by Patrick Zier | Feb 28, 2026 |
The real season starts now. In Austin, Tx, with Sunday’s running of the DuraMAX Texas Grand Prix on the COTA road course. What, you say? Haven’t we already run two races, one at Daytona and the other at Atlanta?
Yes, but they don’t count. Under current NASCAR rules, it’s impossible to race on superspeedways. They turn into demolition derbies and wreck fests. In fact, with fuel saving now critical to winning, the cars often run at less than full throttle, so they REALLY don’t race.
Two things determine whether or not you win on a superspeedway. First, you have to avoid the “big wreck,” and you don’t know when it’s going to happen – you just know it’s going to happen. So avoiding it is pure, blind luck.
Second, you have to be in the right line at the right time coming off the fourth corner on the last lap. And again, this is pure luck. You can be leading the race coming out of the turn, and if a bunch of cars decide to leave your line and form another, you’re cooked. You can go from first to 15th in a heartbeat.
Which is why Old Guy Sport doesn’t include them in its points standings. You can’t learn anything about how competitive a team will be from a superspeedway race because the tracks are so different from everything else NASCAR runs on.
Even Billy Scott admits that. Scott is crew chief for Tyler Reddick, who not only won the Daytona 500 but Atlanta’s Autotrader 400 as well, creating quite a stir.
Scott said, and virtually everybody in the garage would agree with him, that you can’t tell much about how you’re going to run during the season based on how you perform on superspeedways.
“I think, other than momentum and confidence, no, they’re very different tracks (compared to the others on the schedule),” Scott said after the Atlanta race according to NASCAR’s website.
“So many times, the outcome is out of your control,” Scott continued. “There are so many things that have to go right to win these kind of races, I think more so than the ones that are coming up.”
Keeping that in mind, let’s take a look at the upcoming season and make some prognostications.
Best driver in the sport right now: No, it’s not current NASCAR champ Kyle Larson or Denny Hamlin, whose laser focus has enabled him to stay at the head of the pack and defy his age.
It’s Ford’s Ryan Blaney. Blaney has done more with less than anybody else. He is the only driver in the Old Guy Sport competition index who has improved competitively each of the last three years despite the fact that Ford is arguably the least aerodynamically sound car on the circuit.
More importantly, Blaney is the only driver in Cup who has gotten better each of the last three years on both the intermediate and short tracks, which host 32 of the 36 Cup events.
Behind Blaney, the other top contenders for the Cup championship should be: 2-Chase Briscoe and 3-Hamlin. During the last half of 2025, Briscoe outran everybody, scoring 332 points on the Old Guy Sport competition index. Now that he has adjusted to running in first-class equipment, he should be very tough.
Hamlin is the most focused and thoroughly prepared driver in the sport. His physical skills may have diminished slightly as he has aged, but he has more than made up for it with his understanding of the cars, race strategy and ability to make the right move at the right time.
But because of the way NASCAR determines its champion; the point system is basically designed to keep as many drivers eligible for as long as possible and not to determine a true champion, it is quite possible some other driver will win the title.
Clearly, in 2025, Hamlin should have won, but he didn’t. NASCAR has made some improvements to the system for 2026, like eliminating the win-and-you’re-in automatic qualifier, but the standings still reward finishing races over competing in them and thus make crowning a true champion less likely.
Most underrated driver in NASCAR – Josh Berry. This guy just can’t catch a break. In 2023, he demonstrated that he was ready to drive first class race cars when he subbed for Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman while they were injured.
Subbing for Elliott, he consistently ran up front and had a second place finish at Richmond. Subbing for Bowman, he put the car in the All-Star race by winning the qualifier.
Now with the Wood brothers, Penske’s satellite team, he won last year at Las Vegas. Despite Penske’s help, the Wood brothers cars are simply not competitive off the superspeedways. That Berry was able to win at Las Vegas in their equipment is remarkable.
Also noteworthy as we head into a new season: Joe Gibbs Racing is now the most competitive team in the sport, replacing Hendrick Motorsports. Gibbs’ four drivers scored 1,793 points last year according to the Old Guy Sport competition index while Hendrick fell to 1,412.
Penske Racing, the third of the three powerhouse teams, had just 888. While Ford continues to make progress with its cars, it has never really gotten a handle on the Next-Gen body changes.
The most important off-track development in the sport this year will be what happens in the lawsuit brought by Joe Gibbs against his former director of competition, Chris Gabehart, which accuses Gabehart of giving proprietary information to another team.
Gabehart has countersued Gibbs, claiming the organization is dysfunctional and never allowed him to perform his duties. It also claims preferential treatment for Ty Gibbs, Joe Gibbs’ grandson, over the other drivers.
This could tear Gibbs apart. To be elite, you have to have clear operating procedures and strong leadership from the top down. Lacking that, a team will usually struggle.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at COTA Sunday: 1-Shane van Gisbergen, 2-Christopher Bell, 3-Ryan Blaney. Last year’s winner at COTA: Bell.
Top five at COTA last year: 1-Bell, 2-William Byron, 3-Tyler Reddick, 4-Chase Elliott, 5-Kyle Busch.
Old Guy Sport competition index 2025 final top 10: 1-Denny Hamlin 677 points, 2-Kyle Larson 530, 3-Blaney 516, 4-Chase Briscoe 507, 5-Bell 473, 6-Byron 446, 7-van Gisbergen 368, 8-Elliott 278, 9-Joey Logano 205, 10-Bubba Wallace 186.
OGS competition index 2025 top 10 on road courses: 1-van Gisbergen 368, 2-Bell 175, 3-Elliott 80, 4-Reddick 66, 5-Byron 60, 6-Briscoe 59, 7-Michael McDowell 58, 8-Chris Buescher 54, 9-Larson 53, 10-Ty Gibbs 51.
by Patrick Zier | Feb 24, 2026 |
This is the last of a five-part series analyzing the quarterback position at the state’s five major universities, Florida, Florida State, Miami, UCF and South Florida. Today, USF.
The American has always been a stepping stone conference. Even before there was NIL, before the courts settled the antitrust case that now allows colleges to pay athletes directly, players and coaches were constantly on the move.
So, once he established himself at a Group of Six level, South Florida’s Byrum Brown was gone. Once he proved he was one of the best quarterbacks in the country, not just one of the best quarterbacks in the Group of Six, once he established that he could take a team to the top, he was going to move up.
The Group of Six has some good football teams – South Florida being one of them – and some decent conferences, but they don’t play at the level of the Power Four. The Group of Six is a proving ground for players like Brown to show they can make it at the next level.
And he will try and do that now at Auburn, where his former coach at South Florida, Alex Golesh, has taken over. Golesh not only brought Brown to Auburn, he also brought Locklan Hewlett, USF’s quarterback in waiting and Brown’s potential successor with the Bulls.
So, South Florida’s quarterback room has been wiped out. Nobody’s back. But that doesn’t mean things are all bad. USF and it’s new coach, Brian Hartline, have restocked the position with talented transfers, and they have the potential to make South Florida one of the most dominant teams in not just the American, but the Group of Six as well.
The most experienced is Michael Van Buren, who came over from LSU, where he started the Tigers’ final four games and played in seven. Van Buren, a junior, threw for 1010 yards, eight touchdowns and two interceptions and had 129 yards rushing with another TD.
The year before at Mississippi State, Van Buren made eight starts and was 140-0f-156 for 1,886 yards with 11 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He also ran for five more scores. The issue with Van Buren has been turnovers, although he cleaned that up a little bit at LSU.
If Van Buren doesn’t start, Luke Kromenhoak probably will. In fact, many observers think Kromenhoak, who transferred from Mississippi State as a redshirt soph, is the better choice.
Kromenhoak played in three games for Mississippi State, and was in six games with two starts at Florida State in 2024. When FSU recruited him, Kromenhoak was regarded as the No.4 prep quarterback in the country by 247 sports.
According to ChopChat.com, he left FSU after his father asked for more money because he felt that Kromenhoak should be FSU’s starting quarterback in 2025, while the ‘Noles staff appeared to think he needed more time to develop.
“Quarterback is definitely a point of emphasis for us,” Hartline commented according to USF’s football website. “You’d like some guys who want to compete; if you’re a guy who’s coming in with the attitude ‘Oh, I’m this, I’m that’ and they think it’s being handed to them, that’s not healthy,” Hartline said.
“Not only in the quarterback room, but all the rooms, it’s a blank slate,” Hartline commented. “It’s a great opportunity for everybody. With the quarterbacks especially, I wanted to find two, at least two, or three guys that were going to go out there and compete for the spot.
“Ideally, you’d love to have some guys who have some eligibility left after their first year here, guys with maybe multiple years available to them,” Hartline said. “But it wasn’t the only factor.
“Ultimately, if it was a guy that we wanted in the room and he was willing to compete and only had one year left, so be it. For us, it was two things,” Hartline remarked.
“One, guys who wanted to compete and two, trying to find some guys with some years left and then from there, building it out to where maybe some young guy, maybe a young guy from high school, could come in and provide depth. For the most part, I’m really excited about that (the quarterback) room,” Hartline added.
Under Golesh, USF revived its program and with a new stadium rising on campus and other improvements, South Florida is setting itself up to become the next dominant team in the Group of Six. That assumes, of course, that it can find a quarterback who can get it there.
by Patrick Zier | Feb 21, 2026 |
This is the fourth in a five-part series on the quarterback position at the state’s major universities. Today, UCF.
It really hasn’t been because they haven’t had a quarterback. Have they had a Blake Bortles? No. A Dillon Gabriel? No. But ever since UCF took a step up to the Big 12 in 2023, it hasn’t really been held back because of its quarterbacks.
John Rhys Plumlee was pretty good in 2023 before he left for Ole Miss. K.J. Jefferson was thought to be one of the better quarterback prospects in the country when he enrolled at Arkansas and led the Hogs to a 9-4 record before transferring to UCF.
And last year, Tayven Jackson was solid and made some big plays, although his season was marred by injuries and he didn’t ignite the offense like Coach Scott Frost, in his second go-round at UCF, wanted.
So Jackson left. He didn’t really want to go, but Frost really didn’t want him to stay, so…
“It doesn’t make any sense to comment on any individual; you know, this is college football now, it’s a crazy time,” Frost remarked on UCF’s football website after Jackson left.
“We have to decide what’s best for our team and who needs to stay and who needs to go, and players need to decide what’s best for them and who wants to stay and who isn’t going to stay,” Frost commented.
So now, Jackson is at North Texas and Central Florida is looking for a new starting quarterback – again. And Frost and UCF General Manager Trent Mossbrucker, in charge of football player personnel, acquisitions and roster management, think they’ve found him in Alonzo Barnett III.
Last season, playing for James Madison, Barnett was the Sun Belt Player of the year after guiding the team to the College Football Playoffs. He was 213 of 355 for 2,598 yards with 26 touchdowns and just four interceptions throwing the ball and ran for 442 yards and four touchdowns.
CBS Sports ranked him as the 22nd best pickup among transfer portal quarterbacks and ESPN had him at No. 21. Interestingly, Miami’s Darian Mensah was No. 1 in the CBS rankings and No. 3 at ESPN, and Florida’s Aaron Philo, although he has no starting experience, was ranked No. 18 by CBS and No. 12 by ESPN based on his potential.
Florida State’s Ashton Daniels was not ranked in either poll.
“What I love more than anything about Alonzo is he’s a winner and he’s a proven winner,” Frost commented on UCF’s football website. “I think when you’re a really good team, you have really exceptional leadership from that position (quarterback).
“You have somebody that’s tough, somebody that other people want to get behind and play for and believe in. So, not even speaking about the talent that he brings, just really impressed with his demeanor and excited about the level of toughness and leadership that we should get from him,” Frost said.
“Obviously, a lot of the quarterback evaluation, everything that was going on has been going on for a long time,” Frost continued. “There’s a lot of skilled players that when you talk to their agents about potentially coming to our school, one of their first questions is ‘who’s the quarterback going to be?’
“That made getting a quarterback a priority for us for more reasons than the obvious ones. It would be a priority anyway, but I think that’s one of the first dominoes that needed to fall in order for us to fill out the team with the players we were able to bring in,” Frost declared.
“I think Alonza is a guy that can really throw it. I think he plays courageously, stands in the pocket when he needs to make throws, takes off when he needs to.
“Probably a better athlete then some people realize, but, you know, he was able to accomplish a lot of really good things at James Madison and hats off to them,” Frost said.
“We expect the same kind of production from him at this level,” Frost added. “I think he can do everything really well. So, we’re looking forward to getting him with the rest of the guys and just seeing how it all comes together.
“But, you know, we’re definitely approaching this year with the thought we have our No. 1 quarterback, and I think the battle is for two, three and beyond,” Frost said.
Vying to back up Barnett will be Kaleb Annett, who came over from Boise State and has not played, and Keyone Jenkins, who appeared in 33 games for FIU with 20 starts.
But in Barnett, UCF has it’s man, a guy they hope can make the Knights relevant again, only this time at a Power 4 level.
Next, USF.
by Patrick Zier | Feb 18, 2026 |
This is the third in a five-part series on the quarterback position at the state’s major universities. Today, FSU.
It isn’t too much of a stretch to say that whoever wins the quarterback job at Florida State will have one major challenge. Simply put, he will be asked to save the program.
FSU Coach Mike Norvell has to get this right. His job depends on it. FSU must become relevant again. And to be relevant in today’s college football, you need to have a top-of-the-line quarterback. If you don’t have that piece, whatever else you have really doesn’t matter.
And as the Seminoles head for what is likely a make-or-break season, the quarterback position is in a state of flux. Tommy Castellanos, the brash transfer from Boston College who called out Alabama before last year’s season opener and then backed it up with a huge win, lit a spark but it flickered and died.
Now, it’s up to somebody else. Maybe Ashton Daniels, who came over from Auburn. Daniels played three years at Stanford before transferring to Auburn last year.
Or maybe Kevin Sperry. Sperry was the No. 12-rated prep quarterback in the country when he came out of high school, and looked good in a brief, three-game appearance with the ‘Noles last season.
The thing is, unless the inexperienced Sperry can make a huge jump, FSU doesn’t have a real playmaker at quarterback. There’s nobody back there who can take over and win games for you.
Despite a lot of positive talk from Norvell about the available talent, right now, it seems mediocre at best. Over his career, Daniels has played in 37 games and started 23 but he has been turnover prone – as he himself concedes – and has never been able to establish himself as a starter.
He wasn’t highly regarded when he entered the portal and there is some thought the Seminoles took him because he was all they could get.
“I’m really excited about the (quarterback) room,” Norvell said recently on the AAC Network’s Inside ACCess. “Anytime you bring in a transfer quarterback who has experience, and Ashton (Daniels) has played a lot of football; I think this last year you saw him going into Auburn and redshirting throughout the course of the year and playing in those last few games, you saw growth in his productivity late in the season,” Norvell commented.
“We do have big expectations for what he is going to look like here at Florida State and I’ve got a lot of confidence in all the guys we have here in our quarterback room,” Norvell declared.
If Daniels doesn’t show championship form; Norvell has said repeatedly that he expects FSU to compete for championships this year, then the load may fall on Sperry. Sperry is regarded as Florida State’s future at quarterback, but it may turn out that the future is now, whether he’s ready or not.
“Kevin Sperry is a very talented young man who is excited to compete and that is what these guys are gonna do,” Norvell said. “Every day they’re gonna show up and put their best foot forward and push to lead this football team.
“When you’ve got a guy (Daniels) that is older, that has experience, there are high expectations for what that is going to look like,” Norvell said, “and I think Ashton is excited to get the opportunity.
“It (choosing a quarterback) will always be the most important decision you make on a football team,” Norvell continued. “The guys you bring in, their growth, their development, is something that’s essential for your team’s success.
“I’m really excited about the group that we have and I’m excited about the ability that they’ve shown,” Norvell declared. “There are so many factors that go into developing a roster and player acquisition, it all matters,” he added.
For his part, Daniels recognizes he hasn’t done enough during his career to walk in anywhere and expect to start. Darian Mensah he is not. “Regardless of where you go in college football nowadays, you’re going to have to compete,” Daniels said on FSU’s football website.
“Nothing is just handed to you. I’ve had that in my mindset everywhere I’ve gone in the past. I have a history of not taking care of the ball as well as I need to and I think at least this past year, I’ve seen a huge amount of development in that area,” Daniels remarked. “I just want a chance to compete.”
He’ll get that chance. But whether competing and winning at quarterback will translate into competing and winning on the field is another matter.
And if Florida State falters again, Daniels will be gone and so will Norvell. And FSU’s chances of rebuilding its shattered image? Well, they’ll probably be shot as well.
Next, UCF.
by Patrick Zier | Feb 16, 2026 |
This is the second in a five-part series on the quarterback position at the state’s major universities. Today, Florida.
A lot of people around Florida’s football program are trying to downplay it, trying to tell you it doesn’t matter who the quarterback is, that Florida’s success or failure this fall depends on how well the players adapt to the new offense.
The quarterback, of course, will be a big part of that, but he won’t have to carry the team. You say things like that when you don’t have a quarterback who can carry the team or, at the very least, you aren’t sure if you have one.
And when it comes to the quarterback position, new Gator Coach Jon Sumrall isn’t really sure just what he does have. But he is optimistic. ” I like our quarterback room,” Sumrall declared recently at an impromptu press conference covered by several different new outlets.
“Is there a proven starter in that room? No. Are there guys I think can help us win football games here? Yeah. Now, we’ve got a lot of work to do to figure out what that looks like and who’s the starter and all that stuff.
“We’re a long way from making that decision. The players will make it for us,” Sumrall said. “The quarterback competition, the players decide, not me, by how they practice and how they play.”
Going into spring practice, all eyes are focused on Aaron Philo, who transferred in from Georgia Tech after his offensive coordinator there, Buster Faulkner, was hired by Sumrall to run Florida’s offense.
Some other key Tech players came along with Philo including wide receiver Bailey Stockton, center Harrison Moore and tight end Luke Harpring. All may start for the Gators, giving Florida a decidedly Tech flavor on offense.
Although he didn’t get a lot of attention when he came out of high school in Georgia, Philo has turned some heads during his two-year stint at Tech as Haynes King’s backup. In fact many regarded him as the best quarterback prospect in the portal excluding players who were starters.
In high school, Philo put up some impressive numbers. He threw for 13,922 yards during his career, breaking Trevor Lawrence’s state record, and had 56 touchdown passes his senior season, tying another state mark.
But what really sets Philo apart, separates him from the rest, is the way he played his freshman season at Tech in the game against Wake Forest. Despite the picture Florida is trying to paint about not needing a game-breaking quarterback to make the offense work, college football has changed.
You can’t win championships, either in the SEC or on a national level, without a quarterback who can carry the team when necessary. A guy who comes up big in the big moment. And despite the fact he is still learning the position, Philo has already done that.
With Tech trailing, 29-23, with 1:30 left in the game, Philo led a 75-yard game-winning drive, racing 18 yards to score the winning touchdown with 22 seconds to play and personally accounting for every yard, going 4-for-4 for 33 yards and running three times for 42 more in the 30-29 win.
“Buster (Faulkner) has extreme confidence in him,” Sumrall said according to Carter’s Corner on the Florida football website. “As I did my homework, I think the place he was at (Georgia Tech), they didn’t want him to leave. There’s a lot of people there who felt like he was ready to be the starter there.
“I watched him in high school. He carries himself the right way and I go back to past experiences,” Sumrall said. “We started Darian Mensah my first year at Tulane and he had never taken a collegiate snap.
“I get it, it’s the American Conference and not the SEC, right? So they’re a little bit different. But man, if you’ve got the right guy, sometimes I think experience can be oversold. There’s a lot of guys who are experienced who are not very good,” Sumrall remarked.
“I believe in what he (Philo) is about because Buster feels comfortable with him and has confidence in what he’s going to be,” Sumrall concluded.
What he’s probably going to be in Florida’s starting quarterback, a big step up from being behind King at Tech. If he plays like he did against Wake Forest, though, it’s a step he’s ready to make. And if he makes it, Florida might just take a big step up as well.
Next: FSU.
