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

Notre Dame enters the 2025 college football season ranked sixth in the AP Poll. That says Notre Dame is a national championship contender, but also acknowledges a question mark that's obvious.

What is Notre Dame getting at quarterback?

Texas has Arch Manning, who started a pair of games last season, while seeing action in 10 total. Penn State offers Drew Allar, who has started the last two seasons. Clemson has Heisman Trophy candidate Cade Klubnik, who has started since the end of the 2022 season.

Surely, one of these experienced quarterbacks will be the difference and one of those teams winning the national championship, right?

Try again.

First-Time Starting Quarterbacks to Win National Championships

Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman of On3 discussed inexperienced quarterbacks during their podcast on Tuesday. Staples surprised Wasserman with a quarterback stat that should thrill Notre Dame fans, as well as rooters of Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama, and a handful of others this fall. Check it out below.

I blew @AriWasserman’s mind with a QB stat on today’s show.

It should make Alabama, Georgia, Notre Dame, Oregon, Ohio State and Texas fans VERY happy. pic.twitter.com/RsejkeQTgm
— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) August 12, 2025

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:

Quarterback(s)	Team	Year
Matt Flynn	LSU	2003
Greg McElroy	Alabama	2009
Cam Newton	Auburn	2010
AJ McCarron	Alabama	2011
Jameis Winston	Florida State	2013
JT Barrett/Cardelle Jones	Ohio State	2014
Jake Coker	Alabama	2015
Trevor Lawrence	Clemson	2018
Mac Jones	Alabama	2020

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:

Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence against Notre Dame in the 2018 Cotton Bow — Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence (16) looks to pass against Notre Dame during the 2nd quarter of the Goodyear Cotton Bowl at AT&T stadium in Arlington, TX Saturday, December 29, 2018 | BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

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.