The Ohio State football team has lost quarterbacks to transfers in consecutive years but has benefitted by Justin Fields coming to Columbus. Now Jalen Hurts has decided to leave the Alabama football program to play for Oklahoma.
Quarterback transfers are changing the college football landscape as teams can plug in a game ready signal caller instead of taking time to develop one.
Justin Fields and Jalen Hurts are both expected to start and impact their new football teams and Kelly Bryant will probably do the same for Missouri. But before I get to those three players let’s first take a look at last year’s high-profile QB transfers and how they impacted their teams.
As a graduate transfer Joe Burrow left the Ohio State football program to play for the LSU Tigers. Shea Patterson left Ole Miss for Michigan, and after being granted a transfer waiver was eligible to play immediately. Both players joined teams in need of consistent quarterback play and each delivered.
Burrow was late getting to LSU because he still had to graduate from Ohio State before transferring. Even though he got off to a slow start Burrow still passed for 2,894 yards and 16 touchdowns while only throwing 5 interceptions.
He led the Tigers to a 10-3 record, a 2nd place finish in the SEC West and a 40-32 win over UCF in the Fiesta Bowl.
Shea Patterson was granted a transfer waiver and led the Michigan Wolverines to a 10-1 record and a top 5 ranking before losses to Ohio State in ‘The Game’ and Florida in the Peach Bowl. There is no doubt he added the spark that had been missing in the Wolverine offense.
Last season Patterson passed for 2,600 yards and 22 touchdowns while rushing for 273 yards and 2 scores.
Now a look at the big time QB transfers this year.