Rivals QB Week: Who is the biggest surprise QB in college football?

Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell and National Recruiting Analyst Adam Gorney don’t always see eye to eye. In this edition of Rival Views for QB Week, the two debate about which quarterback has surprised the most based on high school evaluation.

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I’ll go with Baker Mayfield at Oklahoma over a slew of others. Mayfield had good film but he was sawed off a bit and his arm strength was average. He’s a great example of how you can’t measure heart on film. He often tried to do too much in high school and I thought he might have trouble with turnovers in college, but he has turned into one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the country and a pure leader.

Trace McSorley at Penn State is an obvious choice as well, but despite his size his resume as a passer and winner was better than Mayfield’s. Josh Allen at Wyoming is a surprise mainly because of all the draft attention he’s getting and obviously Washington State’s Luke Falk as a two-star out of high school is a big surprise as well.

I’m going with my alma mater here, Penn State, and quarterback Trace McSorley, who was a mid-level three-star athlete in the 2014 class and not many programs even recruited him to play quarterback.

He got his chance with the Nittany Lions and has really thrived, leading them to the Rose Bowl last season and now he’s a Heisman Trophy contender. Does he have a future in the NFL? It’s hard to say with his size, but he’s a talented kid who has surprised a lot of people at Penn State.

McSorley was one of many players who followed coach James Franklin to Penn State after he left Vanderbilt as the three-star had been committed to the Commodores. It has paid off in a big way.

Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen also has to be high on the list here. Not many believed he would be a superstar with the Cowboys and is now in contention to be the first quarterback taken in the NFL Draft.

Did anyone expect Lamar Jackson to be so special at Louisville or Jalen Hurts to step up at Alabama and take the starting job away from Blake Barnett after the first game last season? There are a lot of QB surprises in college football, and McSorely is at the top of the list.