Top 10 college quarterbacks right now: Darian Mensah is No. 1
Darian Mensah is the best quarterback in college football. It is not close.
Mensah leads FBS in QBR for the No. 1 team in the country, so most fans already have him at the top. The fight is over spots 2 through 10. Per ESPN college football passing stats.
The short version
Miami's Darian Mensah is the best quarterback in college football after Week 9: 92.9 QBR, 25 touchdowns, 1 interception and an 8-0 team. Wake Forest's Gio Lopez, Boise State's Maddux Madsen, North Texas's Tayven Jackson and Notre Dame's CJ Carr round out the top five.
By the numbers
The trend: Mensah's 202.7 passer rating is 17.8 points ahead of the next-best qualified quarterback, Ohio State's Julian Sayin at 184.9.
Who is the best quarterback in college football right now?
Darian Mensah. Miami's quarterback leads every qualified FBS passer in ESPN QBR at 92.9, and the Hurricanes are 8-0 and No. 1 in the AP poll. He has thrown 25 touchdowns and 1 interception. He completes 80.7% of his passes, 188 of 233, for 2,425 yards.
The gap is the story. His passer rating is 202.7. The next-best qualified quarterback in the country, Ohio State's Julian Sayin, is at 184.9. Nobody else is in that zip code.
How did we rank the top 10 college quarterbacks?
One number first: ESPN Total QBR, which grades every play and adjusts for the defense on the other side. Then two filters. A quarterback needs at least six games, and his team needs a winning record. Hot starts on bad teams do not make this list.
1. Darian Mensah, Miami (8-0): 92.9 QBR, 25 touchdowns, 1 interception.
2. Gio Lopez, Wake Forest (7-1): 90.4 QBR, 18 touchdowns, 1 interception. Wake is a top-15 team because of him.
3. Maddux Madsen, Boise State (7-1): 89.2 QBR, 15 touchdowns, 1 interception.
4. Tayven Jackson, North Texas (6-2): 88.2 QBR, 2,577 yards, 22 touchdowns, 72.3% completions.
5. CJ Carr, Notre Dame (7-1): 87.3 QBR, 18 touchdowns, 1 interception.
Who rounds out the top 10?
6. Conner Weigman, Houston (6-2): 87.0 QBR, 20 touchdowns, 2 interceptions.
7. Noah Fifita, Arizona (6-2): 86.9 QBR, 2,481 yards, 74.1% completions.
8. Julian Sayin, Ohio State (6-2): 86.3 QBR, 19 touchdowns, 4 interceptions, and the second-best passer rating in the country at 184.9. The USC loss does not erase seven games of elite efficiency.
9. Michael Hawkins Jr., West Virginia (5-3): 85.7 QBR. He completes only 56.6% of his passes, but QBR counts what he does with his legs, and that is where he wins.
10. Sam Leavitt, LSU (6-2): 85.5 QBR, 17 touchdowns. The 8 interceptions are the most on this list, and they cost him spots.
Who just missed, and is QBR fair?
Memphis's Marcus Stokes is the first one out at 85.4 QBR with 25 touchdowns for a 7-2 team. Utah's Devon Dampier (84.1) and Indiana's Josh Hoover (83.2) run unbeaten or one-loss teams and sit just outside. Oklahoma State's Drew Mestemaker has 2,649 yards and 25 touchdowns, but 7 interceptions and a 5-3 record keep him off.
The fair knock on this list is the schedule. Boise State and North Texas do not play Ohio State and Georgia every week, and a defense like that is a different test. QBR already adjusts for opponent strength, but a few games against top-25 defenses would tell us more.
It does not change No. 1. Mensah is the most efficient quarterback in the country on the best team in the country. That is the whole argument.
The bottom line
Darian Mensah is the best quarterback in college football, and the gap is real. Spots 2 through 10 are a fight. Number one is not.
Bar argument
Who did we leave off that belongs in the top 10?
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