QB Stat That Should Have Notre Dame, Alabama, and Ohio State Fans Buzzing

Taking the Stat A Step Further

When Staples revealed the stat, he spoke on nine national championship teams since 2003 (22 seasons) that have won despite entering the year with a first-time starting quarterback. That list was as follows:

Since 2009, half (eight) of the starting quarterbacks to win the national championship entered the year with zero previous starts.

What's also worth mentioning is that four of the quarterbacks on the list played on what were essentially all-star Alabama teams. It's also worth noting we haven't seen this happen in the transfer portal era, as Jones is the last to accomplish the feat in 2020.

Nick Shepkowski's Quick Takeaway:

Fantasy football played a significant role in promoting football as a whole. Although it wasn't struggling before, the added gambling element increased interest. It also made a lot of football fans think that high-scoring offenses, usually led by star quarterbacks, were the only way to win big.

That couldn't be further from the truth, especially in college football.

Don't get it confused, of course 10 times out of 10 you're going to take the option of having experience at quarterback over not if its given to you and all else is equal. But in college football you're not looking at drafting a quarterback to run your team for a decade like in the NFL.

Football has always been the ultimate team gam,e and to realistically compete for a national championship, you have to be loaded across the field, not just at quarterback. When you look at that list, there are some eventual NFL standouts on it, but the majority of it isn't made up of future NFL stars.

Notre Dame enters 2025 loaded with talent on both sides of the ball, but with an unknown at quarterback. What is known is that despite that, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Georgia, and Alabama are still very much national championship contenders because of the strength of the rest of their rosters.