1. Colin Kaepernick
Nevada, RS Junior
6-foot-6, 215 pounds
2008 Recap: Kaepernick didn’t quite put up the flashy stats through the air like he did over the final eight games of his redshirt freshman season in 2007 after replacing then-starter Nick Graziano in the second quarter of the Fresno State game in Week 5, and would go on to throw for 2,175 yards with 19 touchdowns, just three interceptions and an impressive 150.8 quarterback efficiency rating.
He still managed to complete 208 of 383 pass attempts for 2,849 yards with 22 touchdowns, a mere seven interceptions and a passer efficiency rating of 132.1 in 2008, which ranked him just behind Irish quarterback Jimmy Clausen nationally.
Where Kaepernick showed his greatest improvement was in the running game where he rushed for 1,130 yards and 17 touchdowns last season, and nearly became the second Bowl Division quarterback since Vince Young, and in history, to throw for 3,000 yards and rush for 1,000 yards in a single season. He eclipsed the century mark four times on the ground in 2008, including a 240-yard outburst against UNLV.
Nevada's Kaepernick might be Notre Dame's toughest foe at quarterback.
2009 Outlook: Kaepernick lost his top weapon over the past year and a half in 6-foot-4, 218-pound, back-to-back 1,000-yard wide receiver Marko Mitchell, who was selected in the seventh round of April’s NFL Draft. Classmate Chris Wellington returns, however, as Kaepernick’s second-leading receiver from a season ago when the 6-foot-1, 185-pounder caught 42 passes for 632 yards and six touchdowns.
Vai Taua, the program’s leading rusher who totaled more than 1,500 yards in 2008, also returns behind an offensive line full of upperclassmen.
If someone steps up to fill the void left by the loss of Mitchell at wide receiver, Kaepernick should be capable of big numbers in 2009, and should be a more than adequate test for the Irish defense in the season opener.
2008 Recap: Locker played in just four games in 2008 before breaking his thumb against Stanford. The Huskies would go on to finish the season winless without their undeniable team and emotional leader on the field.
Locker’s shining performance of his short season came in a one-point loss to Brigham Young in Week 2 when he threw for a season-high 204 yards with a touchdown to go with 62 rushing yards and another two scores. His final touchdown of the game pulled Washington to within a point with just two seconds to play, but a questionable unsportsmanlike conduct penalty cost the Huskies 15 yards on the PAT, which was blocked, securing the Cougar win.
It was hardly the follow-up Locker had in mind to his Pac-10 Freshman of the Year season in 2007 when he exploded onto the national scene with more than 3,000 yards of total offense (2,086 passing and 986 rushing) and 27 total touchdowns (14 passing and 13 rushing).
2009 Outlook: Locker should benefit from the arrival of former USC offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Steve Sarkisian, who has worked with a pair of Heisman Trophy winners in Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart, as well as All-Pac 10 performer John David Booty in his time with the Trojans.
Again, the Huskies didn’t win a game, and their offense ranked among the worst in all of college football’s Bowl Division, but for what it’s worth, he returns most of the top offensive weapons from last year’s squad, including the top two receivers in D’Andre Goodwin, who caught 7 passes for 47 yards and a touchdown against the Irish in 2008, and Jermaine Kearse, who led the team in touchdown receptions (2).
Locker put it all on display this spring with a 200-yard, two-touchdown performance on 16-of-18 pass attempts in a 33-0 rout in Washington’s spring game.
"I felt pretty good throwing the ball. I knew where I was going," he said following the game. "It felt like we were always moving forward, which is good."
3. Aaron Corp or Matt Barkley
USC, RS Sophomore and Freshman
6-foot-4, 195 pounds and 6-foot-3, 220
2008 Recap: Neither Corp nor Barkely has any collegiate game experience worth mentioning. Corp appeared in five games in 2008, including the Notre Dame game for a snap, but has thrown just four passes (two completions) for 14 yards, while Barkley is a freshman who enrolled early this spring.
Both have been locked in a tight battle for the No. 1 spot with redshirt junior Mitch Mustain, who transferred from Arkansas in the summer of 2007 after starting eight games as a freshman for the Razorbacks in 2006.
2009 Outlook: Aaron Corp finished the spring as the leader to replace the departed Mark Sanchez as the team’s starting quarterback in 2009.
“At this time, Aaron Corp is in the lead position for a number of reasons. He's been in the program, he knows the system very well, he communicates very well from the sideline to the huddle and his work at the line of scrimmage is good,” Pete Carroll said at a media luncheon the day before USC’s spring game. “He's a very good athlete and is the best runner we've had at the spot since we've been here. He has shown it at numerous occasions and picks and chooses his times really well. And he's thrown the ball very well. He came in with a little bit of an edge and held that.”
But given the hype of incoming freshman Matt Barkley, who was far and away the consensus No. 1 quarterback in the 2009 recruiting class, and as Irish fans have seen recently with another California prep star to hold that same distinction, it’s reasonable to believe that he could be the Trojans’ starter by the time USC travels to South Bend in mid-October.
In addition to Corp, Carroll also had glowing spring reviews for his prized freshman.
“The great surprise of spring was the ability of Matt Barkley to pick up the offense,” he said. “To be able to go out and compete from the first days he was on the field and not take a step backwards at any time. He's extraordinarily gifted in terms of understanding the game and the position of playing quarterback. He'd have to be. He's done things unlike Matt Leinart, John David Booty, Mark Sanchez, guys who've been extremely effective in the program. He's done things unlike those guys in that he's been able to pick things up and been incorporated into the full flow of practice from the first day he was out here. I expect he'll play really well in the spring game and have another big day and show more so why this competition is so close right now.”
The reason either USC quarterback is on this list without any playing experience is because either is going to be the Trojans’ quarterback. Not only has USC not had a habit of running scrubs out at the quarterback position since Carroll arrived in Los Angeles, but either quarterback is going to have a slew of weapons around him with plenty to spare for some other top programs in the country.
Joining USC’s signal caller will be Damian Williams, the team’s leading receiver in 2008 with 869 yards to go with nine touchdowns, and Ronald Johnson, who calmed any concerns about the departure of Patrick Turner with his four catches for 82 yards and two touchdowns against Penn State in the Rose Bowl. There also returns a trio of running backs in Stafon Johnson, Joe McKnight and C.J. Gable, all of whom rushed for more than 600 yards a piece last season.
4. Bill Stull
Pittsburgh, RS Senior
6-foot-3, 215 pounds
2008 Recap: Stull started 12 of 13 games for Pitt in 2008 and threw for 2,356 yards on 188-of-330 attempts with nine touchdowns and ten interceptions. He finished No. 72 in the country with a 119.9 quarterback efficiency rating.
Stull was a part of four come-from-behind victories last season, though the 36-33 four-overtime thriller in South Bend was not one of them as he sat out that week due to an injury.
Statistically speaking, his best performance of last season came in a 54-34 loss to Rutgers the week before the Notre Dame game when he completed 16-of-22 passes for 279 yards with a passer efficiency rating of 179.3. His best performance in a win came against Navy in Week 6 when he threw for 255 yards at a 63% clip with a touchdown.
2009 Outlook: Gone from Pitt’s offensive arsenal are leading rusher LeSean McCoy, who rushed for 1,488 yards and 21 touchdowns a year ago, and leading receiver Derek Kinder. McCoy, especially, was a rare talent that gave the Panthers a homerun threat out of the backfield.
Stull figured to return wide receivers T.J. Porter and Jonathan Baldwin in 2009, but Porter was dismissed from the team earlier this year following a second DUI arrest while Baldwin was recently charged with a variety of misdemeanors, including assault, stemming from an incident with a female student on a bus in early May.
Baldwin, a sophomore, had a standout spring, catching 5 passes for 75 yards and a touchdown from Stull in the spring game. If he doesn’t return, Stull will have lost his top running back and his top three receivers from 2008, not exactly how he planned things for his farewell season.
2008 Recap: Frazer played in just four games in 2008 and finished with 536 yards and two touchdowns, though he was picked off six times.
His attempted a season- and career-high 44 passes, completing 24 of them for 210 yards but with three interceptions, in his first career start against North Carolina in Week 6, and followed that up with a career-high 270 yards the following week against Rutgers in a close 12-10 loss.
2009 Outlook: Frazer’s timing couldn’t be worse to rise to the No. 1 quarterback spot at UConn, as 2,000-yard rusher in 2008, Donald Brown, is gone to greener, more prosperous pastures (at least financially) in the NFL.
The offensive line also loses its anchor at left tackle the past two seasons in William Beatty, who was a second-round draft pick.
Frazer does return the team’s leading receiver from a season ago, though by a mere three yards with just 273 in 2008, in Kashif Moore. And receiver Marcus Easley had a breakout spring game during which he caught 10 passes for 169 yards and two touchdowns, including a 34-yard touchdown strike from Frazer.
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