Tim Benz: Pitt, Syracuse personify trend of transfer QB success in ACC

Some fans grumble about the NCAA transfer portal and about how NIL is negatively changing the landscape of college sports.

That’s a tough sell when it comes to ACC football this year.

There are plenty of teams in the conference that have improved thanks to play from transfer quarterbacks.

Two of them square off Thursday night (7:30 pm) at Acrisure Stadium when No. 19 Pitt (6-0) welcomes Syracuse (5-1).

Those two teams were both 2-6 in conference play last year, and were both under .500 overall. However the Orange and Panthers are enjoying bounceback seasons so far in large part due to the performance of transfer quarterbacks.

The Panthers’ Eli Holstein is sixth nationally in total offense at 327.7 yards per game. The first-year Alabama transfer is also 13th nationally at 283.3 yards per game passing and 15th in touchdowns with 15.

“He’s a playmaker. He kills you with his legs, or he can do the same thing throwing. He does a real good job,” Syracuse coach Fran Brown said of Holstein during his weekly press conference.

Syracuse’s Kyle McCord — formerly of Ohio State — is second nationally in terms of yards per game (360), fourth in completions (185) and fifth in touchdowns (19).

Beyond Pitt and Syracuse, though, the ACC is thick with success stories of teams that are seeing their stock rise due to the influx of transfer QBs.

• Miami’s Cam Ward is one of the favorites to win the Heisman Trophy. The former Washington State Cougar leads the country in passing yards per game at 362.6 and is tops in the country with 24 passing touchdowns. Miami is 7-0 and sixth in the country in the AP poll after winning just seven games all of last year.

• Duke is 6-1 with Maalik Murphy at the helm. He was at Texas last year. He has thrown 14 touchdown passes, one less than Holstein.

• Louisville’s Tyler Shough is third in the conference in yards (2,016) and fourth with 18 touchdowns. The Cardinals are his third stop after being at Oregon and Texas Tech.

In fact, eight of the top 10 passing yardage leaders in the ACC are all quarterbacks who began their careers at other institutions. That batch doesn’t even include the likes of Thomas Castellanos (Boston College), Kyron Drones (Virginia Tech), Jacoby Criswell (UNC) and D.J. Uiagalelei (Florida State), who spent time on at least one other campus before finding their current home.

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So, why are so many transfers thriving under-center in the conference?

“The ACC is the conference of quarterbacks,” Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said this week. “Maybe that’s the reason. I truly believe since I’ve gotten here, the quarterbacks that we’ve played against and the quarterbacks that are in the NFL from the ACC are better than any conference, period. If I’m a quarterback at a different conference, I want to come to the ACC.”

Maybe.

I’d argue the 2024 answer is that the ACC schools might be somewhat in the middle when it comes to recruiting and NIL budgets.

If there’s an underrecruited, overlooked, non-power conference quarterback that’s killing it in the Group of 5 somewhere, an ACC school can probably lure that guy away with the prospect of starting in a bigger conference and with more NIL money.

Similarly, the filthy-rich elite in the SEC and Big Ten can over-recruit and overpay, so guys like McCord and Holstein might get squeezed out because the quarterback isn’t exactly in a position where playing time tends to get shared.

Therefore a lot of the ACC schools look like the next-best, and most attractive option to start full time. Hence, the McCord’s and Holstein’s of the world join the conference from behemoths such as Ohio State and Alabama respectively.

“With NIL, it gives teams an opportunity to get players they wouldn’t have necessarily (gotten) before. It’s evened the playing field a little bit,” McCord said via Syracuse’s YouTube channel. “There are good players on every single team.”

The ACC’s notable exception is Clemson. The blueblood Tigers are coached by Dabo Swinney, who has never been a fan of the portal — frankly, because he doesn’t need it. He recruited QB Cade Klubnik out of high school in Texas. He has been at Clemson for three years, has a 20:3 TD-to-interception ratio and is in the top five of just about every passing category in the ACC.

Whatever the mix, it’s working for the ACC. Miami (sixth), Clemson (ninth) and Pitt (19th) are all ranked. Syracuse and Duke are receiving votes. New ACC member SMU, with home-grown redshirt sophomore Kevin Jennings at the controls, is also ranked at No. 22.

Thursday’s result on national television at Acrisure Stadium will go a long way toward propelling either Holstein or McCord toward a potential berth in the ACC Championship Game in December.

And further establish the business model of the quarterback position in the ACC.

LISTEN: Tim Benz discusses Thursday’s Pitt-Syracuse game with Orange PxP voice Matt Park.