isn't the reason why Underwood all too frequently collapsed as a pocket passer, making baffling decisions and dropping his eyes once things got hairy. There's still a good college QB in here, but it'll take a change of scenery to find it.
I'm not sure what Penn State fans expected. Rocco Becht has established himself as a fine but unspectacular QB in the Big 12, and upon coming to Happy Valley, he's been ... pretty much exactly that. He has the ability to throw with good accuracy and anticipation from the pocket and has enough athleticism to hurt you with his legs. He also can't do those things with the sort of consistency that a program like Penn State demands, and when you combine that with simply average talent around him, you get a mediocre product.
Williams had to get sued back to Seattle after flirting with LSU in the transfer portal, then seemingly lost his starting job to Elijah Brown after a truly ugly performance against Iowa in early October. Give him credit, though: Rather than quit on his team, he kept grinding, and when Jedd Fisch called on him to save the Huskies' bacon against Nebraska on Saturday night, he delivered with a touchdown drive for the ages. It remains to be seen who will start for UW moving forward, but Williams still has all the physical talent in the world, even if his accuracy and decision-making haven't been good enough so far.
It seemed like Bailey and the Wolfpack had managed to rebound from that mind-melting last-second loss to Vanderbilt back in September, only to drop consecutive games to Wake Forest (understandable) and Stanford (less so) and get Dave Doeren fired. I had hopes of Bailey taking a leap in his final season in Raleigh, but at this point it seems like he just is who he is: a tantalizing player and a perfectly solid college quarterback who nonetheless isn't quite good enough to make his team a true contender.
Reed was a bit better against Alabama last Saturday, but when two picks, 163 passing yards and 1.4 yards per carry qualifies as an improvement, it's a sign of just how bad things have gotten. A&M bet big on Reed this year, and without the warm embrace of Collin Klein as OC and a veteran offensive line in front of him, his limitations have become all too apparent. He simply isn't good enough as a pocket passer for a program of the Aggies' expectations.
Oklahoma State will fall short of the Big 12 title game and the College Football Playoff, but that's because of a porous defense. The other side of the ball has been as gangbusters as expected, largely thanks to Mestemaker, whose heater continued on Saturday night with five TDs in a heartbreaking loss at Iowa State. He still has some kinks to iron out, but the more he keeps putting up video-game numbers and NFL-caliber throws, the higher his draft stock will get. Texas Tech better be careful in a couple weeks.
This one felt all too predictable, even without the benefit of hindsight. Mateer led the Sooners to the CFP last season largely thanks to a great defense and some divine turnover luck. Forced to do a bit more this year, he's fallen flat; his mechanics are a mess when you ask him to operate from the pocket, and he's not a good enough athlete to make his bowling ball routine work in the SEC. Oklahoma is 4-4 after getting boatraced by South Carolina at home on Saturday, and while Mateer isn't the only reason, he's been a huge disappointment all the same.
Let the record show that I never sold my Sellers stock, even when things were at their lowest in Columbia. The phyiscal ability was always there if the Gamecocks could simply block and get open for him, and sure enough, you've seen the results over this three-game winning streak (not to mention a one-point loss to Kentucky in which he put up 373 yards of total offense). NFL teams will absolutely take a chance on this skill set, and he has a chance to really take off if he can pull off an upset over Georgia in November.
Arizona has fallen short in its two biggest games of the season, but Fifita acquitted himself well at BYU and at Texas Tech. Despite his diminutive stature, he's got better arm talent than you think, and his abilty to extend plays in the pocket, compromise defenses and find throwing windows is criminally underrated. The Wildcats still have a chance to sneak into the Playoff if they can upset Utah this month, and Fifta absolutely gives them a chance to do so.
Sure, the upset at Georgia was all well and good. At this point, though, it should be clear that Brown simply isn't an SEC-caliber passer: He's cracked 200 passing yards just once in conference play, with nine TDs to seven picks at just 6.3 yards per attempt. No matter how tough he can be as a runner, it's just hard to win at this level if you're as one-dimensional as Brown is, and it's capped Auburn's ceiling in Alex Golesh's first year on the plains.
It's hard to complain too much about the Dawgs right now, coming off a 27-8 erasure of rival Florida on Saturday. But Stockton did pretty much nothing against the Gators, two weeks after his three turnovers cost them in the upset loss to Auburn. Stockton has shown more downfield ability this season — he played a huge role in the win at Alabama — but he's still yet to answer the most important questions about both his ceiling and the ceiling of this Georgia offense. He'll need to get out of second gear for the Dawgs to have a shot at Ole Miss next week.
Man, this thing unraveled in a hurry. Hoover looked like a solid fit for Indiana's RPO-heavy attack to start the season, but the cracks started to show against Northwestern and Nebraska, and now injury has sent things fully sideways. Hoover got yanked from the Hoosiers' OT win over Minnesota on Saturday, and while it's unclear whether it was due to injury or ineffectiveness, the fact is that he simply doesn't have the accuracy right now to sustain a functional downfield passing attack — and it's hard to see this team mounting a real title defense unless that changes. That's tough to swallow given what they forked over for him in the portal.
LSU fans were ready to toss Leavitt overboard after he made critical mistakes in losses to Ole Miss and Kentucky. A hamstring injury that's forced him to play from the pocket may have been a blessing in disguise, though, as Leavitt is now patiently reading defenses and getting the ball to his playmakers in space instead of bailing at the first sign of trouble (if not sooner). He'll have to prove it against Alabama, Texas and Tennessee coming up, but he's shown real growth, and we know the physical tools are in there.
Miami's defense feels liable to cough up a game at some point sooner rather than later, but Mensah (and Malachi Toney) keeps on pulling the Canes out of the fire, delivering 274 yards and three more scores in a road win at UNC on Saturday night. His average arm strength makes it difficult for him to truly stretch the field vertically, but when you're this accurate and decisive — and when you have the country's preeminent YAC monster on your side — that doesn't really matter. Miami has gotten everything they hoped for and then some.
Maiava has been perfectly fine for the most part; even when USC's offense disappeared at Wisconsin, that had more to do with his offensive line than anything else. "Fine" feels like a slight disappointment all things considered, though. Even in the upset win over Ohio State, his numbers were inflated by a couple of long catch-and-runs from Trent Mosley and Mark Bowman. Maiava is a distributor more than anything, and while plenty of teams would kill to have that under center, it might not be enough for this Trojans team to make real noise.
Has the demise of Arch been greatly exaggerated? He led Texas to an upset of Ole Miss last week and put in a perfectly workmanlike performance against a decimated Mississippi State team on Saturday night in Austin. Once again, the flashes are there if you want to talk yourself into him realizing his five-star potential. Unless he can defy the odds in road trips to Missouri and LSU over the next two weeks, though, he might wind up back in college for another year — whether at Texas or somewhere else.
We've likely seen the last of Sayin this season, after he suffered some sort of serious arm injury in Ohio State's win over Indiana two weeks ago. The Buckeyes certainly missed him against USC on Saturday night, but honestly, I'm skeptical they would've won that game regardless. Sayin is a steady manager who's made real strides in his ability to play off-platform, but he remains somewhat limited in terms of his accuracy and arm talent. All of which will make for a fascinating decision for Ryan Day as he plots out his QB room next year.
Trinidad finally laid an egg, throwing three picks in a loss at Texas two weeks ago. Other than that, though, he's been just about everything you could hope for in a top quarterback, decisive and accurate from the pocket and lethal once he does decide to run. Watching him take on Kirby Smart and Georgia's elite defense next week will be appointment viewing.
Carr and the Irish fell short in their first real test of the year, though his pedestrian numbers don't tell the full story of how well he played at BYU. The good news is that he'll get a chance at redemption next week, as No. 1 Miami comes to South Bend. Win, and Carr will get his NFL Draft campaign right back on track. Lose, and the whispers will grow louder about his ability to get it done against the best competition. For now, though, he offers just about as high a floor as anyone in the country.
Moore didn't show much in the way of taking the next step early on this season, but it feels unfair to slap a grade on him after being knocked out for the year by a dirty hit at USC in late September. There's just no way to know how he might have played, and how this year might have looked for Oregon, had he remained healthy, and rendering judgment on three weeks of tape is foolhardy. It remains to be seen whether he'll return to college for one more season or declare for the NFL Draft.
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