The surprising firing of New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh – at least in terms of its timing – got Week 6 of the 2024 NFL season off to a notable start. It adds further intrigue to the lineup’s final game, when the Jets host the Buffalo Bills on ‘Monday Night Football,’ which replicates the matchup of 57 weeks ago, when QB Aaron Rodgers debuted with Gang Green … and lasted four snaps before ripping his Achilles. This time, the stakes are actually higher – Rodgers and Bills QB Josh Allen both seeking to shake off personal and collective slumps with the victor finishing the week atop the AFC East.

Though there are four teams on bye (Chiefs, Rams, Dolphins and Vikings), there are still several noteworthy contests on the docket, including the San Francisco 49ers’ visit to the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday night and a second consecutive weekend with London football as the Chicago Bears ‘host’ the U.K.-ubiquitous Jacksonville Jaguars. Sunday also appears to feature the weekend’s two best offerings – and the only ones pairing (currently) winning clubs – as the Washington Commanders and Baltimore Ravens square off in a meeting of dynamic quarterbacks (Jayden Daniels, Lamar Jackson) before the Detroit Lions visit the Dallas Cowboys in the late-afternoon window.

Here’s how our panel of experts forecast Week 6 … and hopefully its previs is closer to the clarity provided in Week 4 than the mixed bag that was Week 5:

(Odds provided by BetMGM)

Seahawks vs. 49ers
Bears vs. Jaguars
Ravens vs. Commanders
Packers vs. Cardinals
Patriots vs. Texans
Saints vs. Buccaneers
Eagles vs. Browns
Titans vs. Colts
Broncos vs. Chargers
Raiders vs. Steelers
Panthers vs. Falcons
Cowboys vs. Lions
Giants vs. Bengals 
Jets vs. Bills

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Jon Scheyer, the 37-year-old coach of college basketball’s most scrutinized program, has recently found a mutual sounding board in Marcus Freeman, the 38-year-old coach of college football’s most scrutinized program. 

In all of sports, there may be no one who understands what Scheyer has gone through in his first two years leading Duke more than Freeman. And the same is true going the other direction, as the man who replaced Mike Krzyzewski is the rare person who can at least imagine the burden of being a first-time head coach at Notre Dame of all places. 

“Very few people can have the empathy for what that feels like,” Scheyer said. “We’ve shared some moments with that.”

Always competing against history. Always being compared to ghosts. Always having to meet a standard that seems a bit unfair, even if it’s what they have signed up for. 

Scheyer has won 75% of his games, an ACC tournament championship and reached an Elite Eight over his first two seasons at Duke. By almost any definition, they are results that should have ended any questions about whether he was too young, too inexperienced, too nice to handle the enormity of his job.

And yet, the questions will persist — especially for the next six months. Especially with the best prospect in the world on his roster. 

Though Scheyer has had the sport’s best collection of high school recruits from Day 1 of his tenure, he has never experienced anything as a head coach quite like the conversation that will take place around Duke the moment 17-year-old Cooper Flagg walks onto the floor. 

Scheyer has seen something similar as a player and assistant. Duke, in a way, is uniquely set up to handle the hoopla that accompanies the bluest of blue-chip recruits because it has done it so many times from Brandon Ingram to Jayson Tatum to Zion Williamson to Paolo Banchero. 

But the Flagg experience promises to be something different. He’s not just the consensus No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA draft; he’s already got a highlight reel from scrimmaging the U.S. Olympic team this summer where he more than held his own against established NBA stars.

And he’s white, which is notable because of the cultural conversation that will surround Duke whether it likes it or not. 

It could be a bit of a circus. 

For Scheyer, though, it’s inevitably going to be a referendum: How much talent does he need to get it done in March? 

I asked Scheyer at the ACC’s preseason media event here on Wednesday whether Duke had a template for handling the microscope that comes with a prospect like Flagg because of how many times it has done it over the years. He pointed to the ‘hot and cold world we live in” and the need to stay emotionally even-keeled no matter the chatter that takes place after a good or bad performance.

But in reality, it’s not Flagg who will be subjected to the roller coaster of hot takes this season. It’s Scheyer.

“That’s part of the territory, right?” Scheyer said, before revealing how closely he had been tracking with Freeman thanks to a mutual friend who had introduced them. “I’ve admired what he’s done because you go from beating Texas A&M and you’re the best coach in the world. The next week, you lose to Northern Illinois and all of a sudden you become the worst coach. Then you steady the ship. You just can’t go there. There’s no coach you don’t go hot and cold with. I think it’s just the world we live in. It’s nothing personal or whatever.”

It’s not personal, but it’s also not entirely unfair. 

With Freeman, the inconsistency of Notre Dame’s performance and multiple losses to clearly inferior teams has led to questions about whether a genial 30-something who doesn’t look much older than the players on his team can get his team to produce the focus and intensity necessary to play at a high level every week.

And with Scheyer, the simple fact that he does not have the intimidating presence of Coach K after winning five national championships will lead Duke’s fan base into hand-wringing about whether he has the ‘it’ factor any time the Blue Devils fall short of those massive expectations.

These criticisms, of course, play on stereotypes of most young coaches and are based on narratives without a lot of facts behind them. The truth about coaching is that we only see a small slice of the work coaches do. The actual culture of a college program is opaque, built on a thousand decisions and conversations that happen behind the scenes.

So instead we judge the results based on our perception of what they should be. And with Scheyer, there are two legitimate ways to interpret those results. 

On on hand, his first two seasons have been successful by most measures, especially given how young his rosters have skewed in an era where older teams are generally more successful. 

On the other hand, Scheyer recruited eight five-star prospects and a few other four-stars in his first two seasons and it did not result in dominant teams. In fact, last season ended in the Elite Eight with a gutting loss to NC State when the Blue Devils were the clear favorites to reach the Final Four. 

Another interesting trend: Most of those players have not improved their reputations as NBA prospects after playing under Scheyer. Some of those elite recruits have transferred to other schools. The highest any of them were drafted was Dereck Lively at No. 12 overall. 

Is that Scheyer’s fault? Were they overrated as high school players? Will they have better success elsewhere?

These are not easy questions to answer, especially given the small sample size, but they do raise the stakes for this season when the clear No. 1 prospect who isn’t in the NBA is wearing a Duke uniform. This needs to go well. It can’t just be a breakthrough to a Final Four, either. Scheyer must show top recruits that he can give them what they want on the way to NBA stardom — two concepts that go hand-in-hand under the current Duke model. 

That’s a kind of pressure maybe only one other person in college sports truly understands.

“My message to our players, and my mindset myself — I don’t go on Twitter because it’s going to do nothing good for me, including somebody saying I’m the best coach in the world. That doesn’t do any good either,” Scheyer said. “Focus on what you can control. Special things can happen when you do that.”

It’s early, but Scheyer hasn’t quite made special things happen yet at Duke. With Flagg now on campus, it would be a good idea to start soon. 

As we just learned during what was expected to be a relatively mundane week of college football games, some results are impossible to see coming even for the so-called experts. Your intrepid panel presses on, however, to a Week 7 slate featuring three Top 25 showdowns.

Headlining the weekend is the first major test in its new conference for No. 3 Oregon as the Ducks play host to perennial Big Ten power No. 2 Ohio State. No. 5 Penn State also travels to the west coast to meet a Southern California squad in desperate need of a reversal of fortune.

It’s also Red River week as top-ranked Texas and No. 16 Oklahoma square off for the first time as SEC opponents. A bit farther east, a couple of the conference’s long-standing rivals get together as No. 8 Mississippi heads to No. 10 LSU. Read on to see how our staffers think those teams and the rest of the US LBM Coaches Poll Top 25 squads will fare.

LAS VEGAS — Sabrina Ionescu couldn’t score. 

In Walnut Creek, California, Ionescu was a short, scrawny sixth-grader playing on an eighth-grade boys team with her twin brother Eddy. Male defenders were considerably bigger and stronger, bumping her and altering her shot. Most days, Ionescu couldn’t get close to the rim. 

So the guard who would set an NCAA record in triple doubles in college (26) figured it was time to add something to her skill set. She developed a floater. 

Fifteen years later, that floater has become maybe the deadliest shot in the WNBA playoffs and a key piece of the New York Liberty’s run to its second consecutive Finals appearance. The Liberty host the Minnesota Lynx in Game 1 on Thursday at Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn in the best-of-five series. 

Ionescu, who averaged 18.2 points, 6.2 assists and 4.4 rebounds during the regular season, is having a career year for New York. And a lot of it is because of one of the toughest, trickiest shots in basketball. 

Coaches, players and analysts talk about being a “three-level scorer,” basketball-speak for being able to get buckets at the rim, in the midrange and on the perimeter. With the addition of a floater, Ionescu has exploded as a three-level scorer this season. 

Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon has been adamant about Ionescu deserving first-team All-WNBA honors, calling her “the whole key to them this season.” 

Ionescu, 26, is in her fifth WNBA season but essentially, it’s her fourth. A nasty left ankle injury just three games into her rookie year practically ended her season before it began, sidelining her for months. 

Though she was an All-Star in 2022 and 2023, she didn’t do much in the 2023 Finals, as the Aces secured their second consecutive WNBA championship, on the Liberty’s floor. Ionescu averaged just 9.8 points in four games, shooting a forgettable 31.6%. 

But she was a difference maker in the semifinal rematch this postseason, averaging 17.8 points and shooting 48.1%. In the Liberty’s series-clinching Game 4 victory in Vegas, Ionescu scored a game-high 22, also grabbing seven rebounds. She started hot, hitting an early 3 before muscling into the lane to drop a floater through the net, drawing a foul. It’s become a signature move. 

And it’s especially gratifying, because she spent her offseason perfecting the dormant shot.  

“I’ve always had it,” she said, pointing out that her floater often tortured defenses when she was in college at Oregon. “Having an injury on my left foot derailed me from being able to use it. You take off on your left foot for a right-handed floater, and I didn’t have enough strength to be able to do it comfortably. I was coming off two feet at all times those first years back. 

“It’s something I’m really proud of myself for being able to re-integrate back into my game. I think it’s opened up the floor for me.” 

Her teammate Courtney Vandersloot, a veteran guard now in her 14th season, agrees. 

“Her ability to get downhill and her finishing has really opened a lot of things up for her,” Vandersloot said, explaining that Ionescu has entered “the sweet spot” of her pro career, where she’s experienced enough to understand what works, but young enough to keep improving.” 

A great floater is one of the prettiest shots in basketball, but surprisingly intricate to copy. Because you’re taking off on one leg, fatigue plays a factor. Rotation of the ball is crucial, and players have to gauge in a split-second if they’re going to use the backboard or not. It’s hard to practice, Ionescu said, because you have to go full speed, and it’s tough to re-enact a game situation with numerous defenders trying to clog the paint, forcing ball handlers to attack from different angles. 

When she watched film from 2023, it was obvious to Ionescu that teams left her open in the midrange, and she’d have more opportunities to score — if she could adjust. 

“(You need) to be able to shoot a floater, because sometimes a jump shot just takes too long,” she said. “By the time you load into it, teams can come by (and recover). The floater’s a little unpredictable because you’re mid-dribble.” 

It’s also a terrific shot for someone with Ionescu’s passing ability and vision. Big guards who go up for floaters can decide at the last second to pass — in Ionescu’s case, to any of her All-Star and/or Olympian teammates. 

The shot has other benefits, too: Because a guard’s momentum hasn’t carried them all the way to the baseline, they’re in position to rebound their miss if necessary. It also allows guards’ bodies to take less of a beating, pulling up before they make contact.

Done well, it can be back-breaking for defenses.

“She puts immediate pressure on your defense, always, because she can pull it from seven feet behind (the 3-point line),” Hammon said. “You don’t have any room to relax. You can’t gamble. She’s big enough that if you gamble and she gets by you, she’s gonna be at the rim, and she’s a good enough and big enough passer to find people.” 

A basketball junkie, Ionescu likes to watch NBA games to see what she can learn — and steal — from individual players. Long compared to Steph Curry because of her range, Ionescu has studied the way the 10-time All-Star attacks the paint and gets to the rim despite his thin frame. The biggest difference in Curry and Ionescu, though, is that Curry is small for an NBA guard at just 6-foot-2; meanwhile, Ionescu’s 5-foot-11 frame is big for the women’s game. 

The best NBA comp for Ionescu is probably Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic, a 6-foot-7 guard who can score, and create scoring opportunities for his teammates, at will. Ionescu has watched countless clips of Doncic, noting the way his strength and length — two things Ionescu also boasts — allow him to get into the lane repeatedly. Doncic does not allow defenders to speed him up, Ionescu said, something she’s tried to replicate. 

“He knows what he wants to get, and he gets it,” she said. 

She knows what she wants, too — a WNBA championship. And she’s prepared to use any and all shots necessary to get it. 

Offseason gambles have paid off in a big way for No. 2 Ohio State and No. 3 Oregon, who meet on Saturday in a Big Ten clash pitting two of the best teams and best offenses in the Bowl Subdivision.

Both teams exited last season looking for a new starting quarterback. Current Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord left Ohio State last December after getting a tepid vote of confidence from coach Ryan Day on the heels of another loss to Michigan. After two seasons of record-setting production, former Oregon starter Bo Nix was taken in the first round of this year’s NFL draft.

Instead of looking within the program, however, the two went shopping for a new starter in the transfer portal. Ohio State landed on Kansas State transfer Will Howard. The Ducks signed former Central Florida and Oklahoma transfer Dillon Gabriel. These two newcomers have stepped seamlessly into the starting lineup and steered the Buckeyes and Ducks on a collision course for the College Football Playoff.

‘When you come to a place like Ohio State, you want to play on a big stage. This is what you sign up for,’ Howard said. ‘This is what college football is all about. This is what you dream about as a kid.’

A similar scene continues to play out every winter across the FBS. The adoption of the transfer portal and the frenzied chase for payouts related to name, image and likeness have turned quarterback recruiting and retention into an annual game of musical chairs capable of boosting or bursting any hopes of reaching the College Football Playoff.

Since the 2021 season, when NIL and the portal went into effect across college sports, there have been 77 different quarterbacks who have transferred into a Power Four program and been the primary starter for at least one season.

The number of such quarterbacks has grown every year, reaching unprecedented heights in 2024. This season, there are 41 transfers starting in the Power Four, including at all but four schools in the Big Ten. In comparison, there were only nine such starters in the Power Four in 2021.

“My first day on the job we had 10 offensive starters in the transfer portal, one guy being our quarterback or the guy who had played quarterback here last year,” said first-year Indiana coach Curt Cignetti. “You’re in a whole new ballgame.”

HARD TRUTH: Win-now world of college football makes transfer QBs king

HARD TRUTH: You need a quarterback if you want best chance for title

Evaluating the transfer quarterback success rate

To assess the success rate of these quarterbacks, USA TODAY Sports evaluated Power Four transfers during the portal and NIL era across two categories. The first is individual success, such as touchdowns, turnovers, yards, performance against Top 25 competition and end-of-year accolades. The second is team success, judged primarily by wins and losses, postseason record and whether the team showed notable improvement or decline in production at the position.

The jury remains out on 15 transfers starting in the Power Four this season. Using our metrics, 34 of the 62 remaining transfers, or roughly 55%, can be seen as a success, leaving 28 who fell short of expectations.

The successes include the past two Heisman Trophy winners in Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels, as well as current Heisman favorites in Cam Ward, Jaxson Dart and Quinn Ewers.

An analysis of these quarterbacks centered on which transfers were successful and why revealed the three questions that can help coaches and programs avoid a recruiting misfire at this key position:

Does the quarterback have starting experience, and is that experience coming from a Power Four conference or from the Group of Five and Championship Subdivision?

Is the quarterback an upperclassman transferring as a graduate student, or is he transferring with multiple seasons of eligibility?

Do members of the coaching staff or program have any built-in familiarity with the player, whether through contact as a high school recruit, by playing against the quarterback or by directly coaching him at a previous stop?

Why starting experience matters

Whether the transfer brings starting experience to his new program could be the strongest predictor of eventual success or failure.

There are 17 transfers during this era who entered the portal with less than one full season of prior starting experience. Of that group, 10 fell short of expectations, including former Colorado quarterback J.T. Shrout, former Virginia Tech quarterback Braxton Burmeister and current Purdue quarterback Hudson Card.

But the seven who beat the odds count among the most productive quarterbacks in recent FBS history. This group includes Dart and Ewers — Dart made three starts as a true freshman at Southern California in 2021 — along with former Kentucky quarterback Will Levis and current Utah quarterback Cam Rising.

In total, 27 of 34 transfers who met our metrics for success had started at least one full season before entering the portal.

“There are a lot of really great players that were in the portal last year at quarterback, but we believed that he was the best one,” Syracuse quarterbacks coach Nunzio Campanile said of McCord. “We thought that if we could get him here, because of that experience, the makeup and the talent, all those things, we thought he could have a huge impact.”

While this trend points to a connection between starting experience and success with a new program, there are examples that point to the unpredictability that comes with acquiring a transfer quarterback.

The clearest illustration of this randomness can be seen in the case of former Clemson quarterback DJ Uiagalelei, who improved dramatically last season at Oregon State but was the poster child for Florida State’s current struggles before suffering a potentially season-ending hand injury during in the team’s loss to SMU last month.

The importance of starting experience is supported by the success rates of players from the Group of Five or lower levels of competition compared to those from the Power Four.

Nine of the 12 Group of Five or FCS transfers during this era hit the mark, including current starters in Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia and Indiana’s Kurtis Rourke. Of this group, only two did not have a full season of starting experience when entering the portal: current Boston College quarterback Thomas Castellanos and former Central Florida quarterback John Rhys Plumlee.

“He’s like an NFL veteran playing quarterback,” Cignetti said of Rourke. “He’s poise under pressure, man. That guy is cool as a cucumber.

“I’ve been around the game all my life. And there are guys that can play and are not necessarily playing in the (Power Four) right now.”

The downside of one-year rentals

Analyzing quarterbacks during this stretch reveals the pitfalls associated with one-year rentals. This subset of transfers represented the standard before the NCAA allowed all players to switch schools without being penalized a season of eligibility.

Twenty-six transfers since 2021 fall into this category. Of this group, only 11, or about 43%, meet the standard for success. Six of those quarterbacks transferred this past offseason: Howard, Gabriel, Ward, McCord, Pavia and Rourke. The 15 ineffective senior-year additions account for more than half of the 28 overall transfers who failed to meet expectations.

Conversely, 23 of the 34 successful quarterbacks transferred with at least two years of remaining eligibility. Eleven transferred as redshirt freshmen or sophomores.

At a time when it’s becoming increasingly difficult for coaches to turn a high school recruit into a starter — more and more Power Four quarterbacks are entering the portal after losing one offseason competition for the starting job — programs able to sign a transfer as an underclassman are given a longer runway for development.

Overall, 18 of the 25 transfers who have gone to start multiple years with their new programs meet the standard for being seen as a successful addition.

The benefit of an existing relationship

While difficult to measure, there is ample anecdotal evidence suggesting coaches give themselves the best chance for success by recruiting transfers with whom they have some level of prior acquaintance or awareness — often as recruits coming out of high school but in some instances by coaching the player at his previous stop.

‘We’re looking for the talent threshold that has to be there,’ Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said. ‘But I also think the intangible qualities that we’re looking for that fit our team, our culture, that we feel like that player can come in at that position and win over the team and be a leader.’

Kentucky has played with a transfer quarterback as its primary starter for the past nine seasons, including this year with Brock Vandagriff from Georgia. The Wildcats have had various levels of success in that span with Terry Wilson and Will Levis each leading teams to 10-win seasons and Devin Leary from North Carolina State having a disappointing campaign in 2023 .

In these cases, programs can feel comfortable with the new quarterback’s ability to handle the demands of the starting role or, better yet, the quarterback could have a level of experience in the offensive system that erases the need for any immediate learning curve.

Caleb Williams followed Southern California coach Lincoln Riley from Oklahoma. Gabriel’s offensive coordinator with the Sooners, Jeff Lebby, was his coordinator as a freshman at Central Florida. Ewers had been verbally committed to Texas before signing with Ohio State; he transferred to the Longhorns after his freshman season.

Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea added not just Pavia from New Mexico State this past season but also a slew of former New Mexico State assistants, including offensive coordinator Tim Beck. Former NMSU head coach Jerry Kill was hired as the Commodores’ chief consultant to the head coach and senior offensive advisor.

Multiple Syracuse coaches had previously recruited McCord, the Pennsylvania Gatorade Player of the Year as a senior at St. Joseph’s Preparatory School in Philadelphia. Several factors made McCord one of the jewels of last year’s transfer cycle, including his extensive experience as the starter in a high-pressure situation at Ohio State.

But while no assistant had overlapped with the Buckeyes during McCord’s time with the program, these existing relationships simplified the decision to make him Syracuse’s must-have transfer target. That the Orange knew what they were getting helped to remove a chunk of the guesswork from the equation.

“We knew that character-wise and work ethic-wise, he was going to be a great fit,” said Campanile. “On top of that, we had watched him develop through high school and then were able to see everything that he did at Ohio State. So I think that he had a history of performance that you’re like, ‘OK, we know he’s going to be a really good player.’ But more importantly, we knew that he was a really good person and a great fit for what we were looking for.”

Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels has frequently drawn comparisons to Baltimore Ravens signal-caller Lamar Jackson during his career.

While Daniels may be flattered by those comparisons, he doesn’t believe they are warranted, as he explained ahead of his Week 6 matchup with the two-time MVP.

‘I don’t like when people try to compare me to Lamar,’ Daniels told reporters on Wednesday, per ESPN’s John Keim. ‘We’re two different players. I want to be known as Jayden Daniels and not the next such-and-such.’

Daniels acknowledged that he is a fan of Jackson’s and that the two share a mutual respect. Even so, the rookie believes that the two play the game very differently despite each having elite-level mobility and scrambling skills.

‘I like watching good quarterback play,’ Daniels said. ‘I’m a fan of his, and how he plays the game, how he approaches the game. But we’re two different quarterbacks, two different styles. I appreciate what he’s done for the sport and what he’s done for the African American quarterbacks.’

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Despite not loving being compared to other quarterbacks, Daniels is used to it. It happened frequently during the NFL draft process and has continued during his professional career, especially with his stats through five games looking remarkably similar to former Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III’s during his rookie season in 2012.

That’s why Daniels is assessing the position with a wide scope as he looks to craft his own distinct playing style at the NFL level.

‘For me it’s just, go out there and try to be unique and try to be different from everybody,’ Daniels said. ‘Appreciate what they do because you can always learn from other quarterbacks in the league. I’m not closed-minded.’

So, while Daniels appreciates Jackson’s game, he isn’t specifically looking to model his own after the Ravens star.

Jackson acknowledged in a news conference of his own that he can appreciate Daniels’ approach to the position.

‘He’s his own player,’ Jackson told reporters. ‘He’s his own man. At the end of the day, we’re trying to make a name by ourself, not anyone else.’

This is a simple exercise, OK? Take a look at the US LBM Coaches Poll.

The first three teams in the poll – Texas, Ohio State and Oregon – are using transfer quarterbacks. 

Five of the top 10 teams, and 11 of the top 25 have starting quarterbacks who transferred from another school. Two of the four teams in last year’s College Football Playoff were transfers. 

If that doesn’t do it for you, consider this: After Georgia won the national title in 2021 behind quarterback Stetson Bennett, coach Kirby Smart nearly landed All-America quarterback Caleb Williams from the transfer portal. 

Even though Bennet had one more year of eligibility — and eventually won another national title in 2022. 

“We’re always trying to improve our team,” Smart said.

That, everyone, is the politically correct answer. There’s so much more to the debate raging through college football. 

Recruit and develop the most important position on the field, or recruit the transfer portal for immediate impact?

“There’s less to guess, less of the unknown,” a Power Four conference coach told USA TODAY Sports. “You can recruit a high school (quarterback) where everything is new, and you have no idea how he’ll react from week to week. Or you can get a guy from the portal, who has college tape, who has won and lost and already dealt with the highs and lows and nothing is going to faze him. It’s a no-brainer.”

The coach requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.

From the elite of the game, to programs trying to rebuild or reload, the easiest road with the most important position on the field is building with the transfer portal.

According to analysis from Paul Myerberg of USA TODAY Sports, since the 2021 season when NIL and the transfer portal arrived, there have been 77 different quarterbacks who have transferred into a Power Four program and were the starter for at least one year.

This year alone, 41 of the possible 68 starting Power Four conference jobs are from the transfer portal — or 60.3 percent. 

MAJOR KEY: The one indicator that predicts transfer quarterback success

HARD TRUTH: You need a quarterback if you want best chance for title

An absolutely astounding — and telling — percentage. 

“Each coach has his own thought process on how to win games,” said Arkansas coach Sam Pittman, who began a make or break season in 2024 with Boise State transfer Taylen Green. “But that (quarterback) position is different now. That thing has a life of its own.”

And that’s where this new trend begins and ends. The game revolves around the quarterback position, and the philosophical move toward the vertical throw game has put more pressure on coaching staffs to find the right fit.

There’s no time for patience, for soft-peddling and hand-holding and slowly increasing game repetitions. 

There’s so much money flooding the sport from billion dollar media rights deals, and much of it earmarked for an ever-changing player world (see: revenue sharing with players) and ever-expanding coaching contracts and buyouts. 

It’s as maddening as it is mandatory. It’s fiscally reckless to place a multimillion dollar business in the hands of most 18-year-old freshmen quarterbacks.  

Teams (and coaches) can’t afford a miss while recruiting and developing a high school quarterback when the risk is typically greater than the reward. Players, meanwhile, have figured out the trend and have responded to extend the circular nonsense.

If bluechip quarterbacks don’t play in their first season, they leave for the portal and are attractive to other schools — because, at the very least, they’ve experienced a year of college life on and off the field. The irony is, in the words of the late, great Bobby Bowden, bumfuzzling.

There are still bluechip quarterbacks who have the physical talent and mental strength to play immediately, but it’s more rare than you think. In fact, of the last four No.1-rated high school quarterbacks according to the 247Sports composite rankings, only Florida’s DJ Lagway started a game in his first season. 

And Lagway only started in Week 2 this season because starter Graham Mertz was in concussion protocol. Quinn Ewers (Ohio State, 2021), Drew Allar (Penn State, 2022) and Arch Manning (Texas, 2023) didn’t start in their first season. 

That’s three projected first round NFL draft picks who didn’t play until their second season of college football. Ewers, more than anyone, is ground zero of the entire circle of nonsense.

He was the No.1 overall recruit in 2021, one of two players to earn a perfect score from 247Sports evaluators. He didn’t play in his first season at Ohio State, failing to beat out CJ Stroud and backup Kyle McCord.  

Four of the six quarterbacks taken in the first round of the 2024 NFL draft were transfers, including the first two overall (Williams, Jayden Daniels).

“Every snap is the difference between winning and losing,” the Power Four coach said. “Are you really going to lay that at the feet of a guy who was playing high school football 10 months earlier?”

There’s nothing politically correct about that. 

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X @MattHayesCFB.