Most Interesting Power Five Quarterback Battles: 20 For 2020 Offseason Topics No. 8

20 for 2020 key college football offseason topics: No. 8. The top Power Five conference quarterback battles.

Pac-12: USC Trojans

With the exception of Arizona State with Jayden Daniels and Cal with Chase Garbers, the entire Pac-12 seems to be up in the air when it comes to the respective quarterback situations.

USC’s, though, is going to be the most interesting.

Last year at this time, JT Daniels appeared to be all set and ready to make the offense fly. The superstar recruit who skipped his senior year of high school to take over the job in 2018 got his growing pains out of the way, and last year the right offense was about to kick in.

Offensive coordinator Graham Harrell was going to wing the ball all over the yard, and that’s exactly what happened as Daniels had it …

For most of one game.

Daniels hit Fresno State for 25-of-34 passes for 215 yards and a touchdown and a pick before getting knocked out for the year with a knee injury. In stepped Kedon Slovis, and he turned out to be a fantastic fit for the offense, too.

The freshman was banged up for parts of the season, but he finished completing 72% of his throws for 3,502 yards and 30 touchdowns with nine picks, closing out the regular season with four 400+-yard days – and four touchdown passes in each of them – in the final five games.

Jack Sears chose to transfer this offseason, but senior Matt Fink is still around, and Daniels is on his way back to try winning back his gig. He’s supposedly healthy, he’s changing his number from 18 to 10, and he’s going to be ready to show what he can do.

Not having spring practice isn’t a bad thing – his knee is getting more time to heal.

But is Daniels’ knee going to be 100% ready? Slovis was also knocked around a bit too much – he missed time with a concussion – and there has to be as many options as possible to play around with considering what happened last season.

Welcome Mo Hasan, a 6-3, 205-pound passer from Miami who went to Vanderbilt, didn’t get a whole lot of time, and is transferring in to at least bring a little more depth.

USC Schedule & Analysis

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