Illinois Football: Are the Illini quarterbacks ranked too low?

Illinois football is coming off a week zero victory over the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

This was a good win that will hopefully help build momentum into the rest of the 2021 campaign. But, even after the Illini win, there are still some people who see the quarterback situation in Champaign as less than ideal.

In an article by Nick Kosko of 247Sports, he ranks the Big Ten starting quarterbacks. This article was posted on August 31, so it was after Illinois took down Nebraska. According to Koski, the worst starting quarterback in the Big Ten is Northwestern’s, Hunter Johnson.

While the Illini didn’t have the No. 14 starting quarterback in the conference, you don’t have to travel too far to find the Orange and Blue at No. 12. The only two quarterback situations worse than Illinois are the Wildcats and Michigan State, who has Payton Thorne and Anthony Russo as their starter.

Is the Illinois football quarterback situation really one of the worst in the Big Ten?

Well, the first thing that sticks out to me is where Nebraska quarterback Adrian Martinez lands on the list. He has Martinez as the No. 7 best quarterback in the Big Ten. I just witnessed Martinez struggle this past week against the Illini.

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I know a loss isn’t always on the quarterback, but it isn’t like Martinez blew the doors off the Illini defense. He did throw for 232 yards, but it was on 16-of-32 passing. That is a 50% completion rate. That is not good. Martinez also finished with a QBR of 52.2.

You can look at Martinez’s rushing numbers all you want as well. Yes, the 17 carries for 111 yards looks good, but that is a misleading stat line. Martinez broke a 75-yard touchdown run when Nebraska was down 30-9. Besides that one run, Martinez had 16 carries for 36 yards, which is 2.3 yards per carry.

I am not convinced Martinez is a better quarterback than the two options Illinois has in Brandon Peters and Artur Sitkowski, let alone the No. 7 quarterback in the Big Ten.

Rutgers’ Noah Vedral is ahead of the Illinois quarterback duo as well. I am not sure why this is the case. Vedral hasn’t been able to stick with a program during his career and the one season he did play more than a few times was in 2020 where he had a completion percentage of 61.5% and threw for nine touchdowns and eight interceptions. He had a QBR of 42.2 last season as well.

Spencer Petras from Iowa is No. 10 on the list. His completion percentage last season was sub-60%, but he did have an okay touchdown-to-interception ratio. I could see an argument for him being ahead of Illinois’ quarterbacks.

I could make an argument that Jack Plummer for Purdue at No. 9 is a bit too low. He put up some solid numbers last season and continues to progress. He should probably be near the top five.

Cade McNamara out of Michigan is at No. 8. The sample size is extremely small with him. The numbers look good but that was due to the fact he played so much in a three-overtime win over Rutgers last season. But that is Rutgers, so who knows how good McNamara is going to be for the Wolverines. I would probably slot him behind Illinois’ quarterback situation.

Next. 4 observations from the Illini win over Nebraska. dark

The rest of the list, I don’t have an issue with for 2021. With that being said, I would move Illinois’ quarterbacks ahead of Rutgers, Michigan, and Nebraska. So, the Illini have the No. 9 best starting quarterback in the conference. That is probably the highest we have been in a decade.

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