Everyone’s talking about quarterback play in the Big 12. Sure, these quarterbacks benefit from playing in a conference where the forward pass isn’t feared like Jerry Falwell fears a GALA parade. No sir, this ain’t the Big 10 or SEC. Beyond the fortuity of conference, these QBs are legitimately excellent college football players.

In 2008, six Big 12 QBs, Bradford, McCoy, Daniel, Robinson, Griffin and Freeman, are sitting in the top ten of the pass efficiency rankings. That’s pretty impressive considering that Griffin is just a freshman and Freeman has the happiest feet since that Warner Bros. penguin. This isn’t just a one-year fluke either, as, amazingly, six of our QBs are in the top seven of the active career leaders in passing efficiency: Bradford, McCoy, Harrell, Reesing, Robinson, and Daniel. Are you kidding me? Six of the top seven?! Just for fun, let’s look at the SEC QBs in the top 20. That didn’t take long. Next, the Big 10. Done. That was fun, wasn’t it?

It’s beyond argument to say the Big 12 has the best group of quarterbacks in college. That’s an objective truth. The real quarrel starts when you try to rank the 12 quarterbacks. It’s difficult, but I’m not afraid of a challenge. That’s not true, but I ranked the quarterbacks anyway. In my rankings, I am not considering Kiper-type factors, so I don’t get all wet because Josh Freeman looks like a cross between Jamarcus Russell and Daunte Culpepper (so said the announcers during the UL game). I am only concerned with college goodness. I am concerned with quarterbacks I would want running my favorite team when a conference championship is on the line. Here they are:

1. Chase Daniel. He’s a coach on the field (soon to be a coach in a press box) and makes the offense hum. He’s as valuable as any player to any team in the country and has through the roof numbers. Presence, mobility, leadership, and accuracy. He’s the whole package. Against Buffalo he broke the Big 12 record by throwing 20 consecutive completions.

2. Sam Bradford. He could be number one. Some smart people would say he should be number one, but I’m not one of them smart people. Great accuracy, prolific and fearless passer, and key to OU’s success.

3. Todd Reesing. Great leader, tough as nails, cool as a cucumber. Clever Mizzou fans call him Sod because of the dirt/grass lodged in his helmet after Mizzou sacked him to end the Arrowhead game. See, Sod rhymes with Todd. Less clever fans like me call him Dangerous and Only A Fucking Junior?!

4. Colt McCoy. At the beginning of the year I would have had him 6th, but through four games his pass efficiency rating is over 200 and he’s running for 65 yards a game. In street parlance, he’s a baller. I think he’s right up there with the top three. After Colt, comes the second tier.

5. Graham Harrell. The leader of the second tier is a guy who gets mentioned in a lot of Heisman talk. This conference is awesome. Harrell puts up a lot of numbers, but has a strange tendency to have bad stretches that cost his team – last year’s Colorado team wasn’t that good and Harrell threw four picks. Fun stat: in ’06 and ’07 Harrell threw 25 interceptions – over half came in the four Mizzou/CU games. For a Texas guy, he’s got a strange aversion to black gold.

6. Zac Robinson. Here’s this 6-4, 120 pound white boy from the Denver suburbs showing up to campus with his negative two stars and all he does is unseat bonus baby Bobby. With apologies to Golf Prick TM, Zac’s a MAN! Fun to watch him make things happen.

7. Joe Ganz. The beginning of the third tier. Ok, he’s started six games, thrown 24 TDs, rushed for four more, and chucked 10 picks. He’s great at accumulating stats. He was a Callahan afterthought, an organizational soldier, and then Savior Sam Keller went down with an injury. Ganz had two offers out of high school – NU and Eastern Michigan – you wonder if in the quiet of his bedroom, as he fondled his two offers and struggled with the decision, he ever dreamed he’d throw seven touchdowns in one college game? Good for Joe.

8. Josh Freeman. The Missourian who flipped Callahan the bird before that was cool and then got carted away by the Tyrannical Prince to a backwater town in the middle of Kansas. As stated above, has been compared to all the big black QBs, but if I may be so bold as to cross the racial divide, Josh reminds me most of Ryan Leaf. I don’t mean that in a good way. Wait, is there a good way that could be taken? Anyway, Josh announced before this season that he would not be going pro early. A sigh of relief was heard through the Big 12. He looks like he could be a good QB, but his decision making, mechanics, and slow release will keep him from real success against good opponents.

9. Cody Hawkins. This little guy being the 9th best QB in the conference speaks loudly as to the overall quality. He operates the offense efficiently without a lot of help from the average receivers. He throws too many picks to be really good, but he might outgrow that. I considered putting him ahead of Freeman, but Freeman may have a higher ceiling than Cody. The idea of Freeman is more imposing than the idea of Cody, which may not be fair to the waif.

10. Robert Griffin. He’s going to win Baylor some games they shouldn’t win, but he could lose them a couple too. I only watched him in the UCONN game, but what I saw a thrower who forces the issue. It might have been that he was a little gimpy – I expected to see him run more – and that lead him to chucking the ball in tight coverage. It might just be that he has no talent around him. He will be a force in this league by ’09.

11. Stephen McGee/Jarrod Johnson. McGee is an organizational soldier type who came out of high school highly touted and made a bad choice on which school to attend. McGee has no business running Sherman’s offense, and in fairness to McGee, Sherman has no business having an offense in need of running. I don’t know much about Johnson, but he faired better against Miami than I figured he would.

12. Austen Arnaud. The sophomore hasn’t been that bad actually. His pass efficiency rating is 143. Yeah, that’s only good for 11th best in the Big 12. That would be THIRD in the SEC behind Stafford and Tebow. Are you kidding me?

It’s the year of the Big 12 QB – putting the conference right up there with the SEC – so let’s enjoy.