The first few weeks of the college football season are perfect for identifying rising stars, but with so many uneven matchups, there's plenty of fool's gold to sift through in doing so.
After last season's excellent group of quarterbacks that featured five first-round NFL draft picks, the 2018 season came with plenty of questions as to where the next stars would emerge. With every caveat in play, from small samples to teams dominating lesser competition, here are the quarterbacks who have turned heads in the early going.
Pocket passers
1. Brett Rypien, Boise State
With three solid years of grading under his belt, Rypien might not be a huge surprise to those who have followed his career at Boise State, but he has taken his game to the next level in the early going in 2018. He has been on point throwing the ball down the field, completing seven of his 10 deep (20-plus yard) passes, third in the nation through two weeks. Those downfield passes have been thrown with pinpoint accuracy, often away from the defender and in an optimal spot for his receivers to pick up yards after the catch.
Rypien has Boise State's offense rolling like the days of old, and he looks poised to be one of the best senior signal-callers in the nation.