Big 12 Football: 5 worst starting quarterback situations for 2017

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PHOENIX, AZ – DECEMBER 27: Quarterback Zach Smith #4 of the Baylor Bears throws a pass during the second quarter of the Motel 6 Cactus Bowl against the Boise State Broncos at Chase Field on December 27, 2016 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) /

The Big 12 has quite the class of quarterbacks at the top of the conference entering 2017. But who’s on the opposite side of things?

High-powered offenses and high-scoring games are the trademark of the Big 12. Most teams need a quality quarterback to fuel that high-powered offense. For example, Texas Tech’s offense would not have been the same without Patrick Mahomes last season. Oklahoma’s offense would be completely different without Heisman contender Baker Mayfield and Oklahoma State’s would be much different without Mason Rudolph.

On the opposite side of things, quite a few teams in the Big 12 have not been able to find a consistent option at quarterback for the last few years. The Kansas Jayhawks and Iowa State Cyclones have permanently been in the basement of the Big 12 standings for the last couple seasons mainly because they could not find an answer at quarterback. The Clones went with both Joel Lanning and Jacob Park in 2016 and might go with Park again in 2017.

Then, there are a few teams in the middle that always seem to have a good, but not great, starting quarterback that can get them to a bowl game every season but not to national contention. Teams like the West Virginia Mountaineers, TCU Horned Frogs, and the Kansas State Wildcats have found serviceable but not fantastic quarterbacks to be successful. Even the Texas Longhorns have not found a consistent quarterback option that was able to take them to the top since Colt McCoy. They’ve been shifting between different quarterbacks trying to find the answer for around seven years now. Maybe Shane Buechele could be the answer the Horns are looking for.

It’s interesting to talk about the Big 12 quarterback situation because of how much impact it has on the overall success of the conference. The Big 12, as a whole, has been pretty much consistently the worst Power Five conference since it lost four of its members a few years ago. Even though teams like the Missouri Tigers and Nebraska Cornhuskers have not tremendously successful since leaving the Big 12, only having 10 teams still drags down the conference. It relies on the quarterbacks and high-powered offense to pick it up.

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