Turf Show Times
The college football regular season has officially come to a close. Next week is conference championships followed by the College Football Playoffs. When it comes to the regular season, the 2026 quarterback class had mixed reviews. While it was supposed to be one of the better classes in recent memory, many of the players expected to be at the top had disappointing seasons. Still, that doesn’t mean that this class is bad. That also doesn’t mean that there aren’t good quarterbacks in this class.
With the Rams having two first-round picks in April and Matthew Stafford at 37 years old, they need to start planning for the future. Every week of the college football season, I’ve been keeping track of each quarterback’s performance. Below are my top-10 following the regular season.
It could be a case of recency bias, but following a three-game slump, Dante Moore is back on track and quarterbacking at a high level. Still, even in his slump, he showed that he had the arm talent and accuracy to unlock all areas of the field. He’s not mobile, but displays good pocket mobility and is athletic enough to make plays with his legs while not relying on that part of his game.
Moore’s worst game of the season came against Indiana, but against a good Penn State team at the time, he led a win in overtime, throwing the game-winning touchdown pass. In tough conditions on the road at Iowa, he led a game-winning drive. This is exactly the type of quarterback that would excel in Sean McVay’s offense. At just 20 years old, he’s also the perfect candidate to sit for a year or two behind Matthew Stafford.
Ty Simpson had some strong moments in the Iron Bowl against Auburn. Early in the game, he threw an impressive pass fading away from A-gap pressure to his wide receiver in the back of the end zone. It was a perfectly placed ball in the face of pressure. Late in the fourth quarter on 4th-and-2 with the game on the line, Simpson threw an accurate ball into a tight window for a touchdown to give Alabama the lead.
Simpson’s play style would make him a perfect fit in the McVay offense and he also has the necessary athleticism to pick up yards with his legs and extend plays. The inexperience is certainly worth noting, but he has shown the arm strength and accuracy over the intermediate areas of the field required in a west coast system.
He had been on a heater and his tape against Missouri may have been the best of the season. Simpson was in a slump the last few weeks, but a three touchdown performance at Auburn in which he led a game-winning drive was good to see.
Mendoza checks all of the boxes for what a team should want in a quarterback. He has the arm strength and...
