In Reply to: You are wildly over selling your theory. But, nice deflections posted by TheHappyBurgermeister on August 13, 2025 at 14:14:16
There is no magical virtue in being a "returning" player, because it's not the quality of "returning" that is important, but rather the quality of being "good". Returners are only preferable to transfers if they are good players. For example, if Chip had left a young Brett Hundley or Josh Rosen on the roster, I don't think we'd be seeing Nico at UCLA this year.
Look at the QB's on your list:
Manning - huge HS recruit, recruited by current staff.
Allar - Huge HS recruit. Recruited by current staff.
Sayin (Ohio St.) - first year starter. In any event, huge HS recruit (originally Alabama), recruited by current staff. (Will Howard is in the NFL).
Klubnik - huge HS recruit. Recruited by current staff.
Stockton - huge HS recruit, recruited by current staff.
Carr - very big HS recruit. Recruited by current staff.
Moore - huge HS recruit. Recruited by current staff.
*Simpson (Alabama). Big/Huge HS recruit. Recruited by prior (but insanely successful) staff.
*Nussmeier. Recruited by prior staff.
Leavitt. Recruited by current staff.
Altmyer. Recruited by current staff.
Sellers. Recruited by current staff.
Lagway. Huge HS recruit. Recruited by current staff.
Jennings. Recruited by current staff.
Johnson. Recruited by current staff.
Simmons. Recruited by current staff.
Becht. Recruited by current staff.
*Morton. Recruited by prior staff.
*Madsen. Recruited by prior staff.
That's only 4 guys who were holdovers from a prior staff.
Then look at your trio:
Martin. Borderline 3/4 star. Recruited by prior (failed) staff.
Duncan. 3 star. Recruited by prior (failed) staff.
Davis. Good HS 4-star recruit. Recruited by present staff.
Most of the teams in the top 25 have coaches who have been there for years, recruiting and developing. Most have had recent success, established cultures. UCLA is basically a failed state of a program. And you're like "we gotta go with the returners!" It's crazy.
Now, let's look at some of last year's playoff teams to test this claim about returning QB's:
Indiana - non returning player at QB
ASU - non returning player at QB
Notre Dame - non returning player at QB
Oregon - non returning player at QB
Ohio St. non returning player at QB. Champion.
Lastly, let's change the desired attribute from "returning player" to "player who has started a lot of college games". Say, 5 or more starts.
Well over half of the top 25 will field such a QB. And of the ones who don't have such experience, almost all were monster HS recruits.
Of the 12 playoff teams last year, 8 started QB's who had started at least 5 games the year before.
Who out of Martin, Duncan, Davis, and Nico, meets the criterion of starting experience?
In fact, in the last 25 years, how many UCLA QB's have been legitimately good in their first year as a starting college QB? It's not a long list. Hundley is probably the only one. Rosen was pretty good his first year. Both were huge recruits and pegged as future starters from the day they arrived on campus. No one doubted their talent level.
The idea that UCLA was going to stand pat in 2025 with the QB's already on the roster is so asinine.
playoff qbs