The 2022 college football season is mercifully getting underway, with the Oregon Ducks set to take on the defending national champion Georgia Bulldogs at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Saturday.
While we don’t know for certain, Bo Nix is the presumed starter under center for Dan Lanning’s squad, and he’ll look to do damage against an elite defense that Lanning himself helped construct and develop during his time with the Bulldogs.
The Ducks have rich history of excellent quarterback play, dating all the way back to the Norm Van Brocklin and Dan Fouts days. Recent successes include Joey Harrington, Kellen Clemens, Dennis Dixon, Marcus Mariota, and Justin Herbert – a tremendously talented group that has helped the Ducks achieve great success over the past two decades.
While a quarterback’s first game of the season isn’t always a good barometer for how the year is going to go, especially since first games are often either against elite opponents (like Georgia) or non-FBS opponents (like Southern Utah or New Mexico in years past). Will that give us some indication on how Nix (or Thompson) will perform on Saturday against Georgia?
Below is a look at every starting quarterback in Week 1 of the past 21 seasons, dating back to Harrington’s squad in 2000.
We take a look at the opponent, the result, and how the quarterback performed in game one: