Were only four weeks away from the start of the 2026 college football season and there are still teams yet to name a starting quarterback.
Chief among them are a trio of SEC programs, including Alabama, Tennessee and Florida. The Crimson Tide must replace NFL first round pick Ty Simpson, whereas Tennessee is replacing its starter for the fifth consecutive season after Joey Aguilar exhausted his eligibility.
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney has a decision to make after a disappointing 7-6 finish last season and departure of three-year starter Cade Klubnik. Bill Belichick went 4-8 in his first season at North Carolina, and the Tar Heels‘ reboot at QB includes two transfers and a highly rated freshman.
Fall camp starts very soon for nearly all college football programs, with players reporting for practice by the first week of August. These quarterbacks will only have a few weeks to prove they’re ready for the starting gig in 2026.
Here’s a look at the top quarterback battles to know heading into the season:
This will be the most talked about QB battle this preseason.
The Crimson Tide returned Austin Mack, a redshirt junior who followed Kalen DeBoer from Washington to Alabama after the 2023 season. They also return redshirt freshman Keelon Russell, a former five-star recruit.
Mack is more experienced, but Russell boasts upside.
“Our quarterbacks do have the belief and trust amongst our entire team,” DeBoer said at SEC Media Days. “There are different ways where I’ve seen that, whether it was in the spring or through the summer.
“There are different conversations, different activities that we do where I really can get a good feel of it being genuine, that our team trusts that whoever steps on the football field and takes those snaps is going to be a guy — and I think that’s because they believe in both guys.”
Mack served as the backup at Alabama last season, passing for 228 yards with two touchdowns while rushing for another score in limited action. Russell passed for 143 yards with two scores last season.
Tennessee went after a number of high-profile portal quarterbacks in the offseason, but ultimately missed out on the top names and opted to turn over the offense to an in-house name.
Coach Josh Heupel returns redshirt freshman George MacIntyre — a 6-6 former four-star recruit — who will compete with freshman Faizon Brandon, a five-star recruit ranked as the No. 10 player nationally, per 247Sports’ Composite ratings.
Heupel brought in Ryan Staub, who has starting experience at Colorado but isn’t expected to be a huge threat in the Vols’ quarterback battle.”Well, we’ve had it play out a lot of different ways,” Heupel said July 20. “The most important thing is that through competition somebody goes out and earns the job, whenever that is during the course of training camp.”You name that guy. You give him those reps. But then he’s got to prove it on the field, as well.”
New coach Jon Sumrall didn’t sugarcoat his quarterback situation at SEC Media Days, noting returner Tramell Jones Jr. and Georgia Tech transfer Aaron Philo’s shortcomings.”Do we have a Heisman Trophy candidate? No, but they both have enough arm talent,” he said. “They both are adequate runners. Neither one of them are elite runners. Neither one of them are slugs either. Both have good arms, both have good releases. Both can make all the throws. So there’s enough there for us to win with.”
Jones, a true freshman in 2025, received high praise from the Gators staff as the backup to then-starter DJ Lagway last season. He impressed in Florida’s season-opening win against Long Island, passing for 131 yards with two touchdowns.
He faces a tough competition against Philo, who backed up Haynes King at Georgia Tech the past two seasons and reunites with his former offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner, who was hired by Florida this offseason.
Philo has thrown for 938 yards with two touchdowns to three interceptions during his career in relief of King, also rushing for 95 yards and a score. It seems like Philo has the leg up in the battle, but the competition is far from over.
There didn’t seem to be much quarterback controversy in Clemson heading into the season until — Dabo Swinney revealed true freshman Tait Reynolds is pushing returning QB Christopher Vizzina for the starting gig.”We all know the magnitude of these decisions. We’re not stupid,” Swinney said at ACC Football Kickoff. “But that’s why we didn’t go get the big shiny object out of the portal. We believe in (Vizzina). But we also believe in Tait. He’s a high-level dude, now. He’s special.”
Reynolds, wasn’t a blue-chip recruit (was rated as a three-star recruit by 247Sports’ Composite), but the Queen Creek, Arizona native held offers from a slew of top-tier programs, including Oregon, Oklahoma, Miami and Texas A&M, among others.
Vizzina, a former top-100 ranked recruit, has waited his turn at Clemson, redshirting in 2023 before serving as Cade Klubnik’s backup in 2024 and 2025. He started the Tigers’ midseason game against SMU and impressed, passing for 317 yards with three touchdowns, albeit in a 35-24 loss.
Vizzina is more experienced and has the trust of the coaching staff, but Reynolds clearly has the talent to make the push.
It’s not often a true freshman is the favorite to win the starting quarterback job, but it’s also not often for a top-ranked quarterback nationally to choose a school like Vanderbilt.
Nashville’s Jared Curtis, a consensus five-star recruit and No. 2 quarterback in the 2026 class, flipped his commitment from Georgia to Vanderbilt in a shocking decision during the middle of the 2025 season. He’ll compete with Blaze Berlowitz, a fourth-year quarterback who followed offensive coordinator Tim Beck from New Mexico State after the 2023 season, alongside former starter Diego Pavia.
“This wasn’t about creating expectations for Jared to come in and step into a role,” Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea said at SEC Media Days. “The promise was competition. What does that say about Jared? We talk about being a team of misfits. And I told him that his choice to come to Vanderbilt makes him a misfit, whether he likes it or not.”
Berlowitz was a zero-star recruit with one reported offer from NMSU out of Cushing, Oklahoma in 2023. He passed for 131 yards and a touchdown last season, with his most action coming in the 2023 CUSA Championship Game, as he passed for 134 yards and a touchdown while rushing for 36 yards in relief of the injured Pavia during the 49-35 loss to Liberty.
While Curtis seems to be the favorite, it’ll be five-star vs. zero-star for the Vanderbilt quarterback gig, at least to start the season.
KJ or AJ? First-year Arkansas coach Ryan Silverfield‘s first big call in his first season with the Razorbacks after leaving Memphis.
KJ Jackson received extended action twice last season at Arkansas, passing for 206 yards with two total touchdowns in a loss to Texas, along with a 126-yard passing performance with a score in a loss to Missouri. The redshirt sophomore is a former four-star prospect.
Jackson’s main competition will be AJ Hill, a redshirt freshman transfer from Memphis who followed Silverfield to Fayetteville. The former four-star recruit passed for 223 yards with a touchdown and an interception last season as a backup, and stands a whopping 6-4, 232 pounds.
Silverfield expects a tough competition that will come down to the wire.“The quarterback competition [will happen in] training camp going all the way up until the first game, and that’s the reality of it,” Silverfield said at SEC Media Days. “I hope to have an answer late August, but I can’t promise that. … You may not find out until I do — at opening coin toss in that first game.”
All four North Carolina scholarship quarterbacks are competing for the starting gig this fall.
“We’ll see how the competition goes with all four of those guys,” Bill Belichick said at ACC Football Kickoff. “They all have strong points, they all have some things to offer.”
UNC brought in a pair of transfers in former Maryland and Wisconsin starter Billy Edwards, along with former Texas A&M backup Miles O’Neill. They’ll compete with true freshman Travis Burgess and redshirt freshman Au’Tori Newkirk, who were recruited by Belichick.
Edwards has the most experience, passing for 3,430 yards with 19 touchdowns to 10 interceptions in his career, also scoring 13 rushing touchdowns. O’Neill has high upside, as the former four-star recruit stands 6-5, 220 pounds and showed promise in limited action as an Aggies backup.
North Carolina finished 4-8 last season and received shaky quarterback play from Gio Lopez and Max Johnson, who transferred to Wake Forest and Georgia Southern, respectively.
Iowa is one of two Power Four programs to have a quarterback competition between two returning backups (Alabama is the other). Hank Brown and Jeremy Hecklinski are former Power Four transfers, joining the Hawkeyes from Auburn and Wake Forest, respectively, with minimal playing experience.
Hecklinski served as Iowa’s primary backup last season, although Brown has starting experience, having thrown for 235 yards with four touchdowns in Auburn’s win over New Mexico State in 2024. In Brown’s second start, though, he threw three first-half interceptions against Arkansas before being benched at halftime.
Iowa’s battle seems like another that could come down the right before kickoff.
“It’s been fun,” offensive coordinator Tim Lester said. “They’re both getting better. I literally switched them every period. You know, it’s like first period, then second period, then first period, then second period.”
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