Noah Kim vs. These QBs in 2026

Good quarterbacks can be hard to find. And when you’re a team like Eastern Michigan, which was able to get the conference’s leading passer to stay in Ypsilanti for his seventh and final year of college ball, you try to hold onto the ones that end up joining your team for as long as possible.

Noah Kim, who played at Michigan State and Coastal Carolina before joining EMU in 2025, had the MAC’s highest marks in passing yards (2,817), completions and attempts (247-for-402), and yards-per-game average (234.8), and scored 24 total touchdowns. He started every game last year, albeit for a team that finished with a 4-8 record, but it’s always better to have returning talent than not.

Right?

Because not every team can say they host that level of continuity. Whereas EMU has a second-year starting quarterback in his mid-20’s, the head coach (Chris Creighton) has been there for a decade-plus, the offensive coordinator (Mike Piatkowski) is a former quarterback for the head coach, there are some quarterbacks and coaching staffs who just met each other for the first time a few months ago.

As we use the summer to look at the schedule and make predictions about the season to come, let’s start with an important spot on each team to focus on.

It’s maybe the most important spot on each team.

What do we think about these teams’ quarterbacks?

But first: what do you think about EMU’s defense?

Yes, EMU returns most of it starting secondary, and that’s a big reason why it’s so high up on ESPN’s returning production metric — #15 nationally for defense, and #24 overall — but that’s also saying that it’s returning so much production from a defense that made changes at defensive coordinator after being the MAC’s worst run-defending team in 2025.

Maybe the togetherness can help EMU work through some issues in 2026, but improvement isn’t guaranteed.

EMU’s defense surrendered 5.51 yards per rush attempt last year (134th nationally), and because of that, it was one of four teams in the FBS that had at least 200 more rush attempts made against it than pass attempts. Opposing offenses rushed the ball 505 times for 2,785 yards against EMU, and threw the ball 295 times (second-fewest nationally) for 2,210 yards (7.5 yards per attempt).

For EMU's sake, hopefully the rushing defense makes a big step up this season to force quarterbacks to put the ball in the air more frequently.

And for the sake of this post, let's take a look at the starting quarterbacks EMU could expect to square off against.

There’s a lot going on out West. Sacramento State’s busy bid to buy its way into the Mid-American Conference was quite the memorable news cycle. But now it’s time to see if the Hornets will actually be a good fight as a freshman FBS club.

Carson Conklin’s a transfer-back from Fresno State. After he was a Jerry Rice Award finalist in 2024 (award for top freshman in FCS), he transferred to Fresno State where he appeared in just six games. Conklin’s play didn’t immediately pan out, but he got an opportunity back at his original spot when another coaching change happened. He wasn’t a fit in Brennan Marion’s Go-Go system last year, but he could get back to having some success under first-year head coach Alonzo Carter.

Same Sacramento State, but it’s maybe unrecognizable in some ways since Conklin last left it. Another new coach, new football schedule, new conference mates, new receivers to throw to (except for one), I don’t think these are insignificant differences. With all of the changes Conklin has seen at Sac State, simply having already seen FBS-level speed on a daily basis at Fresno State is an advantage in his favor, even if EMU’s bringing back most of its starting secondary from last year.

While San Jose State did go from seven wins to three in the first two years under Ken Niumatalolo, his group might see itself in an advantageous situation with this game. After all, it’ll be EMU who will have already exposed itself on film with a Week 0 opener against a conference mate, not SJSU.

And not Luke Weaver. By the time his team makes the California-to-Michigan flight, EMU won’t know just how well Weaver looks in his new team’s offense until, well, its defense is tested. While he didn’t get to play maybe as much as he would’ve liked to at Hawai’i, after being a 5,000-yard passer in junior college, Weaver threw for 628 under Timmy Chang.

While things didn’t work out for him at Hawai’i, he has the most playing experience of anybody in his new QB room, and, frankly, I’m just not in the business of doubting anybody who receives All-American honors at the junior college level.

The starter of four straight to close out the 2025 season at Michigan State, and it sounds like he’ll be the team’s starting guy in 2026, even with a head coaching change.

That could end up being really good for him or really bad for him early on in the season.

Of the first three games on Eastern’s schedule, MSU will be the second one to experience a coaching change this offseason. However, I’m sure there’s more certainty in what MSU expects in hiring Pat Fitzgerald than SJSU hiring Alonzo Carter, who has never led an FBS team on his own before. I like Fitzgerald’s hiring of Nick Sheridan to lead the offense, and there’s plenty of competition behind Milivojevic if he’s not getting things done early.

Cam Fancher, a sixth-year QB who also played at UCF, Marshall, and Florida Atlantic, joins as a new transfer, and 4-star freshman Kayd Coffman is somebody worth tracking, too.

EMU’s going to face some veteran quarterbacks in the early going, but Wisconsin’s might end up being the most athletic QB it’ll see in September. After 5,905 total yards and 56 TD touchdowns scored in just two years in the Sun Belt, Colton Joseph’s going to see what he can do for this Big Ten team that’s desperate to re-find its pulse in the new modern era of college football.

New team, and Wisconsin’s offense hasn’t had much success lately. By SP+, the Badgers finished last season with the #122-rated offense out of 136 FBS teams. If we’re looking at BCFToys’ offensive possession efficiency, Wisconsin had the fourth-least efficient offense in the country at #133.

Points per game? Wisconsin was second-to-last in the country last year at 12.8.

Can Joseph be the quarterback that puts on a cape and saves Wisconsin from another 4-8 season?

Conversely, will he really need to play like Superman when EMU comes to Camp Randall?

SIDEBAR/REMINDER: EMU wasn’t originally supposed to play Wisconsin in 2026 until, of course, the ACC decided to make its members play 9-game league schedules. Otherwise, EMU would’ve gone to Marshall this weekend, and would’ve likely seen returning starter Carlos Del Rio-Wilson, who is also a dual-threat QB (last year: 2,704 total yards, 23 TD).

Without considering anybody’s football background, Lindenwood’s got a great list of names of quarterbacks on its roster.

Hoyt Gregory.

Gavin Shaigineik.

Jed West.

And my favorite, a guy who has more playing experience and production than the rest of his teammates: Pops Battle.

But even with a great name, Battle only threw for nine yards last season. Neither Gregory nor Shaigineik have appeared in a game for Lindenwood, and West, a transfer, did not play in his one season at Campbell.

Who’s going to be the main one throwing the ball for Lindenwood? That is an answer that’ll be figured out in September. But the Lions are fortunate enough to bring back their top two running backs (combined: 1,232 rush yards, 266 rush att. (4.6 avg.), 15 TD) and two of their four top receivers (combined: 68 catches, 1,263 yards, 6 TD) from last year.

After an 0-12 season under first-year head coach Joe Harasymiak, UMass found new quarterbacks and a new playcaller to help fix the obvious mess.

UMass’ new offensive coordinator, Max Warner, was most previously an analyst for Toledo in 2025, but was a quarterbacks coach and, for two years, a co-OC for Bowling Green during the Scot Loeffler-led years (2019-2024). In each of the three years Warner had a coordinating title at BG, the Falcons had a winning record in MAC play and would go on to play in a bowl game.

William, aka “Pop”, Watson seems like the player UMass is banking on to make a turnaround for this offense. Watson, a Virginia Tech transfer, is athletic and did make a couple of starts back in 2024 when he was just a redshirt-freshman. While he had five appearances that year, he didn’t end up playing more in 2025. Watson had 58 passing attempts and 40 rushes in 2024, but his chances dropped to four passes and nine rushes last year.

Though, to be fair to Watson’s playing time, Virginia Tech had a very different year with its early firing of its head coach three games into the season, and then a still-in-season hire of James Franklin (who would retain the former head coach as a coordinator).

Much like Wisconsin’s situation with its big quarterback question: is Watson going to superhero his way into being the savior of UMass at Amherst football?

By offensive SP+, UMass was dead last in the country in 2025 at #136.

Offensive possession efficiency? Also last, #136.

Points per game? You guessed it, last place, 136th, just below Wisconsin, averaging at 11.1.

When Reese Poffenbarger was a new transfer quarterback for Albany, it took no time for the redshirt-freshman to make an impression. He was an FCS freshman All-American, and the 2022 Jerry Rice Award Runner-up.

The next year, he was the FCS leader in passing yards (3,603) and touchdowns (36), and was a finalist for the Walter Payton Award.

A lot of instant high-marks made at the FCS level, but his next two stops weren’t as fruitful. He didn’t have an impact at Miami, and he was passed over in North Texas by Drew Mestemaker who, to his credit, sort of came out of nowhere and, like Poffenbarger did at the FCS level, surprisingly became the FBS’ leader in passing last year.

Now at Akron with Joe Moorhead, in his fifth year coaching the Zips, Poffenbarger is in a seemingly favorable position to pick up where he last left off in 2023.

Toledo’s new coaching change from Jason Candle (UConn) to Mike Jacobs (from Mercer) is a big one, and Jacobs’ resume is an exciting one to look at. With 10 years of college head coaching experience, his teams have suffered zero losing seasons, and Toledo’s usually one of the best-resourced places in the MAC.

But can he bring his winning ways to Toledo in ways that’ll help the program be more nationally relevant?

With John Alan Richter staying at Toledo rather than transfer out after the coach change, he has a chance to complete the lifecycle as a former walk-on to preseason #1 QB on the 2026 depth chart.

Richter made his first career start in 2024 in a 13-6 win over Northern Illinois, and appeared in a handful of other games in relief for other injured QBs that year. Last year, he played in three games before he suffered an injury against Akron.

Though, it’s worth also keeping Lenoi-Rhyne transfer Khamoni Robinson in mind, too. Last year, he threw for over 2,000 yards and had 20 touchdowns. Richter is the #1 quarterback through the spring, but things can change.

Ohio’s quarterback battle has, as newly-minted head coach John Hauser said in April, has about three or four guys competing for the starting job.

Which, to translate, also means that there isn’t anybody yet commanding the position, either.

Hauser, at the team’s spring game, mentioned Nick Poulos by name, then later included Matt Vezza and true freshman Levi Davis as wait-and-see summer camp projects.

Poulos, who has been with the team the longest as a third-year transfer from El Camino College. He’s a big-bodied QB at 6-6, 243 lbs, and has limited playing time with the Bobcats, but has seen the field in 12 games.

Vezza joins Ohio as a third-team all-conference player at New Hampshire last year, finishing the year with 27 total touchdowns and over 3,000 total yards of offense. With a resume like that, it’s hard to see this guy as somebody who doesn’t have the goods to come in the MAC and be a capable starting quarterback.

But what about true freshman Levi Davis, the third QB Hauser said by name? Davis, as a senior, led his former high school (Oletangy Orange) to its first-ever Division 1 Ohio state championship, and just might be talented enough to spark more success right away at the college level.

Who knows?

Ohio’s been lucky enough to have some certainty at the quarterback position through the years with the Nathan and Kurtis Rourke brothers’ stays, and a couple of seasons of Parker Navarro (Timotee Chalamet’s favorite), but now this position group looks like it’s going to be auditioning guys throughout the summer, and Hauser’s answer for whoever starts the year at QB could always change by the time this game comes in late October.

With first-year head coach Matt Drinkall, Central Michigan did the unorthodox thing and deployed a two-quarterback offensive system where Joe Labas, a second-year transfer from Iowa, was used as the primary pass-first QB, and Angel Flores, a Northern Arizona transfer, was the running quarterback.

Will CMU feel the need to use two quarterbacks all season long again, or can the team get to another bowl game with just one?

Now that Labas, a 71% passer in 2025 with an average of 8.9 yards per pass attempt, is graduated, there are a handful of guys that CMU has to pick from to lean on in 2026.

Flores, until he was sidelined two-thirds of the way into the season, was CMU’s leading rusher until his injury. He finished the season with 540 rush yards on 105 carries (5.1 average) and a pair of scores. Passing, though, he only had 28 pass attempts in his nine games played. Jadyn Glasser and Marcus Beamon, who also return to CMU’s QB room this year, had nine and four passing attempts, respectively, last year.

Glasser had three starts as a true freshman in 2024, but none in 2025.

Broc Lowry went from entering the 2025 season second on the depth chart to finishing the year with a lot of hardware to be proud of. He was the MAC’s Offensive Player of the Year, his team won the MAC championship and the bowl game that followed. It only took two years to make a name for himself at Western Michigan after he transferred from Indiana. He’s in the dream scenario to be the G5 quarterback who blew up one year and split the next, but he’s still in Kalamazoo for the 2026 season, and so is head coach Lance Taylor.

So is running back Jalen Buckley, who already has two 1,000-yard rushing seasons as a Bronco.

After last year’s finish, WMU’s bound to be a favorite to repeat as conference champions this year.

Last year, Lowry’s passing wasn’t needed against EMU’s poor rushing defense (296 rushing, 100 passing yards allowed vs. WMU), and, by this time in the schedule, we’ll know if EMU’s defense is any more improved and if it’ll be able to force Lowry to pass more than he did before.

A 5-7 record is not what anybody outside of Kent State’s facilities expected to see happen last year under first-year head coach Mark Carney, but the Golden Flashes got to that mark.

Is a bowl game next for the group in 2026?

If so, the team might have the returning starting QB from last year to thank. Dru DeShields was a 2,000-yard passer with a TD-INT ratio of 18-3, and had three more scores on the ground as well.

DeShields is going to be missing his top two targets from last year, but the team returns the third-to-fifth most-busy pass catchers from last year in receivers Wayne Harris and Ardell Banks, and tight end Terik Mulder.

There really aren’t a lot of other experienced options Kent State has to work with at the QB spot this season. Nolan Good and Deante Ruffin enter this year as redshirt-freshmen, so they’re, on paper, very young and unproven. The other option Kent State could lean to before them is Ethan Thanthanavong, a sophomore who threw for 1,468 yards and rushed for 200 as a freshman (13 total TD) at Defiance College last year.