Editor's note: This story appears in the Star's 2018 college football preview.
So long, Sam Darnold. Au revoir, Josh Rosen. Best of luck, Luke Falk.
The class of the Pac-12 Conference — and, arguably, the best crop of the country — upped and skedaddled over the offseason, and now the conference is upside-down, inside-out, a jumbled mess impossible to predict.
Of course, it’s not as if conference media has been spectacular at predicting the Pac-12. Only three times this decade has the preseason selection for conference champion actually won the title: USC last season, and Oregon in 2010 and 2014.
But this year, with several teams in transition — one-third of the league has new head coaches — it feels particularly uncertain.
In a word, or a few, everything is up in the air.
No, really.
Washington quarterback Jake Browning will try to lead the Huskies back to a Pac-12 championship as a senior. He threw for 3,430 yards and 43 touchdowns as a sophomore before backsliding last season.
‘A quarterback that’s an athlete’
In the beginning, there was Andrew Luck, and Luck begat Marcus Mariota, who begat Jared Goff, who begat Darnold and Rosen and Falk.
Is Arizona’s Khalil Tate next? Or will it be Oregon Justin Herbert? Can Jake Browning rediscover his groove, or is USC freshman J.T. Daniels ready to take the league by storm?
A new crop of Pac-12 superstar quarterbacks is here to dominate the Pac-12, and perhaps, too, the standings.
This season, more so than ever before, the conference will come down to quarterback play.
Could it be Arizona’s year?
If the Wildcats are to break through in Kevin Sumlin’s first year, it will be because of Tate and his devastating combination of arm and legs. The UA defense is still a mile away from the conference’s elite, so the teams’ only chance is if Tate takes a big leap in the passing game. If he does, the Sports Illustrated cover boy could see himself in New York City for the Heisman Trophy ceremony.
Sumlin, who guided Johnny Manziel to the award in 2012, knows what he has in his star protégé.
“He’s really fast, how’s that?” Sumlin said at Pac-12 Media Day. “He’s a guy that’s really explosive. He’s … moving from being an athlete that is a quarterback, to being a quarterback that’s an athlete. If that makes sense. How do you do that? Studying the game. Becoming a student of the game.”
After a thrilling performance in the Wildcats’ 38-35 loss to Purdue in the Foster Farms Bowl, a game in which Tate threw for 302 yards and five touchdowns,
Tate became the talk of college football. All year, he’d thrilled Arizona fans with his feet. Now he had an arm to go with it?
But with only eight games on his résumé, though a dazzling eight at that, Tate has yet to be tested against a full slate.
“He’s a very, very young player,” Sumlin said. “He’s only played in seven or eight games. … We went through a whole list of things, (offensive coordinator Noel) Mazzone and him about growing as a leader, growing as being a student of the game. … So there are plenty of things that he could work on to get better, and fortunately he’s the kind of guy that wants to work on those things.”
And what about those not named Tate?
The Pac-12 is most certainly not a one-quarterback league.
Oregon’s Justin Herbert could be the No. 1 pick in next year’s draft if he repeats some of the big-play ability that he showed in the final month of the 2017 season.
Dawgs, Ducks, Devils full of signal-callers
Last year, Darnold, Rosen and Falk finished 1-2-3 in the Pac-12 in passing yards, but the ratings leaders told a different story.
Justin Herbert had a league-leading 167.5 quarterback rating for the Oregon Ducks in eight games last season, his season cut short by a fractured collarbone suffered in Week 5 against Cal. Herbert returned for the last three games of the year, including the Ducks’ 38-28 Las Vegas Bowl loss to Boise State.
Herbert, like Tate, is now playing for a new head coach. This year, he’ll try to put together a full year of mass production.
“He now is becoming a field general,” new Oregon coach Mario Cristobal said at media day. “I think he was a quarterback last year, and now he’s becoming a field general. That guy understands how to flip protections. He understands, well, we’re getting a seven-man rush here, they’re going to play cover zero. I’ve got to keep seven guys in to protect, how to call a tight end, change the running backs, and get them a protection opportunity.”
Herbert is not the only talented signal-caller returning in the Northwest.
Washington’s Jake Browning might be the most talented thrower in the league, even if his numbers took a big hit last season.
Browning finished second behind Herbert in QB rating at 152.1. It was a far cry from a sensational sophomore season, when he was all-conference first-team after throwing for 3,430 yards and 43 touchdowns with nine interceptions.
Washington is the Pac-12 favorite in large part because the conference media expects Browning to return to his prolific ways.
Browning is one of just three Pac-12 quarterbacks to be returning for their third season under center, joining Herbert and Arizona State’s Manny Wilkins.
Wilkins carries the major burden of bringing the Sun Devils back to respectability, and he too is under the thumb of a famous new coach, Herm Edwards. Coming off a 3,270-yard, 20-touchdown season, many are expecting a big jump from him.
There’s more: Stanford’s K.J. Costello, Utah’s Tyler Huntley and Colorado’s Steven Montez are all coming off promising seasons.
“Well, there are great quarterbacks in this league, and great quarterbacks every year,” Colorado coach Mike MacIntyre said.
“Last year there were a few other names, right? So I definitely feel like Steven has the ability to do it, and hopefully he definitely will. When he does, it all goes back to us winning enough games to get his notoriety, and when we do that, he’ll get his time in the sun, so to speak. But all of those quarterbacks that you mentioned in our league are excellent. I feel like he’s capable of being that same type of guy.”