The college football landscape will look a lot different in 2020, with both the Big Ten and the PAC-12 sitting out thanks to COVID-19 concerns.
That has not stopped the folks over at Pro Football Focus from ranking all 130 starting FCS quarterbacks heading into the season, despite knowing that most (or all?) of them won’t be suiting up next month.
USC Trojans quarterback Kedon Slovis was ranked No. 7 by PFF, behind Trevor Lawrence (Clemson) Justin Fields (Ohio State) Jamie Newman (Georgia) Sam Howell (North Carolina) Tanner Morgan (Minnesota) and Sam Ehlinger (Texas).
Few expected Slovis to look like one of the best quarterbacks in college football after he was thrust into the starting role in Week 1 of 2019. Yet Slovis, a three-star true freshman last year, was the only other quarterback to rival Joe Burrow’s historically good accuracy over the course of the college football season.
Slovis ranked second to only Burrow in the percentage of accurate passes thrown beyond the line of scrimmage. He also maneuvered the pocket exceptionally well and made magic on long-developing plays — he even earned a 90.1 PFF passing grade on pass attempts that took longer than 3 seconds from snap to pass, almost 7 grading points clear of the next returning signal-caller. If he cuts down on the fumbles in 2020 — something we’d expect from him with a year under his belt — Slovis will shoot even further up this list.
Slovis won’t get a chance to cut down on those fumbles in 2020, but assuming he takes some strides in year two (whenever that may be) he will easily be in contention for a Heisman Trophy before his time at USC is over.
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