Nearly half of college football's starting QBs will be transfers this season
It was expected that the new transfer portal would forever change college football, but few thought it would alter things this much.
Especially at the game's most important position, where nearly half of the quarterbacks who will start this fall are those who transferred in from somewhere else, according to research done by On3 Sports.
Of the 131 quarterbacks playing at the FBS level in college football, a full 58 will be transfers, or 44.3 percent of all quarterbacks on the field.
That number isn't set in stone, however, as competition picks up in fall camp and some could move up or down the depth chart on their respective teams.
The Pac-12 leads the way among the Power Five leagues with eight expected transfers starting at quarterback, including seven who transferred this offseason.
Eight transfers will start at quarterback in both the Mountain West and Sun Belt conferences this season, as well.
The transfer portal has forever changed college football
Up to seven SEC starting quarterbacks are expected to be transfers, including five who transferred this year, a group highlighted by Spencer Rattler, a former Heisman favorite who picked up from Oklahoma and landed at South Carolina.
One trend in the new college football transfer portal sticks out: Power Five schools are not raiding the Group of Five or FCS for prospects, as some analysts had feared.
Only two quarterbacks from the Group of Five or FCS have transferred up into the Power Five: Cameron Ward (Incarnate Word to Washington State) and Grant Wells (Marshall to Virginia Tech).
Those players who entered the college football transfer portal and found starting positions are considered the luckiest of all.
Going through the numbers, the NCAA found that just over half of the players who transferred even found a new school to attend, much less one to start for.
Around 41 percent of transfers moved to a non-NCAA school or left their sport completely.
Which makes these 58 quarterbacks who found a new gig the best of the best.
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