After the first four weeks of the 2023 college football season, it’s clear that there are three programs at the top of the Big Ten, with everyone else falling behind. Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State have emerged as legitimate Big Ten contenders
Week five of the season is a quiet week of the Big Ten with very few exciting matchups, especially with the top three. Michigan faces Nebraska, Penn State faces Northwestern, and Ohio State is off with a bye week. We ranked the top five matchups of the week in our weekly Big Ten schedule breakdown.
With Week 5 of the season almost here, College Sports Wire looks at how the Big Ten’s quarterbacks rank based on ESPN’s QBR metric. In this week’s rankings, the battle between Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy and Ohio State’s Kyle McCord continues.
While we know J.J. McCarthy and Kyle McCord are fighting for the top spot? What quarterbacks in the Big Ten are right behind them? Who were this week’s big risers? Who fell the most? Here’s how the Big Ten starting quarterbacks fall according to their QBR.
| Quarterback | Team | QBR | Last Week’s QBR (Ranking) |
| J.J . McCarthy | Michigan | 91.0 | 85.7 (No. 2) |
| Kyle McCord | Ohio State | 87.7 | 87.2 (No. 1) |
| Drew Allar | Penn State | 82.2 | 78.1 (No. 3) |
| Gavin Wimsatt | Rutgers | 76.2 | 77.4 (No. 4) |
| Taulia Tagovailoa | Maryland | 70.7 | 66.3 (No. 5) |
| Luke Altmyer | Illinois | 62.1 | 56.6 (No. 6) |
| Athan Kaliakmanis | Minnesota | 57.3 | 49.2 (No. 10) |
| Hudson Card | Purdue | 52.1 | 53.6 (No. 8) |
| Tanner Mordecai | Wisconsin | 48.6 | 39.0 (No. 12) |
| Ben Bryant | Northwestern | 41.8 | 25.2 (No. 14) |
| Heinrich Haarberg | Nebraska | 40.7 | 51.8 (No. 9) |
| Noah Kim | Michigan State | 39.9 | 44.2 (No. 11) |
| Tayven Jackson | Indiana | 33.5 | 55.5 (No. 7) |
| Cade McNamara | Iowa | 29.5 | 30.4 (No. 13) |
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