3 Big Ten Programs That Will Miss The College Football Playoff Due to QB Play

These three Big Ten football programs could suffer enough at quarterback to miss the CFP entirely | Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Big Ten has a stranglehold on the College Football Playoff after the Indiana Hoosiers' national championship in January pushed the conference's streak to three. With that said, only a handful of teams from the B1G have a chance to continue the conference's winning ways.

These three programs, on paper, don't have enough to make the CFP this coming fall, mainly because of a lack of a starting quarterback who can match the physical play of elite Big Ten defenses enough to win 10 or more games.

Penn State Nittany Lions

We start off with a program that brought a good Big 12 head coach and a good Big 12 quarterback. The Penn State Nittany Lions hired Matt Campbell and landed Rocco Becht in the transfer portal. While that's a good pivot to keep the team competitive following the failed James Franklin era, Becht might not be enough at QB to win enough in the Big Ten.

For a month-long stretch last October and November, Becht had a sub-40 QBR and racked up four straight losses to the Cincinnati Bearcats, Colorado Buffaloes, BYU Cougars, and Arizona State Sun Devils. There's a natural ceiling for Penn State with Becht under center in 2026, and it's probably as one of the first teams that missed the CFP cutoff line.

Iowa Hawkeyes

Kirk Ferentz and Tim Lester appear ready to hand the reins of the Iowa Hawkeyes' offense to redshirt freshman QB Jeremy Hecklinski. Though Hecklinski "won't exactly be asked to become the next Chuck Long," as ESPN's Bill Connelly writes, Hecklinski and Hank Brown were ranked the No. 65 Power 4 QB room of the 68 programs at College Football's highest level.

Though expectations don't outright dictate results and surprises happen, it's fair to assume that Iowa's strong suit won't be under center this year. Hecklinski, at least, has more athleticism than Brown, but he's never been close to first-team reps until this spring. This isn't the typical mold of a CFP QB, though stranger things have happened.

Michigan Wolverines

The Michigan Wolverines have an awkward combination of an overpaid underclassman QB who flipped during his initial recruitment out of high school, now being joined by a head coach who spent over two decades at his last job and is in his late 60s.

Bryce Underwood struggled during his freshman year in big games, and new head coach Kyle Whittingham brought on a run-first play-caller in Jason Beck. Things have the potential to break down quickly between Underwood and the new regime, with Colorado State Rams transfer Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi lurking as a veteran option who can usurp the Belleville native sometime in the fall.

The QB position having this uncertainty makes Michigan a shaky CFP bet this fall, especially with one of the nation's toughest schedules.