Reminder: Even five-star quarterbacks (usually) aren't amazing

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So I read the story that everybody on college football internet was dunking on. Will Leitch, writing for The Athletic, asked if Arch Manning is actually the first “flop” in college football history, as a mega-recruit in the post-NIL era.

I understand the argument Leitch was trying to make, and it isn’t his fault that the tweets promoting the story did it no favors, but I’d agree with all the college football fans criticizing the story. High-profile recruits fail to meet expectations all the time, even in the post-NIL era … and also, Manning hasn’t even played half a season yet. It’s a bit early to be calling him anything.

This isn’t an Xs and Os newsletter, and I don’t want to get into the weeds litigating the performance of one specific QB, even if he has a very famous last name.

But I think it might be useful to think about how similar recent QB prospects have actually performed, before we get too bent out of shape about Arch, or any other particular quarterback.

From 2019 through 2024, there have been 20 QBs with five-star ratings from 247Sports:

A few of them were awesome. Bryce Young and Caleb Williams, of course, won the Heisman Trophy. CJ Stroud was an All-American and multiple-time Big Ten QB of the year. Many others, like Dylan Raiola, Julian Sayin and Dante Moore, are still very early in their careers and could very well reach those heights.

But … after Young, Williams, Moore and Quinn Ewers, sustained, elite performance is harder to spot. Spencer Rattler was first team all Big 12 in 2020. But then he was benched, transferred and failed to reach national elite status again at South Carolina. DJ Uiagalelei, Drew Allar and Cade Klubnik certainly played a lot of college football and had some memorable games, but none have made all-conference honors or threatened for national awards.

If you expand the data pool to very high four-star QBs, you get a similar distribution. There are a few examples of outstanding college QBs (Drake Maye, JJ McCarthy), a few good-but-not-best-in-class-kind-of-good (Kyle McCord, Kaidon Salter), a few guys who ended up changing positions (Evan Prater, Jaquinden Jackson), a few more guys who weren’t very good at all (Brock Vandergriff, Devin Brown) and, finally, Jayden Rashada. He sort of feels like his own thing.

Recruits with five-star ratings aren’t supposed to just start for high-level college football programs; they’re supposed to perform at an elite level and be in the conversation for the best at their position. Those are the expectations for Arch Manning, just like everybody else in that group.

But even with those elite physical traits … it doesn’t actually happen that often. Does that make somebody a historic bust? I’ll leave that for sports radio and the comments section, but I don’t really think so.

Gambling? In THIS establishment?!?

Earlier this week, the NCAA announced that Division I administrators had approved a proposal that would permit athletes and staffers to gamble on professional sports without violating NCAA policies. Gambling on college sports would still be very much against the rules, but athletes would no longer be threatened with getting the proverbial book thrown at them if they were to throw $20 on the Super Bowl.

This proposal won’t get finalized unless administrators in Division II and Division III also vote to approve it.

I was a little surprised to see Kansas State AD Gene Taylor, not somebody I think of as being especially prone to hyperbole on the internet, respond with this:

My understanding is that the policy change wasn’t so much about anybody in college sports wanting to signal approval of sports gambling in general. It’s an admission that the NCAA doesn’t have the regulatory power to actually enforce prohibitions on pro sports gambling very effectively. If betting on sports has become nearly ubiquitous on college campuses, well, why not focus the limited enforcement powers on the most dangerous activities, right?

For what it’s worth, I’ve spoken to four different ADs since the NCAA announcement, from the Power 4 to low-majors, and all four agreed with the NCAA proposal, even as they indicated varying degrees of unease with gambling itself.

Not sure what the folks in D-II and D-III will end up doing, but I’m very interested to hear the rationale from administrators who are deeply against “liberating” the rules a little bit. Is the concern that betting on the NFL or NBA would act as a gateway drug to betting on college athletics? That … feels a little unrealistic. But I also don’t gamble on sports at all, so I might not be the best test case here.

Here’s what else we’ve been working on:

• Electronic Arts, the video game company that brings us “EA Sports College Football” and a bunch of less-important titles, is going private. I asked around and read a whole bunch of investor analysis briefings to better understand what this huge transaction means for colleges, consumers, and everybody in the college sports industry.

• I talked to folks in the Big 12 to better understand why the league is playing more football games in Europe (athlete recruitment! student recruitment! the future monetization of international broadcast rights!), and why the math made sense to do it now, with these two particular teams.

• I also learned exactly how much money Indiana football spends on Uncrustables, apple juice, string cheese and other snacks, thanks to the wonders of open records requests.

• And I wrote a personal essay about my struggles to focus on college sports administrative issues in a world increasingly beset by violence and fear, and about a search for peacemakers in college athletics.

• Our sister publication, NIL Wire, also has a great story about how the search for growing athletic revenues is pushing schools to sell all kinds of new stuff, from wine tasting at Ohio Stadium to access to postgame press conferences.

Also: For pals in and around State College, PA, I’m speaking at the Creator and Entrepreneurial Journalism Summit at the Bellisario Media Center on Thursday, Oct. 16. My panel is at 2:15 p.m. ET, but I’ll be around the area from the Oct. 15-17. Drop me a line if you’d like to chat while I’m in town!

And hey, speaking of being an entrepreneurial journalist …

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Thanks for reading. I’ll see you on the internet next week!

- Matt