No matter what happens, Jalen Milroe won’t be the top passer in college football.
Even if Jalen Milroe is off to a fast start, the Alabama Crimson Tide does not need him to be the best quarterback in college football to win it all.
Jalen Milroe could have the highest passer rating in the country if he qualifies with at least 15 passes completed versus Western Kentucky. Based on his performance of 7 out of 9, he currently has a Passing Efficiency Rating of 374.4. John Mateer of Washington State is the official national leader with 335.7. Officially, Ole Miss Rebel Jaxson Dart is the best SEC player after Week 1 with a 272.6 rating.
This specific stat has two significant components. The data won’t have a large enough sample size until midway to merit any discussion. In Week 1, two quarterbacks, Jaxson Dart (272.64 passer rating) and Payton Thorne (253.56), faced Alabama A&M and Furman defenses. When facing actual competition, Dart might be able to keep up its high rating, but Payton
More significantly, evaluating Jalen Milroe only based on his passer rating gives us only part of the story. Jalen Milroe is the only quarterback in the SEC that challenges defenses to the same extent as Nick Saban did in the offseason.
Initial Thoughts on Jalen Milroe and Other Elite QBs
Tom Fornelli ‘Power Ranked’ the best quarterbacks in college football after Week 1. Fornelli stated, “I’m ranking quarterbacks based on the ‘juice’ they have at the current moment in time,” clarifying that his rankings are not based on statistics. It takes into account your playing style, your past achievements, and your potential for future success.” QBs whose clubs lost were likewise left out by him.
Carson Beck, Cam Ward, and Jalen Milroe were ranked No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 by Fornelli. Top three for Fornelli are sound choices and most Alabama football fans will likely agree. He did mention that Milroe was loose with the ball a couple of times against WKU, but everything else he did far outweighed those miscues.
Following Milroe, Fornelli ranked the other SEC quarterbacks: Quinn Ewers (No. 5), Nico Iamaleava (No. 6), Jaxson Dart (No. 8), and Diego Pavia (No. 10). Five more FBS quarterbacks were included as honorable mentions, but none of them are on SEC teams. Reuter, writing for Bleacher Report, went deeper, ranking the top 25 quarterbacks in college football. Reuter chose nine SEC quarterbacks in his Top 25, with Jaxson Dart (No. 1) and Jalen Milroe (No. 2). Other SEC teams include Carson Beck (No. 5), Vandy’s Diego Pavia (No. 12), Quinn Ewers (No. 18), Auburn’s Payton Thorne (No. 21), Mississippi State’s Blake Shapen (No. 22), and Oklahoma’s Jaxson Arnold (No. 25). Reuter also added a watch list of 25 Honorable Mentions, that included from the Garrett Nussmeier of LSU and Taylen Green of Arkansas Razorbacks are SEC players.
It’s easy to see why it doesn’t matter if Jalen Milroe never ranks first. It is not common to win a National Championship without having a great quarterback, but it does happen. Without an outstanding quarterback, the last three National Champions were successful. Jalen Milroe won’t have to be among college football’s top quarterbacks if the new Alabama Crimson Tide defense is as good as it was last season—which, after one game, seems to be the case.
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