ESPN’s David Hale ranks all 136 FBS quarterbacks and places them into tiers, which I think is a good way to do this. And for me, it was important to designate the various Big 12 teams and where they are in the tier system. Here we go.
Tier 1: Top of the class (11 players)
Tier 1b: So hot right now (six players)
Tier 2: Pretty darned good (eight players) – Arizona State (Sam Leavitt, Jeff Sims), Baylor (Sawyer Robertson, Walker White), and Iowa State (Rocco Becht, Connor Moberly)
Tier 3: Buckle up (19 players) – Kansas (Jalon Daniels, Cole Ballard), TCU (Josh Hoover, Ken Seals), and Texas Tech (Behren Morton, Mitch Griffis)
Tier 4: The young pups (eight players)
Tier 5: The waiting is the hardest part (nine players)
Tier 6: Second time’s the charm (eight players) – Kansas State (Avery Johnson, Jacob Knuth)
Tier 7: Consistently consistent (16 players) – BYU (Jake Retzlaff, Bear Bachmeier), Cincinnati (Brendan Sorsby, Brady Lichtenberg)
Tier 8a: Fresh starts: veteran edition (nine players) – Houston (Conner Weigman, Zeon Chriss)
Tier 8b: Fresh starts: untested edition (six players)
Tier 9: Welcome to the big leagues (14 players) – Colorado (Kaidon Salter, Julian Lewis) and Utah (Devon Dampier, Brendan Zurbrugg, Isaac Wilson, Nate Johnson)
Tier 10: One more try (seven players) – Arizona (Noah Fifita, Braedyn Locke)
Tier 11: Room for improvement (eight players) – West Virginia (Nicco Marchiol, Jaylen Henderson, Max Brown)
Tier 12: What’s in the box? (10 players) – Oklahoma State (Hauss Hejny, Zane Flores)
Tier 13: Wily veterans (11 players)
Tier 14: Best of the Group of 5 (10 players)
Tier 15a: We used to be somebody: top recruit edition (10 players) – UCF (Tayven Jackson, Jacurri Brown, Davi Belfort, Cam Fancher)
Tier 16a: We used to be ACC starters (17 players)
Tier 16b: We used to be starters in the Big Ten, Big 12 or SEC (11 players)
Tier 17: We can make this work (16 players)
Tier 18a: New faces, good places (17 players)
Tier 18b: Welcome to the club (six players)
Tier 18c: Lost that loving feeling (four players)
Tier 19: It could be worse (21 players)
Tier 20: Nowhere but up (16 players)
I think it is reasonable for Hale to think that Arizona State, Baylor and Iowa State to have the best quarterback situations. It is also not surprising that Kansas, TCU, and Texas Tech is in the 3rd tier, the overall thought of this tier is that this is a group that can play really well, but also has questions. For example, Hale highlights the following:
QB A: 5-8 record, 45.6 QBR, 58% completions, 18 TD passes, 14 picks
QB B: 9-1 record, 68.7 QBR, 65% completions, 23 TD passes, 6 picks
QB A is Texas Tech’s Morton vs. FPI top-50 teams in his career. QB B is Morton vs. everyone else.
This is accurate, Morton has to be better against the best competition for Texas Tech to take the next step and to be in Tier 3, yeah, I think this makes sense.
I’m honestly surprised that Kansas State is in the “Second time’s the charm” grouping, I hadn’t considered that Avery Johnson’s play was that up-and-down to be paired with Nebraska, NC State, Texas A&M and UCLA. The next group has BYU and Cincinnati and there’s no telling with the off-the-field allegations against Retzlaff, aside from the serious allegations, there’s also the BYU Honor Code that’s at issue here. I thought Cincinnati’s quarterback was just fine last year and maybe that’s about right. Houston’s Conner Weigman being in that Tier 8a seems also right, fresh starts for veterans. Colorado and Utah being in the “Welcome to the big leagues” is also appropriate as Kaidon Salter was terrific at Liberty (also played high school ball at Cedar Hill) and Campier at New Mexico was good, but not great. Arizona’s Noah Fifita being in the “One more try” category fits as well while I have no idea what to expect from Rich Rodriguez and West Virginia. Just no idea. You could have offered me $100 to name 1 quarterback for Oklahoma State and I would have failed. Hauss Hejny was at TCU and was highly rated while Zane Flores is a freshman from Nebraska. UCF’s quarterback is from Indiana and played sparingly for the Hoosiers in 2024 and had mixed results in 2023.
ESPN’s Bill Connelly has his 2025 SP+ rankings for each FBS team and Texas Tech sits at #26. There’s a lot that goes into Connelly’s formula, so I recommend going to read for yourself (this is not behind a paywall). If we just isolate the Big 12?
18. Kansas State
22. Arizona State
26. Texas Tech
27. BYU
29. TCU
31. Utah
32. Iowa State
35. Baylor
50. Kansas
52. Colorado
57. West Virginia
58. Oklahoma State
59. Houston
60. Arizona
61. UCF
66. Cincinnati
ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg with his top playmakers of 2025 and LB Jacob Rodriguez makes the list:
Why he’s here: There’s a lot of justified excitement about the players Texas Tech added from the portal this offseason, but don’t forget about the key holdovers. After an injury-marred 2023 season, Rodriguez earned first-team All-Big 12 honors last fall after leading the league in tackles per game (9.77) and solo tackles per game (5.9). He ranked fourth nationally and second among Power 4 players in tackles during conference play (97), and had at least one tackle for loss in eight contests. Rodriguez also was involved in a team-high six takeaways, and recorded all five of his sacks against Big 12 opponents, including two, plus a forced fumble, in a signature win against Iowa State.
“He would have had a year pretty close to that two years ago, but he got hurt and missed so many games,” coach Joey McGuire told me. “So having him a full year is huge. He’s a grown man. He just brings so much experience. He is a leader of that defense and a very intelligent player.”
CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli is ranking the college football coaches and this is a group of 68 to 26 and Joey McGuire is at 48:
Joey McGuire: There was a fairly wide range of votes cast for the Texas Tech coach, which is understandable. He’s never had a losing season at Tech and is coming off an 8-5 record, so you can’t rank him too low. But he’s never won more than eight games in a season, either, so even if you’re a fan, you can’t rank him too high. In the end, this feels about right, but if Tech’s transfer class hits this season, we might see McGuire rocket up the board. 2024 rank: 44 (-4), High: 35, Low: 52
This is a bit tough considering that West Virginia’s Rich Rodriguez is at No. 42 and Houston’s Willie Fritz is at No. 41. Here’s all of the Big 12:
66. Arizona: Brent Brennan
62. UCF: Scott Frost
60. Cincinnati: Scott Satterfield
48. Texas Tech: Joey McGuire
42. West Virginia: Rich Rodriguez
41. Houston: Willie Fritz
38. Baylor: Dave Aranda
35. TCU: Sonny Dykes
34. Oklahoma State: Mike Gundy
33. Colorado: Deion Sanders
26. BYU: Kalani Sitake
18. Arizona State: Kenny Dillingham
15. Kansas: Lance Leipold
14. Kansas State: Chris Klieman
11. Utah: Kyle Whittingham
10. Iowa State: Matt Campbell
If that’s not motivation for McGuire, I don’t know what is.