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Where does Arch Manning rank among college quarterbacks in 2025?

On3 imageby:Ian Boyd•about 10 hours•

Ian_A_Boyd

Arch Manning
Arch Manning (Will Gallagher/Inside Texas)

On3 has a ranking up for the top 10 known starting quarterbacks for the upcoming 2025 season of college football.

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The specific phrasing of “impact” quarterbacking is interesting. I’m not sure how that would differ from “best.” Texas’ presumptive starter Arch Manning seems to do pretty well by this calculation, as do 2025 Texas opponents DJ Lagway and John Mateer.

I think all 10 of these guys stand out as being skilled and impactful players in the coming season, but I have my own metric for evaluating college quarterbacks.

In summation, the name of the game in college football is drawing up schemes in which a star receiver is schemed to be open as the primary read. It’s not at all common for quarterbacks to have a lot of options or go deep into full progressions before throwing the ball. Consequently, having receivers who can reliably get open is the biggest piece of any passing game (1st law).

From the quarterback you need someone who understands the gameplan and can reliably deliver the ball to the primary read when it’s there and protect the ball when it’s not (2nd law). If the quarterback can scramble or serve as a runner that’s generally where you get true value-add from a player rather than progression passing or even accuracy (3rd law). There are those older quarterbacks who can master the art of handling protections, dissecting defenses, and beating them by throwing to the open man (4th law).

Given the way those laws govern college quarterback success, here’s how I’d rank these guys.

  1. Cade Klubnik, Clemson. The dude returns his two fledging stars on the outside, is a 4th year starter, and can clearly give the Tigers a leg up in the run game.
  2. Arch Manning, Texas. Manning’s ability to bring some explosiveness and power in the run game surprised college football this year and due to his peculiar upbringing he may master old man progression passing earlier in his career. This will already be year three for Arch and it shouldn’t shock anyone if he’s no. 1.
  3. Sam Leavitt, Arizona State. Like with Klubnik, Texas saw first hand how Leavitt’s athleticism and running can change a game. A lesser quarterback is sacked, throws the ball away, or is stripped 3x as much as this guy was in the playoff quarterfinal against the Longhorns.
  4. Carson Beck, Miami. Beck has the old man passing down now as a third-year returning starter and Miami’s offense will give him better opportunities and receivers to showcase his skill.
  5. Lanorris Sellers, South Carolina. We do need to see South Carolina put some weapons around Sellers so he can develop as a game manager but the running ability and athleticism is elite.
  6. DJ Lagway, Florida. This could prove to be low between Lagway’s clear ability and Billy Napier’s track record of creating easily mastered gameplans and developing quarterbacks to execute them. By his third year Lagway should be no. 1 or no. 2 on these sorts of lists.
  7. Garrett Nussmeier, LSU. Nussmeier is another guy with some old man passing game acumen and likely some solid receivers as well, but he doesn’t bring a lot as a runner.
  8. Drew Allar, Penn State. Allar made massive improvements from 2023 to 2024 and is an active part of the Nittany Lion run game. Problems include the lack of receiving talent and his struggles to move beyond basic game management. Most of the gap between Allar and Will Howard is in the receiving corps.
  9. John Mateer, Oklahoma. Mateer is your classic college quarterback who lacks the elite arm strength or accuracy that interests the NFL but excels at finding his primary read and routinely mixes it up in the run game.
  10. Nico Iamaleava, Tennessee. Iamaleava could make a huge jump this offseason, but last year demonstrated two things. First, that he hasn’t mastered game management unless that mostly consists of handing the ball to Dylan Sampson. Second, that the Veer and Shoot isn’t necessarily creating easy reads and offense like it used to as defenses start to catch up to its secrets.

The 2025 quarterback class is an impressive group with a ton of returning experience. Ranked against each other it can look like a knock on any individual guy but all 10 have the potential to be extremely dangerous this coming season.

The differentiator will be which guys have the most impactful targets.

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