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.
by Patrick Zier | Feb 15, 2026 |
Miami’s Carson Beck. Gone. Florida’s DJ Lagway. Gone. FSU’s Tommy Castellanos. Gone. UCF’s Traven Jackson. Gone. USF’s Byrum Brown. Gone. That’s the answer. So what’s the question? What does every major college football program in Florida have in common? They’ve all lost their starting quarterbacks. And in this five-part series, starting with the Miami Hurricanes, we’ll examine each team to try and determine how they’ll move on in 2026.
At Miami, the beat goes on. Cam Ward. Carson Beck. And now Darian Mensah. It’s the era of plug-in-and-play quarterbacks. And if you get the right guy, if he’s the right fit, your quarterback can take you a long way, and fast.
There’s no doubt Mensah, who played at Duke in 2025, was one of the top quarterbacks in the transfer portal this year. At a press conference before his team played the Blue Devils, North Carolina’s Bill Belichick had this to say: “He reminds my of an NFL quarterback. He’s not out there running around trying to be a running back. He’s a quarterback, and a really good one.
“The more I watched him play the more impressed I was…the closer you look, the more impressive he is.
“If you make a mistake in the secondary, you should expect to pay for it. I think he’s the best we’ve seen at that,” Belichick said.
Actually, Mensah was not Miami’s first choice. When the portal opened, the ‘Canes went after Arizona State’s Sam Leavitt. But Leavitt opted for LSU, and that might be the best thing that’s happened to Miami this spring, because Leavitt is still recovering from a foot injury.
He’s expected back in the fall, but quarterbacks who suffer lingering injuries often get behind, even after they’re healthy. Ask Florida about DJ Lagway.
“After meeting him, he’s made of the right stuff,” Miami Coach Mario Crystobal said on Miami’s WQAM recently. “He has an unbelievable personality. He’s definitely an Alpha.”
Mensah’s transfer from Duke was delayed by a legal entanglement when the school, which paid him a reported $8 million in NIL money after he came to the Blue Devils from Tulane, tried to hold him to the contract.
According to Loeb & Loeb LLP’s website, Duke claimed it’s contract with Mensah forbid him from transferring or signing another NIL deal. Eventually, the dispute was settled out of court and with Leavitt gone, Miami pounced.
“You’ve got to wait until they get in the portal, that’s the bottom line,” Cristobal said on WQAM. “You hear this guy might, that guy might. But when they do (enter the portal), you’ve got to go and you’ve got to go hard. You’ve got to go fast.” And Miami went after Mensah hard and fast, reportedly paying him $10 million.
“We just felt he was the best one (available),” Cristobal continued. “He was deadly accurate, just creating explosive plays on schedule, off schedule; we liked his pocket presence.
“He’s the right guy,” Cristobal declared. “Not only for us to go and continue to get better. He’s also the right guy to help develop that young quarterback room and that young quarterback room is really impressive.”
Miami has no experience behind Mensah. Emory Williams, who played in five games behind Beck last year, has transferred to East Carolina. That leaves Luke Nickel and Judd Anderson. Both, especially Nickel, are considered top prospects but they need to be developed.
“We think those guys are going to be really great players,” Cristobal said. “So it’s kind of the same as it was with the other quarterbacks,” Cristobal commented, referring again to Mensah. “U surround them with an elite supporting cast, you have a great chance for success. So we can’t wait to cut him (Mensah) loose.”
There is no question Miami is on the rise. It’s one of only two Power 4 conference teams (Texas A&M is the other) that has improved its record in each of the last three years, and it played for the national championship in 2025. With Mensah, Cristobal thinks he can win it.
Next up: Florida
by Patrick Zier | Jan 26, 2026 |
Despite the fact they were at the front of the field, Ricky Stenhouse didn’t have control of the race and neither did Joey Logano, because nobody really controls what happens in superspeedway racing, but here they were, vying for the lead on the last lap of the 2023 Daytona 500 as cars crashed behind them.
A fitting climax to what this race, and superspeedway racing in general, are all about. You don’t need to be a good driver. You don’t need to have a good car. You just need to be lucky enough to avoid the “Big Wreck,” three of which had occurred in this event, taking out 38 cars, and lucky enough to be in the right line at the right time on the last lap, which Stenhouse was.
Driving for the obscure JTG Daugherty team, whose only claim to fame is that it was partially owned by former NBA star Brad Daugherty, Stenhouse got a push from Christopher Bell, edging Logano to take the checkered flag.
In 2024, Stenhouse won another superspeedway event, Talladega’s Yellawood 500, and in all, he has now won four. But he has never won a race on any other kind of track and never even been a serious contender to win one. And this is not unusual for many drivers who win on one of the three superspeedways, Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta.
The superspeedways produce shooting stars, drivers who flash briefly across the NASCAR stage and then fade back into the obscurity from which they came, because superspeedway racing is totally different than anything else and there is absolutely no correlation between running well on these tracks and being competitive on the others.
Kyle Busch, for example, has never won the Daytona 500 despite being one of the most talented drivers in NASCAR. He has two superspeedway wins, but even without counting those, nine times in his Hall-of-Fame career, Bush has won four or more races on regular tracks, equaling or exceeding in a single season the number of wins Stenhouse has in his entire career.
And with NASCAR shifting to the Next-Gen car, more and more drivers like Stenhouse are getting wins on NASCAR’s biggest venues. As a rookie in 2022, Austin Cindric had only run eight Cup races in his life before winning the Daytona 500. Since then, he has also won another superspeedway race, Talladega’s Jack Link’s 500 last year.
But despite the fact he is driving for Penske Motorsports, one of the best teams in racing, Cindric has struggled on normal tracks, where he has only one win, and his job is in jeopardy.
And then there’s Dennis Suarez, who won the 2024 Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta. Suarez has been bouncing around Cup racing for nine years, and off the superspeedways, he has found winning much tougher. He has won only one other race and was finally released last year by Trackhouse, his fourth Cup team.
Harrison Burton’s Cup career has been much shorter, but driving for the Wood brothers, he won Daytona’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 in 2024. Like the others, the fact that he didn’t have a dominant car and wasn’t really competitive didn’t matter at Daytona, but it showed up everyplace else and he never won another race, was let go and is no longer in Cup.
Of the 24 races on superspeedways since 2022, when the Next-Gen car was introduced, five, or almost 20 percent, have been won by drivers and teams which have never been a factor anywhere else.
That is in sharp contrast to the 120 races run on ovals or road courses, where the best teams dominate. Cars fielded by Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Penske Motorsports, NASCAR’s Big Three, have combined to win 82 of those events.
Trackhouse and 23XI, two teams just a step below the Big Three, have won 19 more. Out of 120 races, only four have been won by teams or drivers who have not really been competitive.
When the Next-Gen car was rolled out, NASCAR’s goal was to even the competition. All the teams got their parts and pieces from a single source supplier and they weren’t allowed to modify them in any way, so all the cars were basically the same.
This caused a huge problem on the superspeedways, where drafting plays a major role in the racing. In the draft, the lead car punches a hole in the air allowing the trailing car to move into the vacuum created behind it. That compresses the air between the two which makes both cars go faster.
The more cars you get running nose-to-tail behind the lead car, the faster all of them will go. This has led to long lines of cars, sometimes 10 or more deep, roaring around the speedway.
And because all the cars are equal and nobody can pass without help, everybody tends to stay in line. About the only time the line breaks apart is if somebody in one line feels another line has more momentum, drops out of the line he’s in and tries to squeeze into the other one.
This creates a gap in the first line, breaking the draft and slowing that line down, allowing the second line to charge into the lead. As cars move back and forth between lines, the lead moves back and forth as well, but it isn’t really passing in the true sense of the word.
The long lines are also the primary reason for the “Big Wrecks,” because with all the cars running so close together, if somebody gets in trouble there is less chance to avoid it.
But while superspeedway winners can come out of no where, that doesn’t mean the best cars and drivers don’t win. JGR’s Denny Hamlin has won the Daytona 500 three times. Hendricks’ William Byron, the defending champion, has won two in a row.
They validate their superspeedway wins by the way they run at other tracks, though, and drivers like Stenhouse, Cindric, Suarez and Burton don’t. So, while superspeedway racing can provide a lot of thrills, winning some of its biggest races, like the Daytona 500, doesn’t mean anything except that on this particular day, you lucked out.
