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Quarterbacks are a little like racecar drivers. They get the credit and the blame, but in reality, it’s hard to separate their performance from the situation around them. Even well-trained eyes are susceptible to overvaluing topline results in their evaluations of signal callers. This is especially true in college.
Quarterbacks are also like racecar drivers in that they’re the main characters of their sport. Football revolves around the quarterback position. Quarterbacks touch the ball more than anybody else. To follow football is to follow quarterbacks, even if you—like us—believe their importance is often overstated.
I lead with these caveats because we’re about to spend a whole darn blog post talking about the QB transfer carousel, and I don’t want to give the impression it’s more important than it is. College football’s coaching carousel is maybe one thousand times a bigger deal than its quarterback counterpart. Are quarterbacks important? Yes! It’s good to have a good one. It’s good to have the right one. But college football is about many, many things before it’s about quarterbacks.
Still, to follow football is to follow quarterbacks, so…here’s where the main characters are going.
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Where applicable, we’re going to organize these in chains, or branches, or whatever you want to call them. We’ll group together moves associated with one another. We also won’t cover the portal in totality. This is a human interest story. We’ll focus on the quarterbacks we find interesting. Going mostly by ESPN’s rankings…
John Mateer to Oklahoma (from Washington State)
Jackson Arnold to Auburn (from Oklahoma)
This is an unconventional opinion, but I’m not sure this is an upgrade for Oklahoma. Mateer is a swashbuckler, a cowboy, and hell of a good time, but his bravery comes with downsides as well. He can be loose with the football. He’s unproven against serious defenses. Arnold, meanwhile, was thrown into a horrible situation in a dysfunctional offense, and with the quick hook, Brent Venables risked only making things worse. That Oklahoma didn’t completely implode is a credit to Arnold, who could have quit but instead put his body on the line, especially in that late-season thumping of Alabama where he carried the ball 25 times.
Mateer is a great idea for Oklahoma, especially given they like Ben Arbuckle, their new offensive coordinator who was just Mateer’s OC at Washington State. Arnold should benefit from a fresh start across the SEC. This all makes sense for all parties, but I’m not sure Arnold is actually worse than Mateer. This seems more about turning a page for both Oklahoma and Arnold himself.
Darian Mensah to Duke (from Tulane)
Maalik Murphy to Oregon State (from Duke)
Did Maalik Murphy leave Duke, or did Duke leave Maalik Murphy? It appears to have been the latter, with Duke’s boosters matching Manny Diaz’s aggression with what was reportedly a huge NIL package for Mensah, a rising redshirt sophomore.
Duke’s 9–4 was a quiet 9–4, and it would have been 10–3 had the Blue Devils finished the job against SMU in that hideous overtime game back around Halloween. Upgrading at quarterback could make the Blue Devils an ACC contender next year, especially given the state of the ACC. They abandoned a good quarterback and got a better one. It could work out for everybody.
Everybody? Yes, everybody. Murphy moves to a good situation at Oregon State, who’s still effectively an independent next year but will be a power player in the New Pac-12 for Murphy’s final season of eligibility, should he stay in Corvallis. He’s a good quarterback whom Oregon State’s reportedly eyed for a while.
I’m not sure what Tulane’s plan is in Mensah’s absence. I believe they’ve landed three separate quarterbacks through the portal. There are some strong figures within that mix, but none is clearly better than the others.
Fernando Mendoza to Indiana (from Cal)
No chain here, unless Jaron Keawe Sagapolutele thought Mendoza was sticking around when he signed with Oregon? (He later flipped to Cal, technically through the transfer portal because he did enroll briefly in Eugene.) I’m unclear on the timeline there.
Either way, this is another big move. Mendoza’s already probably an upgrade from Kurtis Rourke, and his potential is high as well. With fertile NIL gardens only emboldened by the playoff berth, Indiana’s currently betting big on Indiana. Mendoza is a great figure to build around in the backfield.
That said, expect some bumps and bruises this year. The Big Ten schedule gets tough next year for the Hoosiers, who were a good team and also faced a favorable slate this fall. (Both things can be true, and are.) A question Bloomington’s powerbrokers should be asking is whether Mendoza’s their quarterback for 2026, or if he has eyes on the NFL. He won’t be wasted in 2025. Things just might not all come together at the right time.
Mark Gronowski to Iowa (from South Dakota State)
Just about an hour ago, news broke officially that last season’s Walter Payton Award winner (best FCS player) is headed to the Hawkeyes. Gronowski is no Carson Wentz, but he always did a good job in Brookings on a team who generally overwhelmed opponents. He’ll be in a harder situation in most ways in Iowa City, facing tougher competition week in and week out, but he doesn’t figure to be overwhelmed by the moment. Crucially for Iowa, he’s not a guy who makes very many mistakes. Give that defense a chance. See what happens.
Miller Moss to Louisville (from USC)
Another one-legged chain, with Tyler Shough retiring from college football at the age of 42 and Lincoln Riley opting for Jayden Maiava over Moss down the stretch this season.
It’s not a good thing for a quarterback to move on from Lincoln Riley. Lincoln Riley’s track record with quarterbacks is unmatched among current college coaches. But Jeff Brohm has done some good work himself, and as with Arnold, it’s easy to forget how promising Moss has sometimes been. He might not win a Heisman like so many Riley quarterbacks do, but he could win a lot of games at Louisville, and like all these guys so far, there isn’t a single red flag regarding his makeup.
Kaidon Salter to Colorado (from Liberty)
This move got a lot of love, an amount which would normally be surprising for a guy who completed 56% of his passes against a Conference USA schedule. The reason it got that love anyway is that Colorado should have spectacular receivers next year, and that in line with the current ethos in Boulder, what Salter lacks in reliability he makes up for with excitement.
I was surprised Colorado didn’t land a better quarterback in the portal, but to be fair, there weren’t many can’t-miss options available. Maybe this is about composure and mobility, with the Buffaloes stronger out wide than they are on the offensive line? Whatever the case, Deion Sanders and Pat Shurmur earned some public trust this fall. Maybe they couldn’t have done better. Maybe they like Salter’s fit. Maybe they like what they can unlock in the rising redshirt senior.
Conner Weigman to Houston (from Texas A&M)
The better prospect but worse quarterback in College Station, Weigman cedes control of the Aggies to Marcel Reed and heads to the Big 12.
Weigman’s easy to compare with Arnold. He’s a former big-time prospect and he grew up in Texas, where quarterbacks are trained intensely from a young age. Weigman didn’t show as much as Arnold, though, and he was in a better situation at A&M than what Arnold faced in Norman, unless Weigman’s shoulder injury was behind his struggles with deciding when to throw and when to eat it. That isn’t to say he’ll do poorly at Houston. It’s more to explain why he’s landed at a bottom-half Big 12 school while Arnold has two-year playoff aspirations.
Devon Dampier to Utah (from New Mexico)
Jack Layne to New Mexico (from Idaho)
Like Mateer with Arbuckle, Dampier is part of a package deal, heading to Salt Lake City from Albuquerque alongside offensive coordinator Jason Beck. (No relation to John Beck, but Jason did back him up at BYU.) Dampier was absolutely electric this season. With Utah being Utah, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Dampier become a Jalon Daniels-style cult college football hero and win a whole bunch of games.
Replacing Dampier back in Albuquerque is Jack Layne, one of many Idaho transfers following head coach Jason Eck (not Beck) south. For those wondering: Idaho finished 116th in Movelor’s full Division I rankings this year. New Mexico was 115th. A full team transplant isn’t the worst idea.
Michael Van Buren Jr. to LSU (from Mississippi State)
Luke Kromenhoek to Mississippi State (from Florida State)
Thomas Castellanos to Florida State (from Boston College)
Van Buren isn’t going to start next fall at LSU unless something really surprising happens to Garrett Nussmeier. Instead, he’ll fill the Bryce Underwood role, waiting it out under Nussmeier. Van Buren’s performance at Mississippi State this year wasn’t always great, but as a true freshman starting for the one bad team in the SEC, his composure and creativity was impressive. Good pickup for the Tigers, and a good leap to safety for Van Buren.
Jumping into the danger is Kromenhoek, whom Florida State pushed out in what seems to have been a decision geared towards letting new offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn pick his QB. The guy was a solid recruit, but FSU is in a strange kind of win-now mode, one where they can’t afford to be terrible again. Blake Shapen’s still in Starkville (his injury is what made Van Buren start so many games), so Kromenhoek might be a backup here too, but at least he won’t be the face of the end of the Mike Norvell era in Tallahassee if things go badly. Danger’s a relative term.
Is Castellanos a good pickup for Florida State? Maybe. He was a backup for Malzahn at UCF, hence the association, and he did participate in some hard games for FSU during his time in Chestnut Hill. I’d guess this feels really underwhelming, though, for Florida State fans. This is the big response to the 2–10 campaign? A quarterback the size of Rudy Ruettiger? A quarterback Boston College benched?
Billy Edwards Jr. to Wisconsin (from Maryland)
Braedyn Locke to Arizona (from Wisconsin)
I’ll say this for Wisconsin: It’s nice to grab an intraconference transfer. It asserts a little power. Wisconsin could use some of that these days.
Edwards epitomizes the idea of a quarterback who needs a good racecar. If Wisconsin has good bones next year, Edwards will be a breakout star in the Big Ten, having put up some big numbers for the Terrapins this season. If Wisconsin struggles, Edwards will probably take a lot of hits on the chin.
There’s no clear successor to Edwards at Maryland, and Tyler Van Dyke has yet to find a home through the portal himself. Braedyn Locke, who filled in for Van Dyke after the starter went down in that Alabama game, is off to Tucson to back up Noah Fifita. I’m curious how this one went down. He can’t expect to start for Arizona, and Edwards is a one-year guy. Did Wisconsin push Locke out in favor of Danny O’Neil, the San Diego State starter who’ll back up Edwards in 2025?
Chandler Morris to Virginia (from North Texas)
Anthony Colandrea to UNLV (from Virginia)
Reese Poffenbarger to North Texas (from Miami)
I may have watched too much Albany football in 2023, but when sorting out the order here, my original inclination had North Texas as the driver of the chain, not Virginia. That is obviously not the case. Virginia pushed out Colandrea to make room for Morris, a guy who once had a strong pedigree and did put up huge numbers this year in Denton.
Still, the fact Poffenbarger elicited that kind of reaction is exciting. Morris was not high-octane gasoline when he entered the combustion engine at UNT. Poffenbarger is high-octane gasoline. This guy put up Morris-like numbers at Albany. I can’t wait to see him in Eric Morris’s offense.
Colandrea showed promise at times for UVA, but most of the time, he was chaos. Honestly, that’s kind of perfect for UNLV.
Beau Pribula to Missouri (from Penn State)
One exciting game against Wisconsin made Pribula a weirdly big story this fall, but he was very firmly a backup to Drew Allar. Given everything Missouri asked Brady Cook to do, though, this makes sense. This is where a quarterback like Mateer’s a great fit, on a team who needs to make up for a talent deficit by letting the dogs off the leash. Pribula might have enough Mateer in him to be a value play.
Air Noland to South Carolina (from Ohio State)
Rendered irrelevant by Julian Sayin’s arrival last offseason, the now redshirt freshman Noland heads to South Carolina to back up LaNorris Sellers. In effect, South Carolina got a fringe five-star quarterback to develop, and they found him at a garage sale. Pretty good deal for Shane Beamer.
Preston Stone to Northwestern (from SMU)
Benched early this season in favor of Kevin Jennings, Stone is still the guy who threw for three thousand yards for the AAC champs in 2023. Northwestern is a different situation, but they get a polished, poised quarterback who might be a better fit in Evanston than he was in University Park.
Mikey Keene to Michigan (from Fresno State)
Ostensibly, there’s going to be a QB competition in Ann Arbor, with Keene the foil to Bryce Underwood. This is a good pickup for Michigan and an interesting move by Keene, maybe one geared towards a transition into coaching? If he believes he’s going to start, that makes things different, and a two-quarterback system undoubtedly strikes fear into Michigan fans’ hearts given how this season went down. But Keene’s a name to know, even if Michigan’s hoping you’ll never think of him again after Week 1.
Tyler Van Dyke to ?? (from Wisconsin)
Matthew Sluka to ?? (from UNLV)
Devin Brown to ?? (from Ohio State)
Alex Orji to ?? (from Michigan)
Jaden Rashada to ?? (from Georgia)
Again, there are plenty more out there, and we’ll probably run into some we left out today in our offseason and then preseason content. But these are some of the fun ones still awaiting homes. Mostly names that remind you the guy exists.
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Last night’s FCS National Championship was almost as good as advertised, with Montana State rallying after it looked early on as though North Dakota State would put them away. We said yesterday that if NDSU won, the dynasty was back, and I do think that’s the case. With Tommy Mellott moving on from Bozeman and South Dakota State so depleted, I’d rate the Bison the overwhelming title favorites going into next year. Even with some roster transition ahead, 16–0 is on the table.
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