Pro Football Focus does a great job of breaking down the game and evaluating how well or poorly individuals perform.
They recently ranked the would-be 130 starting quarterbacks in FBS ahead of the 2020 season. The first couple are obvious in Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields, but Ian Book checks in all the way at 17.
Here’s what they say about Notre Dame’s Ian Book:
While his 2019 production was skewed heavily by three lights-out performances against the bad defenses of New Mexico, Bowling Green and Navy, Book had very few errant throws to speak of over the year, finishing the season with the fifth-lowest rate of QB-fault incompletions in 2019. The reason to worry about Book in 2020 is the 29 sacks he has invited since 2018, the most in the FBS over that span.
I like Ian Book a lot but 17 seems pretty fair when you consider where his game needs developing. Can he get better at identifying coverages and defenses pre-snap?
If so you might not be looking at a guy that sky-rockets towards the top of this list, but one you could certainly consider in the top ten despite not having a rocket arm that that many of those ahead of him possess.
Trevor Lawrence of Clemson checked in first while Sam Howell or North Carolina was fourth. Those were the only two quarterbacks Notre Dame will see in 2020 that were ranked higher than Book.