Not counting how they did in the pros, just in thier college career. Look at statistics,championships, awards, etc.
I would have to pcik Danny Wuerful of Florida.
Danny Wuerful, no way, he wouldn’t even make my top college quarterback from state of Florida over the past decade award. Chris Weinke and Charlie Ward were both better qb’s then Wuerful, but Wuerful might be better than Gino Torreta.
Hell, Spurrier was probably a better qb than Wuerful.
Danny Weurfel!?! Are you kidding?
I am stating fact NOT opinion when I say Chris Weinke is the greatest college QB ever.
He led his team to 3 consecutive championship games. He missed the first one because he had what should’ve been a career-ending injury. Yet he kept on. He won a championship against Virginia Tech and the QB who was drafted before him. Everyone tried to pigeonhole him because of his age but he just kicked ass.
I saw him play a few times and I saw that 98 yard touchdown pass he had against Clemson last year. This guy is not kidding around. He can do very well in the NFL. Plus he has a s***load of stats to back him up.
The best college quarterbacks I’ve seen were, in no special order:
- Jim McMahon
- Steve Young
- Joe Montana (his final college game was the Cotton Bowl against Houston, where he pulled off a phenomenal comeback).
- Tommie Frazier (what, wishbone quarterbacks aren’t eligible? The guy only won two national championships!)
- Todd Blackledge. A bust as a pro, I know, but a national champion at Penn State… and I foolishly thought he’d be the best QB in the class of 1983 (in retrospect, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly & John Elway might’ve been a TEENSY bit better).
- Steve Walsh
Danny Wuerfel is without a doubt the best ever. Weinke is good, but he plays in a very very week conference. Wuerful won 4 straight conference titles in the toughest conference in the nation. He also won a National Title, and had more TD passes and a higher QB rating than Weinke. Plus he was a Heisman trohpy winner, and won every other award that a QB could win.
He is the best.
Danny Wuerffel was a great college quarterback. But the best ever? That’s too subjective for me.
Danny Wuerffel? Chris Weinke? Gimme a freakin’ break.
All you Flordia guys know nothing about college football. You need a history lesson.
The guys you mention couldn’t carry the jock straps of guys like Davey O’Brien, Sonny Jurgensen, Paul Hornung, Roger Staubach, Jim Plunkett, Archie Manning, and in my book the greatest college quarterback and most exciting Doug Flutie.
All you Florida guys need to read a history book. You know a book? It’s usually square with pieces of paper between two covers.
I think the best this midwestern boy ever saw was Chuck Long at Iowa.
He then went to my Detroit Lions in the first round, following his college career, and promptly free-falled to mediocrity and worse.
Best before my time? Damn hard to say. Does Red Grange count as a quarterback, out of the Wing-T?
Doug Flutie
He took an average team all the way to the title. The championship game against Notre Dame is one of the best games in history. I’ll never forget that hail mary pass at the end of that game. The best ending to a college game in history as far as I’m concerned.
And yes, I woman who knows her football.
Good thing you know your football, because you know that the Hail Mary pass came at the end of the game against Miami. 
My vote goes to Tommie Frazier. Maybe not the best passer, but man could he run. If not for the incredibly bad calls by the refs in the 1993 Orange Bowl Frazier would have won three straight National Championships. Something that no team has ever done. The Fiesta Bowl in 95 was the perfect way to cap his career, a blow out of that “great” :rolleyes: high-powered Florida Gator team. Yeah, the same Florida Gators that had Danny Wuerffel. Funny that he didn’t win a National Championship until Frazier was gone.
From a pure talent perspective, in relation to the type of team they played on, I’d go with the following:
Tommy Frazier (not a pro style player, but not a pro style team)
Roger Staubach (probably the best there ever was)
J.C. Watts (same as Frazier)
Sammy Baugh (in his time, he was the one to beat)
Bob Griese (not the best stats, but seemed to have a nice grasp on the “intangibles”)
Doug Williams (might not belong on the list, but it’s hard to rule him out solely on the basis of who he played against)
Steve Young (similar to Williams, in that he didn’t play the caliber of competition required to know for sure)
Since many of you seem to think that a player that elevates his team to heights they can only imagine (i.e. “heart”) is the criteria, I’d give all of my votes to Josh Heupel.
DMC, gee, should I be surprised that you wasted your pick on a Sooner ;)? Leave it to a Sooner fan to think that the most mediocre-product-of-the-system player like Heupel was the best ever. He won one NC, and he wasn’t even the star of the championship game. They won because of their defense.
It’s incredibly surprising to me that anyone would think Wuerffel or Heupel to be the greatest of all-time. Maybe the luckiest of all-time, but not greatest.
In the NU-OU game (and others) Heupel would “beat” the blitz by throwing the ball in the air and praying to God (good thing he’s religious) that one of his receivers would out run the defenders to get under the ball. (I’m not bitter, I swear)
Also about Weinke, yes he had a great career, but the fact that he was older than half the starting QB’s in the NFL is not something to be brushed aside. If he’d accomplished everything he did five or six years earlier then maybe you could consider him one of the top QB’s (still not the best though). I think the maturity that he had by being 26 gave him a significant advantage.
Dignan, my poor deluded husker friend. 
I never said Heupel was the best, in fact, he has a mediocre arm, average scrambling skills, and certainly isn’t built for the part. I included him (in a separate list, by the way) purely based on his “heart” since a number of people have used criteria like great comebacks, elevating a team to a new level of play, etc., as criteria. Yes, the defense won the game, but the defense was part of a system that believed in themselves in no small part thanks to their quarterback. From a talent perspective, he isn’t even in the top 5 for last year, hence his lack of inclusion from my main list.
Geez, I gave your boy his props, too. In what you and I would consider “real football”, Watts and Frazier are my picks for the top.
As a Husker alum, I’d have to go with Tommie Frazier. Two, perhaps three national titles. Can’t get too much better than that.
NU’s Scott Frost had better stats than Frazier (1000/1000 season), and worked with less talent.
Others:
Jamelle Holieway(sp?), Oklahoma: one of the best option QBs ever; Frazier’s precursor, if you will.
Drew Brees, Purdue: If you can get Purdue to the Rose Bowl, you deserve my praise. I still think he should’ve had the Heisman over Weinke (28-year-old vs ACC competition: wow!).
Wilson, McMahon, Young, Boscoe, Detmer: Where did BYU get these guys from?
Statwise, you may have to go with Andre Ware or David Klingler of the Houston teams that used the Run 'n Shoot.
Going by statistics and championships and awards alone make the answer pretty easy to determine; just check your nearest sports trivia book.
There are three that stand out in my mind as the really great ones I have personally seen play: Michael Vick - amazing, should have stayed in school. Jake the Snake Plummer - a gamer, all heart, truly fun to watch. Danny Weurffel - great talent and poise, a nobleman.
Weinke? Great? Weinke was nothing more than a “ringer” - the equivalent of a 20-year-old on a Japanese Little League team. And as others have said, the ACC is painfully weak.
Umm, Miami. It still amazes me what large amounts of alcohol can do to ones brain. If thats any excuse.
Thanks for the correction on that Dignan.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Sherman *
**Danny Wuerffel? Chris Weinke? Gimme a freakin’ break.
All you Flordia guys know nothing about college football. You need a history lesson.
The guys you mention couldn’t carry the jock straps of guys like Davey O’Brien, Sonny Jurgensen, Paul Hornung, Roger Staubach, Jim Plunkett, Archie Manning, and in my book the greatest college quarterback and most exciting Doug Flutie.**
[QUOTE]
Best picks on this thread, but not all inclusive.
Do you also think a football field is square?
Namath, Spurrier and McNair. McNair may not have played for a major college, but his statistics were off the scale.
For my money, the most exciting QB to ever play college football was Charlie Ward. Maybe not the best ever, but he had some skills.
2nd best - Chris Weinke
3rd best - Casey Weldon
4th best - Danny Kanell
(I am a bit biased)
Frazier was a great QB. He was a great leader too, he shoudl have won the Heisman. Bit i still think DW is better. He won every award, and was unbelieveable statistically.