Sports Illustrated
1. Joe Burrow, Ohio State (2015–17), LSU (’18–19)
The orchestrator of college football’s greatest ever offense in 2019, Burrow made the leap from little-known backup with the Buckeyes to putting a ring on it with the Tigers as the ever-cool Joe . Incredibly tough in the pocket, he would sit back and shred opposing defenses if they gave him so much as a slight opening at any level. Burrow won the Heisman Trophy with the highest percentage of points on his way to setting the NCAA record for single-season yardage and the FBS mark for touchdowns responsible for.
MORE: Joe Burrow, LSU Ace Final Test of Historic Season
What Newton lacks in terms of longevity as a starting quarterback in college (just 14 games at the FBS level), he more than makes up for it with what is perhaps the greatest single-season performance of carrying a team to the national title. En route to winning the Heisman and the BCS championship with the Tigers in 2010, the dual-threat wowed with his size and arm strength, threw for 28 touchdowns and rushed for 20 more scores. Newton averaged over 10 yards per attempt and almost six yards per carry in his final season on a team that featured just three other NFL draft picks.
3. Vince Young, Texas (2002–05)
His side-arm fling as a passer and smooth, galloping grace as a runner certainly made Young a unique quarterback and one who terrified opposing defensive coordinators for what he could do with the ball in his hands. The Longhorns were never out of the game with him in the lineup (he was 30–2 as a starter) as he guided Texas to its first national title in 35 years by almost single-handedly beating a USC team labeled as one of the greatest ever. Young was the first FBS player to pass for 3,000-plus yards and rush for over 1,000 in one season. He did just about everything he could on the Forty Acres aside from winning the Heisman.
SI VAULT: Vince Young Powers Texas Over USC
4. Tim Tebow, Florida (2006–09)
The lefty sandwiched winning two national titles with the Gators with becoming the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy in 2007. He finished his career with a remarkable 145 total touchdowns—his 57 on the ground were more than Herschel Walker had rushing in his career—and spent a decade as the SEC’s career leader in passing efficiency before his 170.8 mark was eventually broken. Though Tebow’s persona could at times be divisive, there’s little questioning his leadership on and off the field that has to be factored into how he played the position.
SI VAULT: You Gotta Love Tim Tebow
5. Matt Leinart, USC (2001–05)
After biding his time behind another Heisman Trophy winner (Carson Palmer), Leinart helped guide the Trojans to their modern apex under Pete Carroll by winning two national championships and playing for a third. He won the stiff-arm in 2004, was a finalist the following season and held a number of Pac-10 single-season and career records. His NFL career sometimes gets held against him, but that takes nothing away from the lefty with the smooth throwing motion who delivered some of the biggest moments for the Trojans.
6. Lamar Jackson, Louisville (2015–17)
When asked to name the best player he ever coached against in the ACC, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said just one quarterback came to mind: Jackson. After 38 incredible games with the Cardinals, Jackson elevated what it means to be a true dual-threat in today’s game. He posted back-to-back seasons with over 3,500 passing and 1,500-plus rushing yards while becoming one of just six sophomores to win the Heisman. He truly beat you in every way possible, from launching one downfield to running over, around or through a defender.
7. Baker Mayfield, Texas Tech (2013), Oklahoma (’14–17)
Mayfield’s career could best be described as one of the Hollywood scripts that even Disney would reject as too improbable. He became the first true freshman walk-on to start an FBS season opener after joining Texas Tech and later made his way to Big 12 powerhouse Oklahoma, where he led the Sooners to a 34–6 mark that included trips to a pair of College Football Playoff semifinals. He’s top 10 in FBS career passing yards, touchdowns and scores responsible for to go along with a host of other records that have nothing to do with his ability to plant the flag midfield in big games.
8. Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M (2011–13)
There is only one Johnny Football. His career is best described as a roller coaster given how many on-field highlights were balanced with hard-to-believe off-field stories. However, there’s no denying that when he caught the snap, you just had to hold your breath until the play was over. He became the first freshman to win the Heisman despite not speaking to the media for virtually all of 2012 and smashed a slew of SEC records on offense by the time he was done flashing the money signs in College Station.
SI VAULT: The Oral History of Johnny Football
Analysts believed Lawrence was one of the best quarterback recruits ever in the past two decades, and it didn’t take him long to prove them right on several levels. Though he didn’t start until the fourth game, he became the first true freshman QB to win a national title since Jamelle Holieway in 1985 and delivered Nick Saban the worst loss of his career at Alabama in the 2019 CFP title game. He didn’t lose his first game until running into the buzzsaw of an LSU squad in the national championship game as a sophomore and navigated the difficulties of the COVID-19 season in 2020 by notching a third consecutive CFP berth with a third year of over 3,100 passing yards. Lawrence recorded at least 31 total touchdowns in each of his three seasons and went 34–2 as a starter before becoming a No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft.
10. Marcus Mariota, Oregon (2011–14)
Few players represented Hawai‘i with greater class or greater play than Mariota, who won the Heisman Trophy in 2014 and guided the Ducks to the first College Football Playoff national championship game. While he was an incredible runner who instinctively knew where to go when toting the rock, it was Mariota’s pinpoint precision as a passer that really took Oregon’s offense to another level. He posted a remarkable 105-to-14 touchdown-to-interception ratio over his career and rewrote much of the record books out West.
11. Jameis Winston, Florida State (2012–14)
There may be no better quarterback of the last 25 years behind the microphone than Winston but don’t let that distract you from his 26–1 record with the Seminoles. He became the second freshman to ever win the Heisman Trophy in 2013 and truly lived up to his Famous Jameis nickname that season. The triggerman for one of the best offenses of the past few decades, Winston won the last BCS national championship in the dying seconds while throwing for at least 3,900 yards and 25 touchdowns in each of his two seasons as a starter.
12. Andrew Luck, Stanford (2008–11)
The man helped make being a nerd and brought Stanford—Stanford!—to the forefront of the national discussion in college football during his time on the Farm. He might be the most perfect player NFL scouts ever evaluated coming out of college and led the Cardinal to a pair of BCS bowls. Luck also became the fourth player to finish as a two-time runner-up for the Heisman Trophy.
Easily the most unassuming member of this cohort, Moore was the most overlooked but one of the biggest killers under center for the BCS-busting Broncos. He went 49–3 over four years as a starter and left college football as the sport’s winningest signal-caller. He dazzled in the big moments with his dropback and launch throwing motion but had an incredibly cerebral approach to the game and made life difficult for Boise State’s opponents—no matter if they were on the blue turf or not.
14. Tua Tagovailoa, Alabama (2017–19)
When Tagovailoa arrived on campus and burst onto the scene with an incredible debut in the Tide’s spring game, there was an expectation that things might actually be different with Alabama’s typically complementary offense. That wound up being the case even if few could have predicted the Hawaiian’s path from coming on at halftime of the 2018 title game to delivering a walk-off winner to another championship game appearance and a devastating injury that ended his season in ’19. Still, the poised lefty really sped up the introduction of RPOs and set numerous NCAA and FBS records.
15. Jayden Daniels, Arizona State (2019–21), LSU (’22–23)
Daniels was born toward the end of the year 2000 which really puts this group in perspective, but it’s hard to deny what he accomplished over the course of his career. He set several records as a true freshman at Arizona State before turbulent times led him to LSU, where he made it to the SEC title game and won the Heisman Trophy with an incredible campaign that saw him score 50 touchdowns and record 4,946 total yards.
16. Alex Smith, Utah (2002–04)
The fact that the Zone Read became common verbiage for offensive coordinators the past 25 years can in part be traced back to Smith running the concept with the Utes. The first College Football Hall of Fame inductee for Utah, the quarterback led the Utes to an undefeated season in ’04 while becoming a Heisman finalist. He helped redefine what was asked of players at the position.
17. Caleb Williams, Oklahoma (2021), USC (’22–23)
Electric is an easy way to describe Williams, who might as well have been playing dodgeball when scrambling the way he ducked, dipped, dived and dodged defenders like a modern Houdini with a football. He threw some of the most amazing passes from off platform (or platform) with the Sooners and Trojans while accounting for 120 touchdowns in just 33 starts with a Heisman Trophy to boot.
Young collected pretty much all the hardware you could as a quarterback, from winning a ring in ’20 as a backup to the Heisman a season later as the Tide nearly went back-to-back. He posted a ridiculous 50-touchdown season as a sophomore and redefined what it meant to drop dimes all over the field despite his 5' 10" stature.
19. Robert Griffin III, Baylor (2008–11)
It’s hard to describe how woebegotten Baylor’s program was for those of a certain age, but Griffin not only managed to bring the Heisman to Waco, Texas, he also helped the Bears win double-digit games for just the second time ever (up to that point). A former track star, his ability to run was tough to defend but his final two years on campus showed how good he was a passer in completing at least 67% and throwing for over 3,500 yards both seasons.
20. Stetson Bennett, Georgia (2017, ’19–22), Jones County Junior College (’18)
It’s time to put some respect on Bennett’s name. As an overlooked walk-on who actually left the Bulldogs for a season in junior college, he beat out several more highly touted quarterbacks to become the starter and led the Dawgs to back-to-back CFP national titles. He went 29–3 at Georgia as a starter and had a knack for making some incredible throws with great timing when the moment called for it.
MORE: Stetson Bennett and Georgia Redefine Dominance in College Football
21. Carson Palmer, USC (1998–2002)
Palmer played early on for Paul Hackett but paved the way after the 2000 season for the Trojans under Pete Carroll. His Heisman-winning campaign in ’02 saw him set numerous passing records and made him the prototype for the position with his big arm and ability to run a pro-style offense to perfection.
22. Kyler Murray, Texas A&M (2015), Oklahoma (’16–18)
Murray has a good case to be the greatest high school quarterback the state of Texas ever produced and after a false start in College Station, Texas, realized that potential under Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma. His career pass efficiency is fourth best all-time and the 54 touchdowns he scored in 2018 were part of one of the best single-seasons ever. Murray threw a beautiful spiral, but it was when he took off to scramble or run that really gave opponents heart palpitations given how much of a blur he was.
It took a while for Smith to establish himself as the Buckeyes’ starter but once he did, he truly reshaped the previously stodgy offense the team ran into something that was much more dynamic. In his final year, he blossomed as a passer, throwing for 30 touchdowns against just six interceptions and helping OSU top Michigan in one of the games of the century to send them to the national title game in a performance that might be one of the few he’d like to forget.
24. Michael Penix Jr., Indiana (2018–21), Washington (’22–23)
In the top 20 for FBS career yardage, Penix thrived despite suffering several season-ending injuries that probably prevented him from being further up this list. He led Indiana to several high-water marks but thrived after joining the Huskies, with back-to-back efforts of over 4,600 yards and at least 31 touchdowns. Penix’s deep ball might be one of the most beautiful ever thrown with his ability to perfectly tip it over and drop it into the receiver’s hands.
25. McKenzie Milton, UCF (2016–20), Florida State (’21)
A traumatic knee injury in 2018 robbed Milton of much of his later career, but when he was on point with the Knights, it was an incredible aerial show to watch in the team’s up-tempo offense. His ’17 campaign won’t be forgotten around Orlando anytime soon as he averaged over 10 yards per attempt and threw for 37 touchdowns in leading UCF to a perfect record (and a claimed national title). Leading into his injury the following year, he had won 23 consecutive games.
