Out of 20 possible tiers (well he split tier 5 into a and b, so 21) ranking the QBs of college FB, Espn+ ranked Haynes King into Tier 5a:
TIER 5a: The Transfer Market II: Endgame (eight players)
Florida's Graham Mertz, D.J. Lagway
Georgia Tech's Haynes King, Zach Pyron
Virginia Tech's Kyron Drones, Collin Schlee
Oklahoma State's Alan Bowman, Garret Rangel
We're still in the very early stages of properly evaluating the impact of the transfer portal on QB play around the country, but last year's numbers tell a pretty clear story. There were 113 FBS quarterbacks who started at least eight games. That group can be separated into three distinct categories: homegrown talent, first-year transfers and transfers who had been on campus for more than one season.
Dig into those three camps and you'll see a stark difference between them:
Homegrown talent (48 QBs): 60.0 Total QBR, 61.9% completions, 2.2-to-1 TD:TO ratio, 6.8 yards per dropback
First-year transfers (36 QBs): 58.1 Total QBR, 62.1% completions, 1.9-to-1 TD:TO ratio, 6.4 yards per dropback
Multiyear transfers (29 QBs): 70.0 Total QBR, 65% completions, 3-to-1 TD:TO ratio, 7.4 yards per dropback
What does this mean exactly? Could be nothing. After all, it's a one-year sample set, and some of those multiyear quarterbacks were established successes even in 2022 (Penix, Nix, Gabriel, Williams).
But it could also be that success is correlated with familiarity of a system and comfort in an offense, and so Year 2 (or beyond) starters are simply better. This makes some intuitive sense, which leads to a better question: Who might be best primed to take a leap in Year 2 after a transfer in 2024?
Mertz, King, Drones and Bowman look like the obvious choices. All had some degree of success in Year 1 at their new schools, but all should be well-positioned to take another step in Year 2, with some pretty clear areas in need of improvement.
What you need to know:
A comparison:
QB A: 18 starts, 59.9% completions, 6.92 yards/dropback, 44 total TDs, 23 turnovers, 4,819 total yards
QB B: 17 starts, 60.1% completions, 6.92 yards/dropback, 46 total TDs, 15 turnovers, 4,192 total yards
Aside from those pesky turnovers, you'd certainly say they're incredibly similar in their production, right? QB A shouldered a bigger load for his offense, so perhaps the turnovers aren't a surprise.
Who are they? QB A is the career starts for Georgia Tech's King, who flourished after escaping Jimbo Fisher's offense at Texas A&M but clearly has some room to cut back on the mistakes. QB B is the career starting stats for Ohio State's Howard, who figures to be the most important transfer quarterback of the 2024 season. We'd wager few Ohio State fans are excited about their quarterback looking a lot like King, but it might actually be a credit to what King could do in 2024 instead.
Playoff-era ACC QBs to throw for 2,800 yards and 25 touchdowns and rush for 700 yards and 10 touchdowns: Lamar Jackson (twice), Deshaun Watson, Jerod Evans and King.
SEC quarterbacks to complete 70% of their throws, have 20 pass touchdowns and no more than six turnovers in a season over the past 20 years: LSU's Daniels, Alabama's Mac Jones and Tua Tagovailoa and ... Florida's Mertz.
An odd split for Oklahoma State's Bowman in 2024: When pressured, he was relatively smart with the football, tossing five TDs and just two interceptions. When not pressured, though? Ten TD passes and 12 picks.
Virginia Tech's Drones looks like an emerging star after the way the Hokies finished the 2023 season, but it's worth noting his emergence also came with a pretty light schedule. And when things got tougher, he struggled. In three games vs. top-40 (by efficiency), he posted a 46.4 Total QBR, 55.1% completions, 5.1 yards-per-pass, 3 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. Virginia Tech lost all three games.
No Power 5 QB had a higher percentage of his pass attempts come from outside the pocket in 2023 than Drones. He actually completed a higher percentage of his throws (60.2%) outside the pocket than inside (57.4%).