Mike Huguenin of On3 crunched the numbers and found that 58 schools are expected to start transfers at quarterback to begin the 2022 season.
That number could grow or shrink as various competitions declare winners over the month of August, but chances are the final number as Week 1 arrives will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 58.
Is that.... more than you expected? Less? Put the sports gun to my head, and I'd have guessed less than 58 anticipated starters, which equates to 45 percent of the 131 QB1 jobs.
One trend that did surprise me, and likely you, was that fears of Power 5 schools using the Group of 5 as their farm systems are overblown, at least at the quarterback position.
According to Huguenin's research only two schools are projected to start transfers from the Group of 5 or FCS level, and one comes with an asterisk. The FCS transfer is Washington State's Cam Ward, who followed his coach Eric Morris to the Palouse. Morris was Ward's head coach at Incarnate Word and will be his offensive coordinator at Wazzu.
The only "true" mid-major to high-major transfer is Virginia Tech's Grant Wells, who arrived in Blacksburg after starting the last two seasons at Marshall.
Don't get it twisted: plenty of Power 5 schools will still start transfers. They just happen to choose almost exclusively from other Power 5 schools.
The data says that Group of 5 schools also prefer Power 5 transfers to the alternative, in news that likely doesn't surprise anyone.
Of the 30 projected transfer QB1s at the G5 level, 19 came from Power 5 schools.
If anything, the numbers underscore the importance of signing with a Power 5 school out of high school. The elevator makes far more trips down a level than up.