Until the past decade, I have long subscribed to a theory that few topics are more overrated in college football to win a championship than the need for a first-round, NFL- caliber quarterback.
When one looks back on college football national champions from about 1965 to the start of the College Football Playoff era in 2014 , there are only two college national title quarterbacks who prospered with superb to legendary careers in the NFL: Notre Dame’s Joe Montana (1977) and Miami’s Bernie Kosar (1983), although the full book on Auburn’s Cam Newton (more on him later) hasn’t yet been written.
Most did not even have a cup of coffee in the league, in part because the 1960s through 1990s featured numerous option quarterbacks who excelled in run-based offenses, from Rex Kern (Ohio State) and James Street (Texas) in the 1960s, to Steve Davis (Oklahoma) in the 1970s, Tony Rice (Notre Dame) in the 1980s, and even Tommie Frazier and Scott Frost (Nebraska) in the 1990s.
