Quarterback Battles That Will Have the Biggest Impact on the 2021 CFB Season

Mississippi State’s Will RogersRogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

We’ll dive a bit deeper into the five battles that figure to have the most impact on conference races and maybe even Heisman voting, but here are five others certainly worth keeping an eye on this fall.

Oregon Ducks
Anthony Brown, Jay Butterfield, Ty Thompson, Robby Ashford

It’s hard to believe this is actually a battle, which is why it doesn’t appear in the top five. Brown has nearly 5,000 career passing yards while Butterfield, Thompson and Ashford have…*crunches calculator*…zero. When 2020 starter Tyler Shough unexpectedly left for Texas Tech in February, it clearly became Brown’s job to lose. If he actually loses it, though, and true freshman Thompson gets the gig, Oregon could be very well positioned for several years to come.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Jack Coan, Drew Pyne, Tyler Buchner

As with Oregon, this doesn’t seem like a real battle. Brian Kelly brought in Coan from Wisconsin to bridge the gap between Ian Book and the time when Buchner—a true freshman—should be ready for the full-time gig in 2022. Pyne had an impressive enough spring camp to at least have an outside chance at winning the job in the fall, but it’s a safe assumption that, barring injury, Coan will be the starter in Week 1.

Florida State Seminoles
McKenzie Milton, Jordan Travis, Chubba Purdy

The big question at Florida State is: Who’s healthy enough for the job? If we assume everyone is 100 percent healthy, Milton has to be the choice. He finished top-10 in the Heisman vote in both 2017 and 2018 at UCF before missing the past two seasons while recovering from a gruesome leg injury. Purdy could also factor into the equation if he has fully recovered from the collarbone injury that cost him a good chunk of last season and most of this spring. As is, it might be Travis getting most of the snaps (and doing a lot of scrambling).

Tennessee Volunteers
Hendon Hooker, Joe Milton, Harrison Bailey, Brian Maurer

Jarrett Guarantano is out of the picture after transferring to Washington State, but Tennessee’s QB situation is all sorts of convoluted for new head coach Josh Heupel. Both Hooker (at Virginia Tech) and Milton (at Michigan) threw for more than 1,000 yards last year prior to transferring to Knoxville. Maurer had that nice start against Georgia in 2019 and is now in his third year in the program. Bailey was the top-100 overall recruit in the 2020 class who had a few promising showings this past December. There are 24 possible ways to order this depth chart, and you could probably talk me into all of them.

Mississippi State Bulldogs
Will Rogers, Jack Abraham, Sawyer Robertson

Transitioning from Washington State to Mississippi State didn’t change the fact that Mike Leach’s offense led the nation in passing attempts per game by a wide margin. And in the season opener against LSU, we were vividly reminded how quickly a quarterback can emerge as a Heisman candidate in this offense. Rogers is the incumbent who threw for nearly 2,000 yards last year as a freshman. Abraham is the transfer who threw for more than 7,000 yards over the past three seasons at Southern Mississippi. Robertson is the true freshman who wasn’t even part of spring camp but who might still get the job this fall. Winner gets to throw the ball 50 times per game.