The best, and undrafted, NFL QBs that won a NC in college?

[racepug]

Detmer had good numbers at BYU and beat Miami.

Yeah, BYU made a big deal out of that but my memory tells me that in his last regular season game (at least that season - I don't remember if he was a senior in 1990, or not) his team got absolutely TROUNCED (IIRC, by Hawai'i) and Mr. Detmer looked like anything but a Heisman Trophy candidate in that game leading people to ask what the "big hurry" was in voting on the Heisman (before ALL regular season games had been played). My favorite memory of Ty Detmer, though, is of Texas A&M's "Wrecking Crew" absolutely destroying him AND his team in the Holiday Bowl in Ty Detmer's last game as a BYU Cougar (as you may recall Texas A&M won the game something like 65 - 10 and also knocked Ty Detmer out of the game with a dislocated shoulder [after pile-driving him into the turf. Maybe even more than once]. Later Texas A&M claimed that it did what it did to BYU because they felt disrespected by the Cougars from Provo before the game).

[racepug]

Jason White was like Lynn Dickey with his knees in college

I don't remember much about Lynn Dickey (besides that he played for Green Bay), but -

[racepug]

I thought Leinart would be better, but I guess he was more interested in banging college chicks.

- I remember reading that about him after it became clear that he wouldn't be quite the star in the N.F.L. that he was in college (at least not on the field - ).

[racepug]

I thought Lamar Jackson would be broke in half and Kyler Murray would be bad, but those guys have surprised me.

I'm not "sold" on either of those guys. Athletic and quick, yes, but I don't think that either of them is particularly good at decision-making in the way a starting N.F.L. quarterback has to be to succeed in the league over the long haul.

[racepug]

I guess its interesting to me how many of these guys ended up in the NFL in some capacity, and a lot of them ended up being on Super Bowl teams. Beathard, Hanratty, Rae, Haden, Namath, Montana, Cavanaugh, Rutledge, Kosar, (Aikman), Brunell, Brady.

Stabler, Aikman, and Brady were on national championship-winning teams, but as far as I can tell they weren't the starters that season. Other than those three (and the three whose names I bolded [because they're pro football H.o.F.ers AND because they were the starters for the team that won {or, rather, was awarded} the national championship) nobody else on that list really stands out to me as having had a meaningful ("meaningful" being open to interpretation) N.F.L. career, except for: Bernie Kosar, Mark Brunell, and Cam Newton (some might throw Pat Haden and Vince Evans in there, as well). To me, that's not very many when we're talkin' 60+ years of college football and "national championship-winning quarterbacks." Then again, maybe I'm looking at it all wrong and maybe we never should've expected all that many college QBs to "make a splash" at the pro level even when they helped their college team win a national championship.

[racepug]

In the 60's, if you played well against USC then you could win the Heisman based on that fact (Baker & Beban).

In much the same vein I always felt that Flutie got his Heisman on the basis of that "Hail Mary" TD pass that beat Miami (FL) at the end of the 1984 (regular) season. I really don't have any memory of the rest of his season being anything remarkable.

[JuggernautJ]

When we're counting the success stories of Heisman winning college quarterbacks it is important to remember Paul Hornung who, while not playing QB at the pro level still had some small measure of accomplishment...

Any others who fit that mold?

[racepug]

It was only for Dorsey that the DBs even bothered lining up outside the hashes... I assume this is because he was the only QB in the game who could make the throws outside the hash marks...
Because of this I was surprised when he didn't have more success at the pro level (and was pretty happy to see him on the Niners).

My only memory of Ken Dorsey is of the last pass he threw in a Miami Hurricanes uniform (YOU know which "pass" I'm talkin' 'bout!) Personally, I never thought he was anything special. I always felt like he succeeded at Miami (FL) not because he was all that great but because his "supporting cast" was so A-W-E-S-O-M-E (the RBs on that team: Clinton Portis, Najeh Davenport, Willis McGahee, Frank Gore, and Jarrett Payton. Not to mention: WR Andre Johnson, TEs Jeremy Shockey and Kellen Winslow, Jr. and OL "Mountain" Bryant McKinnie. And those were the studs he was surrounded by just on offense!) No wonder the S.I. link I found yesterday (in looking for a list of national championship-winning football teams over the years) mentioned that, to this day "the 2001 Miami Hurricanes are considered by some to be the greatest college football team of all time."

[7DnBrnc53]

1992: Alabama - Jay Barker

It's sad that this guy got drafted (albeit in 1995, not 1994), and Kurt Warner and Jeff Garcia didn't.

[SixtiesFan]

In the 60's, if you played well against USC then you could win the Heisman based on that fact (Baker & Beban).

In much the same vein I always felt that Flutie got his Heisman on the basis of that "Hail Mary" TD pass that beat Miami (FL) at the end of the 1984 (regular) season. I really don't have any memory of the rest of his season being anything remarkable.

According to Wikipedia the voting had already finished before the game. Doug Flutie had a great season before the Miami game.