Quarterback U.

Finding a franchise NFL quarterback might be the toughest thing in building a sports team. It might also be the most essential. If you think about the teams that have had continued success, what do they have in common? Patriots and Colts of this decade, Cowboys and 49ers in the 80/90's, Steelers of the 70's. You need a franchise QB. But drafting them is a 50/50 shot.

This is Part 1 of at least a 1-part series where I look at colleges to see if that's a good indicator of success.

I'll start with the current crop of good QB's, and then go back every four years or so, and then go back further to get more elites.

I drew the line between Kerry Collins and Gus Frerotte. Sorry Tulsa, but the Gus Bus is not making your case that you are Quarterback U.



Michigan (Brady, Harbaugh)
Purdue (Brees, Orton)
Northern Iowa (Warner)
Vanderbilt (Cutler)
NC State (Rivers)
Syracuse (McNabb)
Tennessee (Manning)
Cal (Rodgers)
Marshall (Pennington, Leftwich)
East Carolina (Garrard)
Southern Miss (Favre)
Boston College (Ryan, Hasslebeck, Flutie)
Ole Miss (Manning)
Auburn (Campbell)
Eastern Ill. (Romo)
Louisana (Delhomme)
Miami-Ohio (Roethlisburger)
Stanford (Edwards, Elway)
Delaware (Flacco, Gannon)
West Virginia (Bulger, Hostetler)
LSU (Russel)
Virginia (Schuab)
Penn State (Collins)
Central Florida (Culpepper)
Indiana (Green)
Arizona State (Plummer)
Virginia Tech (Vick)
USC (Palmer)
San Jose State (Garcia)
Washington (Brunell, Moon)
Alcorn State (McNair)
Central Wash. (Kitna)
BYU (Young)
FSU (Johnson)
Miami-FL (Testaverde, Kelly, Kosar)
Pittsburgh (Marino)
Washington State (Bledsoe, Rypien)
UCLA (Aikman)
Maryland (Esiason, O'Donnell)
UNLV (Cunningham)
Notre Dame (Montana
Morehead State (Simms)
Oregon (Fouts)

So there you go. The colleges of the good quarterbacks of the last 20 years. Somewhat surprisingly, there is hardly any overlap. Also, surprising, many of this schools aren't football powerhouses.

Here's the list of multiples:

Boston College (Ryan, Hasslebeck, Flutie)
Miami-FL (Testaverde, Kelly, Kosar)
Michigan (Brady, Harbaugh)
Stanford (Edwards, Elway)
Purdue (Brees, Orton)
Washington State (Bledsoe, Rypien)
West Virginia (Bulger, Hostetler)
Marshall (Pennington, Leftwich)
Maryland (Esiason, O'Donnell)
Delaware (Flacco, Gannon)

I never would have guessed, but based on quality and recency, if there was one school that you might expect to have a good quarterback soon, it would be BC.

It would probably be worthwhile to do a breakdown by conference, but it seems again that there is so much variance, you can't really even say that one conference produces a large number of gunslingers. Just from a glance, I say the Pac-10 looks good, but whatever.

The verdict: a college is no predictor of QB success.