2025 Big 12 Quarterback Rankings – Could One Win the Heisman?

In this episode of First and 12, we break down the 2025 Big 12 quarterback rankings and dive into why the quarterback position is the crown jewel of the Big 12 Conference this season. From rising stars to seasoned veterans, we analyze every QB’s strengths, supporting casts, and what sets the elite apart. Whether you're a fan, analyst, or just love college football, this deep dive into Big 12 quarterbacks for the 2025 season is a must-listen. Tune in for expert insight, bold predictions, and our take on who will lead their team to glory.

Keywords 
Big 12 quarterback rankings 2025, Big 12 football 2025, college football quarterbacks, 2025 college football season, First and 12 podcast

Transcript

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If there is one position in the Big 12 this year that is going to shine it is the quarterbacks We're going to rank all the quarterbacks for the upcoming season on today's show From all along the state to Colorado Arizona State to Cincinnati We've got big 12 covered from end zone to buzzard leader This is first in 12 draw at the past to all 16 teams all in every episode Hello and welcome to another episode of first and 12 I'm your host Adam Gibby and thank you so much for joining us today I want to start off the show today by in a way apologizing for the doom and gloom that I had this past week Especially on Friday as I listed back to the show I realized I was very Kind of just down and upset about the situation of the college football playoff news And if you want to hear that go back listen to that episode While I was upset while I'm still upset I'm wanting this to be a positive program I wanted to be something that gets people excited for the big 12 gets people Pumped up for the upcoming season and while it is important to cover the news and while it is important to have Real reaction and to have a real conversation about what is going on around the landscape of college football I do think that this past episode that I had was a little bit Over the top at least for the style that I want to have so I want to apologize for that and let's get going with the with with today's show So as we go into this upcoming season There are a lot of quarterbacks that are returning for the big 12 and there are a lot of really good quarterbacks returning for the big 12 Sure, we lost the biggest name and should wear sanders But we have definitely not lost all of the talent and as we go into this season This could be a historic season for the big 12 where we could see a big 12 quarterback win the Heisman We could also see multiple quarterbacks be in New York City for the Heisman trophy ceremony when all is said and done A lot of that will have to do with whether or not these teams can win It will also have to do with whether or not ESPN decides to give coverage to these guys Because let's be honest. They have already penciled in archmaning as this year's Quarterback that's probably going to win the Heisman But at the end of the day you do still have to win games You do still have to have the stat lines and you do have to be able to impress the voters who ultimately do decide Who's going to win? And so today we're going to break every single quarterback one to 16 and we're going to talk about each one Now first off, I do feel that it is important to mention that I'm not going to rank the quarterbacks for teams that have brand new quarterbacks So there are six teams this year who do not have a starting quarterback who played for their team last year And the reason I don't want to rank them is well for a couple of reasons The first just being you never know how a quarterback is going to do when they get to a new team You also never know who the quarterbacks going to actually be a lot of times And so I don't want to give UCF a starting quarterback when we have no idea who the guy is going to be It could be one of three different guys We don't know who the quarterbacks going to be for Oklahoma State So I'm not going to give a ranking to those teams We do know who's going to be playing for Utah in Devon damper, but We don't know how he's going to do at the power for level last year He did pretty well at New Mexico, but he had a different coach who's in a different system He was going against different competition and while he looked electric and we know he can run It will be interesting to see what you can do against a big 12 slate And so as we look at the six teams those six teams are Utah Colorado Houston, Oklahoma State, UCF and West Virginia Some of these teams are set up nicely to have good quarterbacks that could very easily break the top 10 For example, I just mentioned Utah they have a really good quarterback But again, we don't know exactly where he's going to land Well, we don't know where any of these guys are going to land But we don't really know where he sits right now in terms of where he is in the conference You can say the same thing about Colorado they got Salter from Liberty Liberty, he was a great quarterback, but Liberty also doesn't play the greatest schedule On the flip side you could say well now he has better lineman now he has better receivers now he has better running backs That is also true and so we just don't know where he's going to land Teams like West Virginia, UCF, Oklahoma State and Houston, there's a lot of mystery I think Houston we might know who's going to be starting, but the other three teams we we really have no idea and And so I'm definitely not going to give a ranking to those three teams maybe they'll go on have great seasons Who knows again last year air zone of state was picked to finish dead last in the conference Nobody had Sam levitt on their radar and yet he ended up being one of it If not the best quarterback statistically in the entire conference I am excited to see what does happen and it does feel like 12 of the teams in the big 12 Currently do have a quarterback who they know who is going to start and is showing promise You know, I think those 12 teams in particular The 10 I'm going to talk about today and then Utah and Colorado all have pretty high confidence that they're going to have a quarterback That can lead him to a bowl game this season and so let's start off with number 10 and as I made this list I was shocked that this one may number 10 Just because of the name because of what he did in the past but number 10 is going to be Noah Fafita from Arizona Looking back last year he completed 60.5% of his passes for 2,958 yards He had 18 touchdowns to 12 interceptions He has 66 carriage but only for 17 yards and a touchdown If he had had the biggest drop in completion percentage he threw over 70% the year before There's a lot of different reasons that this could be the big 12 for example Yeah, and you'll see this as a theme as I'm going along the big 12 doesn't have the highest completion percentages You look at the SEC quarterbacks and a lot of them throw 70 plus percentage You don't see that in the big 12 and I think a big reason why is because of the SEC It's a lot of and I'm not critiquing this style necessarily But it's a lot of screen passes a lot of little dump-off passes very high percentage throws that Are going to get caught and it's almost an extension of the run game the the SEC Historically is a run first conference and they've been very slow to adapt to the air raid or the west coast Kind of style where you're going to be throwing the ball and throwing it down the field And so in the SEC you're going to see 70 75% completion percentage But when you actually look at what kind of throws they're throwing It's not the same style as what you've seen the big 12 where it's a lot more down the field utilizing the wide receivers Running backs aren't used typically as much in the big 12 as they are in other leagues And so that is that is something that is possible with Fafita I haven't watched enough film of when they played in the pack 12 to be able to tell you for sure Whether or not you know they were targeting those running backs out of the backfield more or what not But regardless he did see a huge drop. He also saw his team lose a lot more games last year than they did back in 2023 So again, I'm not exactly sure what led to this maybe it was the coaching change could have been the scheme change perhaps it was just planning a new conference the pack 12 was a solid conference, but not really known for their defenses outside of Utah The pack 12 was not a defensively great leak And so that that's something that could have happened as well not say that the big 12 is a lead in defenses But they definitely are known more for their defenses than the pack 12 was the other reason he's ranked 10th on my list is because Despite everything going down he lost his top receiver to the NFL draft this year in McMillan The millen was a top 10 NFL draft pick and and so one really asked him wonder what's next for Fefita Can he find his 2023 style again? Is he able to find that magic and lead his team on a rebound this year? I think it's possible again second year under new head coach second year in the same scheme A lot of the guys are returning and so I do think it is possible where you could potentially see Fefita bounce back and be maybe around 5th or 6th in this conference But for sure get his team back to a bowl game number nine is another Player who had a significant drop-off in production And kind of surprised me when I saw the actual numbers and that is J. Lydaniel's from Kansas J. Lydaniel's last year completed 57% of his passes for 2454 yards He had only 14 touchdowns and had 12 interceptions not a great ratio He did have 93 carries for 447 yards and added six touchdowns on the ground He definitely had the biggest drop in the conference now the last two seasons prior to that he did He did have significant injuries that ended his seasons early One has to wonder um that's thunder by the way if you're able to hear that one has to wonder whether or not he Really was back to 100% and whether he ever will get back to 100% a lot of times these quarterbacks Specifically quarterbacks because of throwing motions because of certain cuts They have to be able to make it within the pocket They just never quite become the player that they once were Also he now has four years of film on him and so defenses are able to scheme against him a lot better It kind of felt like Last year The defense is basically said yeah, if you're gonna beat us with your legs beat us with your legs But we're not gonna let you beat beat us with your arm and when that happened J. Lydaniel's just became very predictable he Again, he ran for 93 he ran 93 times um, you know, you'd break that down by by 12 games and that's Without doing the mental math too quickly. That's about eight eight rushes per game Which isn't a ton per se but it is definitely more than canis probably wanted him to to be uh be running Can jaylen daniel's return to his i believe would have been 2021 form when canis had that breakout season and appeared to be Back while niven back just like relevant for the first time ever Maybe we'll see um, I am a little bit hesitant. This is his fifth year playing now It does feel like a lot of teams have figured him out and so we'll see what happens this got coming season Number eight Brendan soresby since an addy statistically he was he was sound he has 64 percent completion 2813 yards 18 touchdowns seven interceptions 105 carries for four hundred and forty seven yards and Nine touchdowns on the ground he was solid last year um, he did struggle towards the end of the season The bear cats. I believe had a five game losing streak to finish they did have a lot of injuries However, at the same time you were losing the last five games of your season things just Aren't looking great his his productivity his stat line. They all kind of dropped towards the end of the season He lands number eight He does feel like the kind of guy that could come back and throw for over three thousand yards His touchdown interception ratio was solid anytime you can get close to that three to one ratio You're in a pretty good spot So yeah, it'll be interesting to see what he's able to do this year Cincinnati is one of those teams that could sneak up and get a seven and five six and six kind of record They have a very favorable schedule They have a lot of great home games and I think of soresby is able to grow off of last year He could definitely have the kind of season that that could lead the bear cats back to bowl eligibility Which is something that they desperately need after their basketball program struggle their football program has been struggling And they kind of feel like in a way sort of the bottom of the Big 12 just kind of overall They could definitely use a boost this upcoming season number seven And I may pronounce this correctly Bayran Morton from Texas Tech He has 63.3 completion percentage he threw for three thousand three hundred thirty five yards 27 touchdowns 18 interceptions he was not effective on the ground he had a 55 carries for a negative 22 yards and only one touchdown on the ground Now as far as Morton goes he is going to potentially have a breakout season this year the team went out and Absolutely killed it in the transfer portal. They had the number two transfer portal class in the entire country They're spending on NIL This is a team that is doing their best to be in the college for a playoff this season But it's going to rely on the arm of Morton and literally on the arm of him He is not a running threat. He should not be running the ball um And so everything's gonna come from his arm He did struggle in conference play last year after a great start to the season where I believe he threw for ten touchdowns No interceptions or maybe just one he finished off the season throwing for 17 touchdowns and 18 Interceptions I believe it was And so That's just not a great ratio, you know, you do not want a one-to-one ratio with touchdowns interceptions Like I said, he's not a running threat, but he is a pure passer with those transfers He could be very dangerous. He could be the kind of team that Similar to BYU last year where the weak link may have actually been jake redslap But because of so much talent around him on the offensive line they had solid running backs and they had great receivers Redslap didn't had to play fantastic for the kugas to get to a tenon to regular season record If he was fantastic they very easily could have finished 12 and 0 But there was just so much talent around him that he just had to play okay and and the kugas were good I think that could be Texas Tech this year where if Morton just plays okay if he can have a two-to-one touchdown interception ratio Or a 2.5 to one and he can throw over 300 yards per game I think that this could be a special season for the red raiders as we get into the top six these are the six That I feel like I'm more household names these are the six that you hear about these are the six that highlight the big 12 conference And starting at number six is Avery Johnson from Kansas State Avery Johnson was and still is to an extent the Future and poster child of Kansas State football Everybody was hoping for the best with him back in 2023 When he was a freshman Everybody wanted him to play they actually wanted Howard who ended up transferring to oh to Ohio State to be benched And Avery Johnson got to play in I believe it was the pop tarts bowl led the wild cats to a victory in that bowl game and Had so much hype coming into last season this past year he was okay He completed 58.3% of his past is for 2712 yards 25 touchdowns ten interceptions He also had 113 carries for 605 yards and seven rushing touchdowns So in total he had about 33 Hundred yards total. He is the best returning dual threat quarterback. He is the only quarterback If I'm not mistaken who had over 600 yards rushing and he was solid He had a he had a 2.5 to 1 touchdown interception ratio Which is solid again. You want that number to be closer to three to one Well where he really struggled with his completion percentage He underperformed in completing the ball And he also struggled in big games he struggled in the BYU game. He struggled in the Iowa State game And and so for Kansas State to make the next step up He's going to have to improve this season in those bigger games. He's going to be able to have to Perform at a higher level Under the lights when there's more pressure Avery Johnson is the kind of player that feels like he could take a step forward Truthfully, he is not far off from being elite if you can get up to 65% completion You're probably looking at a 30 200 yard Season passing throw that on top of 600 yard rushing and that is a very solid quarterback He could be the dark horse candidate to win the big 12 offense of player of the year He could also be the quarterback of the year if he's able to fine tune and improve Just a little bit more on his completion percentage as well as maybe dip his interceptions just a little bit But particularly in the bigger games number five is Rocco Beck From Iowa State he completed 59.4% of his passes he had 3505 yards passing 25 intercept sorry 25 touchdowns nine interceptions 98 carries for 318 yards and eight touchdowns on the ground now the reason he's number five because Statistically, he should be ranked pretty high He lost his top two receivers to the NFL Jaylen Noll and Jaden Higgins There's a lot of questions as to what Iowa State is going to be able to be this year without those top two players He was very consistent he threw a touchdown in every single game this past season However, he did only average 7.7 yards per attempt which is okay Uh, if there was one team in the big 12 that kind of felt like they ran an SEC kind of style of just kind of the short passes And and you know, let's let's just get five yards here then set up a second and five or whatever It was Iowa State it feels like defense is may be able to scheme a little bit better for that this season Which could affect Beck and his Consistency there, but also it does a little bit concerning that he only completed 59.4% of his passes That is a drop from the year before he needs that to be back up in your 65% this year And I realized as we're talking about this a 5% Completion difference doesn't seem like a ton But when you're talking about third downs when you're talking about second and longs when you're talking those kind of plays Uh, red zone plays that five percentage points can be the difference between probably three and four points a game, you know, and so When you add that up three, you know, you add a field goal to every single game during the season That might get you another winner too and so Beck needs to definitely work on that and improve that number for next year Again, he's one of those players though that could be the top player in the conference In fact, all six of these that that I'm talking about could end up being that player Number four is Jake Ratzlath from BYU and this one Is the hardest one for me to rank but hear me out He only had 57.9% completions he had 2947 pass yards 20 touchdowns 12 interceptions 100 carries for 417 yards and four touchdowns on the ground Statistically, he is not in the top six He's probably seven or eight statistically but he is Very clutch Against Oklahoma State and against Utah he led game winning drives To win those games in the final moments Against Kansas the coos came up. I believe up to about the 10 yard line on the final play And against Arizona State he completed a Hail Mary pass that landed at the two yard line Whatever reason Jake Ratzlath is able to Turn everything from the rest of the game away And have a clutch drive at the end of the at the end of the game That is something that is extremely valuable that's something that you don't find in most quarterbacks And that's something that has literally one BYU multiple games And nearly one them other games BYU had no business coming back and after the entire game against Kansas They looked terrible on offense and yet in the final drive they're moving the ball and they just Ran out of time if they had one more play they probably beat Kansas They have one more playing on the air zone state They probably be air zone estate And so Jake Ratzlath brings that clutch factor that is just so important for Teams to be able to be great because most teams even Georgian Alabama And Ohio State have one or two games a year where they need to have a quarterback who can win them the game on the final drive BYU has that they just need the right weapons around Ratzlath to be able to do that this and upcoming season Now we did struggle at the end of the season he threw more interceptions and touchdowns in the last couple of games and the defense gave shortfields to the cougars consistently the cougars I believe were number one or two in the country and interceptions And they had I believe four Special teams touchdowns and so there just wasn't a huge need for Ratzlath to have these ADR drives or these 75 yard drives A lot of the time BYU would get the ball on their side of the field because of a great pun return Because we great kickoff return because of an interception because of a formal recovery or because the defense They also had a great punter and so they would pin teams deep a lot Get a three now and then they'd get the ball back on their own You know at midfield and so I believe it was against Colorado the cougars scored five touchdowns I believe those five touchdowns and they had hardly any yards like they had I think less than like 300 yards total ones because They consistently had shortfields And that was something that kind of highlighted BYU season last year and so It's hard to say you know if the cougars did have longer drives needed Ratzlath probably throws for 3500 yards this this past season So he's kind of the mystery card at number four Number three is Sam Levit and I realize most people have Levit as number one But I have him is number three after watching multiple games on all these different guys. This is the reason I have number three He had 61.7 completion percentage. He had 28 28 85 yards passing 24 touchdowns 110 carries for 443 yards and five touchdowns on the ground For some reason I don't have his interception ratio He does have Jordan Tyson returning that is his top receiver last year Tyson was his receiver like anytime he got in a bind He was still the ball up to Tyson Tyson more times than I came down with the ball He was also the second best quarterback as far as metrics go last year last season according to QBR However, there's more thunder. I don't know if you can hear that or not However, he does not have cam scat of him Against Texas which I realize this is Texas Before scat of you got going Sam Levit was not effective and in the very few games that scat of you struggled Sam Levit wasn't fantastic And so it's going to be very interesting to see how he's able to perform this year without scat of you and again I realize The team is much more than scat of you, but scat of you was just the kind of player It's very rare you saw it in action gen teenies on scat of you last year where Safety's are watching what scat of you does linebackers are cheating in a little bit to try to stop scat of you And so it opens up the past game so much that Levit didn't have to be elite To have wide open receivers The defenses were so zoned in on what cam scat of you was doing that it really helped out Levit Does Arizona state get another great running back? And if they do is he able to draw the same attention that opens up his wide receivers Do teams start to be able to scheme against Tyson in a way that Tyson while still effective It's not as effective this year That's why I've levit in number three I just feel like there's too many mysteries I feel like those too much going for him last year Whereas I feel like these other two are more the top two are definitely A little bit more sure and and I have a little bit more confidence in them Number two is Josh Hoover from TCU He has 66.5 percent completion last year He threw for 3,949 yards 27 touchdowns only nine interceptions However, he was ineffective on the ground. He only had he had negative 19 yards of rushing But he did have four touchdowns Running so he's not really a threat on the ground once you get inside the 10 yard line He will take off and run Typically though outside of the the 10 he's not going to be running that much unless he just absolutely has to He is a he improved a ton for his freshman in sophomore season He went from 134 to 151 in QBR which suggests that he is improving A lot of quarterbacks they get that freshman high Nobody has film on them or that sophomore high Whatever that first year that they play Nobody has film on them and then the next season they see a dip Hoover saw an improvement which tells me that he can very well have an improvement again this year Also TCU won six of their final seven games TCU was very quietly a good team last year Not a lot of people were watching TCU because they started off this season so rough But they had a really good end of the season Josh Hoover is the kind of quarterback that's really close Being in a league quarterback if he can get up to 70% this year Have over 4200 yards passing He already has a three to one touchdown interception ratio That that ratio that talked about is like the the magic number for quarterbacks He's already at that if he can improve that get to a four to one A 3.5 to one Watch out for TCU this year TCU is the kind of team That nobody's talking about nobody scheming for right now Unless you're maybe Baylor But everybody's talking about other teams TCU could be the dark horses here TCU could be last year's Arizona State last year's BYU Last year's Colorado So watch out for TCU Joshua were fantastic quarterback I'm excited to see what he does this year And number one is Sawyer Robinson from Baylor He completed 62.2% of his passes for 3,71 yards Yet 28 touchdowns to only eight interceptions He also added 230 yards and four touchdowns on 63 carries Robinson was definitely the kind of player who improved the second half of the season He was actually thrown in during the third game He got a few snaps against the FCS opponent But he only played in 10 games this past season Or started in 10 games I should say And through for 3,000 yards If you put him in all 12 or 13 games last year You're looking at a quarterback who throws for nearly 4,000 yards He also threw for over 400 yards against LSU and had two touchdowns and only one interception They did not lose that game because of his play LSU just played phenomenal on offense and just outscored Baylor Baylor won their final six games of the regular season after a rough start And he had 8.3 yards per attempt and that's a pretty solid number Baylor is the kind of team this year that could shock a lot of people They're the kind of team that has opportunities as well in the non-conference To get their name on people's radars And if Baylor is able to go in and win their non-conference games I believe it is against Auburn and SMU if I'm not mistaken If he's able to go 2-0 in those two games He will start to appear on Heisman ballots He will start to appear on those lists And Baylor will be ranked very high because while most teams Especially in the bigger conferences Are playing FCS opponents in very low G5 teams Baylor is going to have potentially two very good wins on the resume Very early on in the season So again, going through the list I have number one Sorry Robert's in Baylor number two Josh Hoover TCU Number three Sam Levit, Arizona State Number four Jake Reds left BYU Four are rocked back from Iowa State Six Avery Johnson at Kansas State Seven Be red Morton from Tech Six Tech Eight Brendan Soaresby from Cincinnati Nine Jalen Daniels from Kansas And number ten Noah Fafita from Arizona We also have West Virginia UCF Oklahoma State Houston Colorado And Utah who do not have a returning quarterback From the big 12th on last year's roster I'm sorry as their projected starter Now again, who knows what's going to happen Sultzer could end up being the greatest quarterback Jake Reds left me returned back to his 2023 ways where he can't Lead a drive down the field without throwing an interception We might see Soaresby become this great quarterback Since the next decade we don't know That's what makes the season fun That's why I love sports so much There's just so much of a factor of not knowing what's going to happen And what could happen that makes the season worth watching And so this season Again, I think the big 12 is set up to have a fantastic year I think they're set up to have an elite year even Where where all the college football shows And all the headlines are talking about big 12 quarterbacks Yes, I know Archmandy is still placed for Texas I get that Yes, I know that there are other great quarterbacks and other conferences But the big 12 this year seems to have a ton of talent And I'm excited to see how it all plays out So thank you so much for joining us today If you enjoyed today's show please like, subscribe, leave that five star review I know I say this every time But it really does help out the show We've been slowly getting those five star reviews And it's led to more listeners When Apple podcast, Spotify or whatever you're listening on Here's in C's The people are listening, then they recommend it to more people which allows more people to find the show And allows our community to grow So thank you so much for your time And I'll see you next time[Music]