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Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sport
Zach Koons

College Football Week 3 Quarterback Rankings: Stock Up, Stock Down for 12 Key Players

Football Aidan Chiles Ethan Grunkemeyer Keelon Russell Marcel Reed Michael Hawkins Jr Bryce Underwood CJ Bailey John Mateer Kamario Taylor

Week 3 delivered some of the best quarterback duels this season, from Trinidad Chambliss vs. Sam Leavitt to Kamario Taylor vs. LaNorris Sellers. The weekend also marked an important milestone: For many of the nation’s FBS teams, this was the quarter mark of the 2026 campaign.

That means we have a better sample size to analyze trends, so for this week’s rankings, we’ll be taking stock of how 12 of the nation’s quarterbacks have fared far differently than we predicted in the preseason. While some have shown significant improvement or debuted in new homes to much success, others have struggled to get going, showing warning signs after three weeks that this might be a rougher year than anticipated.

Players are listed in the order they were ranked in the preseason. Let’s dive in:

Stock Up

Keelon Russell, Alabama

Preseason rank: 30

Not predicting a breakout from Russell, when Ty Simpson burst onto the scene in 2025 under Kalen DeBoer and Ryan Grubb, feels like a miscalculation. But I don’t think anyone could have predicted how instant of an impact the redshirt freshman would make. He torched Florida State for 376 total yards and four scores, including a breakaway 57-yard touchdown run at a pivotal time in the third quarter. Russell already seemed to have had his first-year moment, when he had three turnovers in the first half against Kentucky. Since then, as a passer: 29 for 40 (72.5%), 395 yards, four touchdowns and zero turnovers.

Ethan Grunkemeyer, Virginia Tech

Preseason rank: 32

It was difficult to know what to make of Grunkemeyer’s prospects in a lost season at Penn State last year and then he started his tenure at Virginia Tech alongside James Franklin with two blowouts. What he did against Maryland in Week 3 was the best outing of his career thus far, throwing for 314 yards to pair with four total touchdowns. He’s been pinpoint accurate to start the year (79.5%), ranking fifth in FBS and first among players with more than 100 attempts. Still, Grunkemeyer hasn’t displayed as much of an ability to throw the deep ball compared to others on this list, averaging just 8.6 yards per attempt through the first three games. Adding that to his toolkit will be pivotal if the Hokies envision making any noise in Big Ten play.

Lincoln Kienholz, Louisville

Preseason rank: 41

Fans in Columbus may be starting to wonder whether or not Ohio State backed the right guy by going with Julian Sayin over Kienholz in last year’s quarterback competition. Sayin has been excellent and pinpoint accurate across 17 starts, but hasn’t once scored three total touchdowns in three straight weeks—a feat Kienholz just completed in his third-ever start on Saturday. The redshirt junior has gone toe-to-toe with two of the nation’s best quarterbacks in Chambliss and SMU’s Kevin Jennings, spreading around the ball admirably to his loaded cast of skill players. But he’s more than capable of making plays on his own, too, either with a deep ball (17.0 yards per completion, third in FBS) or with his legs.

Michael Hawkins Jr., West Virginia

Preseason rank: 47

Rich Rodriguez seems to have worked his magic with Hawkins, who seemed teetering on the edge of keeping a Power 4 job after falling out of fashion at Oklahoma. Now the Sooners have a QB who has landed on the “stock down” portion of this list and the Mountaineers have a rushing offense that’s one of the best in the country. Running back Cam Cook is a major part of that, but it’s actually Hawkins who leads the team in rushing yards (322), touchdowns (six) and yards per carry (7.3). He’s stayed clean without an interception on just 38 attempts and is tied for third among FBS quarterbacks with 11 total touchdowns. The Big 12 gauntlet gets much tougher at the end of the year for the Mountaineers, but optimism is high in Morgantown through Week 3.

Aidan Chiles, Northwestern

Preseason rank: 51

Backed by a strong run game and Chip Kelly’s play-calling aptitude, Chiles is finally starting to seem like the quarterback he was promised to be coming out of high school. He put together a career-best performance with 221 yards and five total touchdowns in Northwestern’s rout of Colorado in Week 3, making throws on the run and using his legs to move the sticks when necessary. Most importantly, Chiles has no turnovers in his first two starts of the year, an issue that plagued him at Michigan State. The sample size is small for the Wildcats, but they hadn’t racked up 400 yards of offense in consecutive games since 2022. The offensive tide might be changing in Evanston and Chiles is a large reason for that.

Kamario Taylor, Mississippi State

Preseason rank: 54

What can I say that I haven’t already said about Taylor? The biggest breakout of the 2026 season so far thoroughly outdueled Sellers in his first SEC start of the year and has turned Mississippi State into a top 10 offense through three weeks. His running ability was plenty noticeable last season, but his arm is on a different level now. He threw for another four touchdowns, bringing his total to 11 (trailing only Jayden Maiava, who played an extra game) on the season and did so while staying accurate. Another standout showing against No. 19 Missouri this week would solidify a claim to already being one of the best quarterbacks in the SEC and perhaps the country.

Stock Down

Marcel Reed, Texas A&M

Preseason rank: 12

There’s no doubt that Reed has his issues, all of which came to the forefront in A&M’s last two games of 2025 against Texas and Miami. And yet his performance against Kentucky on Saturday was far worse. He was inaccurate, threw two horrendous interceptions and missed wide open receivers for much of the afternoon, including on a consequential fourth-and-2 late in A&M territory in the third quarter. He’s under 60% on completed passes so far this season and is doing that while averaging a measly 6.1 yards per attempt—the lowest among eligible Power 4 quarterbacks and in the same ballpark as Stanford’s Davis Warren (6.3) and Arkansas’s KJ Jackson (6.4). It’s one thing to at least be accurate and protect the football while throwing around the line of scrimmage. Reed isn’t doing either of those things, and it put Texas A&M in a difficult spot with nine games still left to play.

CJ Bailey, NC State

Preseason rank: 18

The third year of Bailey’s career already was off to a poor start and then imploded at the end of the Vanderbilt game. Rather than take a knee for a safety, or walk out the back of the end zone, or throw the ball straight up in the air, or just about anything else, he fumbled the ball and allowed NC State to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. Against two Power 4 opponents so far, Bailey has completed 61.6% of his passes for an average of 179 yards with three touchdowns and four turnovers. That’s almost unrecognizable to the quarterback who lit up opposing defenses last year. Given that Dave Doeren’s seat seems to be growing hotter by the second, something drastic would need to change for both, or even one of, head coach and quarterback to be back in Raleigh next season.

John Mateer, Oklahoma

Preseason rank: 21

If the Michigan game wasn’t already cause for concern (it should’ve been to any Sooners fan), Saturday against New Mexico should sound the sirens. Mateer threw an interception on his first pass of the game and followed that up with a pick just before the half, deep in his own territory that led to a field goal. But the biggest concern, and this isn’t just internet fodder, was him admitting after the game that the surge in crowd noise allowed him to realize that he missed Isaiah Sategna III while going through his reads before eventually circling back and connecting with his senior receiver for a 53-yard touchdown. It’s just one comment but it implies Mateer isn’t seeing the field well and the numbers bear that out. Through three games, he’s completed only 62.7% of his passes and that’s going into SEC play, where Oklahoma opens at No. 2 Georgia before the Red River Rivalry against No. 1 Texas.

Bryce Underwood, Michigan

Preseason rank: 23

Underwood deserves some credit for responding to the Western Michigan debacle on the field, beating Oklahoma and showing off the type of mobility and athleticism (18 carries for 87 yards and a touchdown) that made him such a highly touted prospect. The passing still needs some serious work, and until that can get figured out, his ceiling is lower than anticipated. He went 9 of 17 against Oklahoma and then started off slow against UTEP, a program that was completely outmatched and basically daring the Wolverines to entrust the offense to Underwood. As the game went on, he settled in and shook off a first drive fumble, but against better competition, he won’t have the chance to have the sorts of lapses in play he’s had through the opening three weeks.

Steve Angeli, Syracuse

Preseason rank: 35

Angeli got off to a hot start in his tenure with the Orange last year before an Achilles tear ended his season in Week 4 and tanked Fran Brown’s momentum after a 10-win 2024. Unfortunately, the opening three games this season couldn’t be more different from last year. Angeli has been careless with the ball, and is tied for the FBS lead with five interceptions. His trio of picks sank Syracuse’s chances to beat Cal at home and then he followed that up with two in the fourth quarter of a close game against Pitt. Backup Amari Odom got a chance to audition for the job on Cuse’s last drive of the loss to the Panthers, meaning Angeli, who’s completed fewer than 55% of his passes, may already be on thin ice.

Will Hammond, Texas Tech

Preseason rank: 36

I also don’t want to dump on Hammond, who’s coming off of a torn ACL and was probably expecting to have more time to recover until Texas Tech desperately needed to hand him the keys after Brendan Sorsby was deemed ineligible. But when Tommy Castellanos, who joined the team less than a month ago, took the first snap against Houston only to throw a pop fly of an interception, it sure seems to me that the Red Raiders have no clue what to do at the position. Hammond took over for the rest of the game, but still doesn’t have the mobility that made him such a threat in 2025 before his injury. He’s also not a world beater with his arm, averaging just 8.6 yards per attempt, leaving Tech in a frustratingly similar situation to the one it was in last year: a great defense paired with an average QB (and potentially worse) and low-ceiling offense.

Though this clip isn’t of Hammond, it encapsulates the offense at Texas Tech so far:

MORE COLLEGE FOOTBALL FROM SPORTS ILLUSTRATED

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