Big Ten has become a landing zone for transfer quarterbacks

PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Bret Bielema was at the forefront of the graduate transfer game in 2011 when the NCAA passed a new rule that allowed athletes in all sports to transfer and gain immediate eligibility without a waiver as long as they were enrolled in graduate school.

Needing a quarterback at Wisconsin because of an unexpected illness to Jon Budmayr and an ACL injury to his backup, Bielema and the Badgers found future NFL player Russell Wilson looking for a new home.

Russell was going to return to NC State for a graduate year, but he also wanted to play baseball. He was a fourth-round pick of the Colorado Rockies and spent two seasons in the minors. He missed spring camp in 2011 and Wolfpack coach Tom O’Brien said he could return but not as a starter. So he transferred to Wisconsin and had a monster season, leading the Badgers and Bielema to an 11-3 record and a Rose Bowl berth.

Much has changed in the last 13 years. Bielema left Wisconsin, went to Arkansas for five years, worked in the NFL for three years and then became the head coach at Illinois in 2021. Budmayr recovered and is now the wide receivers coach at Iowa.

That’s not all that changed. So has the transfer rule. It’s open to everyone. Looking for more playing time, unhappy where they’re at, there’s always the portal.

The Big Ten has become a landing zone for quarterbacks on the move. When this season opened, 14 of the 18 teams in the expanded conference had transfer quarterbacks starting. The expectations at the time were Drew Allar at No. 4 Penn State, Davis Warren at No. 24 Michigan, Miller Moss at Southern California and freshman Dylan Raiola at Nebraska.

Warren has been replaced twice with transfer Jack Tuttle expected to start their next game on Oct. 19.

No. 2 Ohio State is led by Will Howard (Kansas State). No. 3 Oregon has Dillon Gabriel (Central Florida, Oklahoma). No. 18 Indiana has Kurtis Rourke (Ohio) and Bielema and No. 23 Illinois have Luke Altmyer (Mississippi).

The days of wooing a high school quarterback, signing him to a national letter of intent and then having him around for five years have declined drastically.

“So I think the definition of what we think is normal is now gone,” Bielema said. “The new normal is to be able to get a quarterback that you need to play right now.”

That’s what Greg Schiano did at Rutgers in starting his second stint with Scarlet Knights in 2020. He got Nebraska transfer Noah Vedral for a couple of years and now has Athan Kaliakmanis from Minnesota. Neither was considered a superstar but both fit into his team-first culture.

“O-Line and quarterback are the hardest positions,” said Schiano, whose Scarlet Knights are off to a 4-1 start. “So if you can look at it, this guy’s already done it at this level or a level like ours, it really decreases your kind of miss rate and it increases your hit rate.”

Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell, whose team faces Rutgers in New Jersey, said a big reason for the influx of transfer quarterbacks is the number of coaching changes in the conference. Nine of the coaches have been hired since 2023, the year Fickell went from Cincinnati to the Badgers.

“I don’t know that it’s going away,” Fickell said. “I think this position in particular, everybody understands and knows that in football — I don’t care if it’s college football, NFL football, high school football — the quarterback position is critical in everything that we do. There’s not many teams today that can get by without having a guy at that position who can make plays and run an offense.”

Wisconsin started the season with Miami transfer Tyler Van Dyke, who was hurt in a loss to Alabama. He has been replaced by Braedyn Locke, a Mississippi State transfer.

In taking over the job at Indiana, new coach Curt Cignetti brought along 13 players and 12 coaches and support from his 2023 team at James Madison. He also added Rourke, the Mid-American Conference offensive player of the year. He leads the Big Ten with 1,752 yards passing, 14 TDs and two interceptions. The Hoosiers are 6-0.

With the transferring, there are some players who are content to stay put. Allar wanted stability and he saw that in choosing the Nittany Lions, who had just given coach James Franklin a new 10-year contract the summer before his senior year in high school.

“I always wanted to find as a recruit, somewhere where I can go and develop and not have to leave,” Allar said, noting while coordinators may change, the concept usually doesn’t change much if the coach stays.

While Allar understudied for Sean Clifford, Raiola has stepped into the starting role as a freshman at Nebraska. He’s a workaholic, gym rat who devours minutia. And he’s not afraid to take control and lead.

“Dylan’s going to play,” Huskers coach Matt Rhule said. “He’s going to play the plays. When we call drop back, he’s going to drop back, he’s going to go back there and take his drop, go through his progression. Just how we want him to play when he’s a junior, we’re going to start day one that way. We’re not easing into anything.”

That’s the exception though in the Big Ten. Most quarterbacks aren’t freshman. They’re older and starting over.