College Football

Ohio State’s J.T. Barrett has top stats among college football’s 2015 returning QBs

How does your team’s returning starter stack up?

Mar 9, 2015, 5:51 PM UTC

Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports

Having a returning starter at quarterback can be a big deal. Lots of quarterbacks go on to have very good seasons in their first year as a starter, but barring extraordinary situations, a team isn’t going to challenge for much of anything without an experienced quarterback.

Three of the four teams that made the 2014 College Football Playoff will have new starting quarterbacks, as Marcus Mariota, Jameis Winston, and Blake Sims all bid the college game adieu. Baylor, Auburn, Ole Miss, Georgia, and UCLA are all teams that finished in the top 15 that are replacing their starting quarterbacks, but there are a number of teams that are bringing back their signal callers.

With that in mind, here are the returning quarterbacks from 2014, ranked by their passer rating vs. FBS teams. For the purposes of this post, all players listed had at least 250 pass attempts and a passer rating of at least 110 in 2014. Credit to the incomparable cfbstats.com for the data.

Rank	Name	Team	Rating
1	J.T. Barrett	Ohio State	169.82
2	Brandon Doughty	Western Kentucky	167.11
3	Cody Kessler	USC	167.06
4	Zach Terrell	Western Michigan	166.55
5	Dak Prescott	Mississippi State	150.91
6	Cooper Rush	Central Michigan	150.33
7	Gunner Kiel	Cincinnati	149.39
8	Driphus Jackson	Rice	148.92
9	Joe Licata	Buffalo	147.89
10	Brad Kaaya	Miami	146.62
11	Mike Bercovici	Arizona State	145.52
12	Trevone Boykin	TCU	145.26
13	Cody Clements	UAB (now South Alabama)	144.89
14	Jared Goff	California	144.12
15	Everett Golson	Notre Dame	143.57
16	Cyler Miles	Washington	142.96
17	Logan Woodside	Toledo	142.49
18	Connor Cook	Michigan State	141.86
19	Greg Ward Jr.	Houston	141.77
20	Kevin Hogan	Stanford	141.72
21	Fredi Knighten	Arkansas State	141.14
22	Chad Voytik	Pittsburgh	138.21
23	Brandon Silvers	Troy	137.81
24	Marquise Williams	North Carolina	136.25
25	Drew Hare	Northern Illinois	135.70
26	Paxton Lynch	Memphis	135.56
27	Taylor Lamb	Appalachian State	135.30
28	Tyler Jones	Texas State	134.28
29	Austin Grammer	Middle Tennessee	133.51
30	Jacoby Brissett	NC State	133.38
31	Tommy Armstrong Jr.	Nebraska	133.13
32	Jake Rudock	Iowa	132.18
33	Sefo Liufau	Colorado	131.77
34	Jaquez Johnson	Florida Atlantic	131.49
35	Nick Arbuckle	Georgia State	131.36
36	Anu Solomon	Arizona	130.74
37	Travis Wilson	Utah	129.88
38	Juston Holman	UCF	129.68
39	Reginald Bell	Eastern Michigan	128.39
40	Joe Gray	San Jose State	127.79
41	Trevor Knight	Oklahoma	124.82
42	Brandon Allen	Arkansas	123.03
43	Michael Cummings	Kansas	122.44
44	Blake Decker	UNLV	122.31
45	Mitch Leidner	Minnesota	122.24
46	Nick Mullens	Southern Miss	121.09
47	Dane Evans	Tulsa	120.88
48	Tyler Rogers	New Mexico State	117.91
49	Maty Mauk	Missouri	117.57
50	Patrick Towles	Kentucky	117.17
51	James Knapke	Bowling Green	117.00
52	Sam Richardson	Iowa State	116.88
53	Brian Burrell	Fresno State	116.52
54	Tyrone Swoopes	Texas	116.46
55	Mike White	USF	115.68
56	Matt Linehan	Idaho	114.90
57	Michael Brewer	Virginia Tech	114.08
58	Joel Stave	Wisconsin	113.16
59	Alex McGough	Florida International	112.91
60	Colin Reardon	Kent State	112.34
61	Andrew McNulty	North Texas	110.75
62	Anthony Jennings	LSU	110.26

Some observations:

J.T. Barrett has the top passer rating of any quarterback returning in 2015, and there's a chance he may not even start, which is crazy. In case you slept through the months of December and January, Barrett went down with an ankle injury against Michigan, and Cardale Jones went on to quarterback the Buckeyes to the title while sporting a quarterback rating of 160.15. Both Barrett and Jones will be back in 2015, as will Braxton Miller. Who will start? Good question.
With USC's depth filling back out, having a good quarterback like Cody Kessler could make the Trojans' bounce back to the top of the Pac-12 faster than we expected.
He probably got more credit for using his legs, but Dak Prescott was actually quite efficient last year for Mississippi State.
He loses a number of weapons off of last year's team, but Brad Kaaya should put up strong numbers for Miami again next year.
I mean, at least LSU has never traditionally relied on strong quarterback play!