Stanford Football Has a Battle for Starting QB

With the departures of Ashton Daniels and Justin Lamson in the transfer portal this offseason, the presumed Stanford Cardinal QB heading into the 2025 campaign was believed to be redshirt freshman Elijah Brown, who received limited playing time as a true freshman in 2024.

Brown completed 28-of-48 passes for 274 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions in his three games with the Cardinal under former head coach Troy Taylor. With Andrew Luck taking over as the program's GM and Frank Reich accepting the interim head coaching role, Brown is still firmly in the mix, but he's not guaranteed to be under center come Week 0.

When asked about one particular group that stood out to him on day one of camp, Reich mentioned the quarterbacks.

"I was really happy with how the quarterbacks handled the huddle, the whole tempo. Just having command of the offense."

Reich was also asked about how he plans to divvy up the reps at quarterback in camp, and said that the plan is to split up the reps for each player.

"It's an open competition. We're obviously evaluating everything every day, every meeting, every walkthrough, every practice. It all matters. We don't have a set deadline on when we're going to make that decision. We think it'll become clear and apparent.

"In the meantime, we'll split the reps up appropriately, have a definite plan on how we're going to do that and just let it fall into place."

In addition to Brown, Stanford also brought in redshirt sophomore Dylan Rizk, who spent two seasons at the University of Southern Florida, and redshirt senior Ben Gulbranson from Oregon State. Those are seemingly the big three in camp to keep an eye on.

Gulbranson has the most experience of the trio, and even went 7-1 with the Beavers back in 2022 while racking up 1,455 yards and 14 total touchdowns. He also led Oregon State to a win in the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl that season.

The fact that both Rizk and Gulbranson chose Stanford out of the portal would suggest that they believe there is at least an opportunity to get some playing time with the Cardinal in 2025.

Regardless of who end up winning the QB battle out of camp and is taking snaps in Hawaii on August 23, Stanford has plenty of intriguing options to choose from under center, and the addition of two more quarterbacks to the mix should make for some good competition over the coming weeks.

This is a terrific strategy for Stanford to use, even if the belief is that Brown will end up being the starter when the season begins. Having this competition in camp will assure the coaching staff that they have chosen the right person to led the program into the 2025 season.