Someday Seahawks: The final 4 QB Survivor contestants!
Someday Seahawks: The final 4 QB Survivor contestants!
Seaside Bonus, 9/24/22: Week 4 in college football
To calculate the final four contests in QB Survivor 2023, I made a simple Heisman-style point system: For every first place vote, a QB got four points. For every second place vote, three points. Third place, two points. Fourth place, one point.
Another game rule that I want you to know before skimming the article is how teams will be SENT TO TRIBAL this season: There will be four tribes of six quarterbacks (The Traits Tribe, The Hype Tribe, The Leaders Tribe, and The Underdogs Tribe) and each week I will add up their wins and losses. The tribe that loses the most combined games that week will GO TO TRIBAL where one of them will be voted off of the field and into the transfer portal.
You read, you voted, and you determined one clear winner: Utah’s Cameron Rising. The “Hamgur” Guy. George Costanza on a football field.
Rising becomes the 21st cast member on QB Survivor; he is the ninth of those to be a member of the 2018 recruiting class, and he joins Devin Leary, Tanner McKee, Phil Jurkovec, and Dorian Thompson-Robinson as four-star recruits from that year. Despite how much the conference has been decimated, he is the sixth member of the Pac-12 to be on QB Survivor.
The next-highest point total came as a total surprise to me. Not because of the quarterback himself, but because of how the voting system gave him a chance to compete out of the blue: Congratulations to Maryland’s Taulia Tagovailoa! You are on QB Survivor!
When I was counting the votes, of course I started with who had the most first place votes. I actually almost stopped counting before I got to Tagovailoa because there are six quarterbacks who had more first place votes than him. However, Tagovailoa not only had the most second-place votes, he also had the most fourth-place votes, and that helped him finish with easily the second-highest score.
Netflix makes a lot of terrible content, but they should make a documentary about how Nick Saban turned Alabama from a program that hadn’t had a quarterback drafted in decades to one that has multiple draft prospects every year. Even if many of them transferred, like Taulia did: Jalen Hurts, Tua, Mac Jones, Bryce Young, Taulia. Am I missing some?
The voting then got extremely close and actually the third and fourth-place finishers both leapt over someone who seemed to be a lock. Before I tell you who is in, let me tell you the last two out:
Oregon’s Bo Nix was only a couple of points shy of being a contestant and he didn’t get the final push he needed on Friday to become the Pacific Northwest’s fourth QB in the game: Michael Penix, Cameron Ward, and Chance Nolan will have to carry the torch for him.
Clemson’s D.J. Uiagalelei was in third place on Friday. He finished in fifth place on Saturday. Let’s keep an eye on him: His next three games are against quarterbacks who are on the QB Survivor 2023 cast list: Sam Hartman, Devin Leary, and Phil Jurkovec.
Finishing in third place is the ultimate underdog story—you can guess which tribe he is on—despite the fact that he’s the only quarterback in the game to have started and won a national championship: Georgia’s Stetson Bennett.
I keep telling you this game will not be about players. It will be about people. Bennett’s story “could be a movie” already:
In typical Bennett fashion, he was in sixth place on the eve of final ballots and yet he somehow find a way to sneak into third. Bennett, a former two-star recruit who had to walk-on and transfer to a JuCo before getting his opportunity with the Bulldogs, is the third cast member to be recruited earlier than 2018, joining Hendon Hooker and Jaren Hall. He is also the oldest QB Survivor contestant, as Bennett will be turning 25 next month.
Finally, the fourth-place winner also had to jump over Uiagalelei to get into the game and he is going be the 24th out of 24 quarterbacks to play in QB Survivor 2023. You could also say that he’s belonging of the Underdogs, if that tribe didn’t already have six contestants, so he’ll have to settle for being a Leader…as well as being a former Husky: Fresno State’s Jake Haener, welcome to QB Survivor 2023.
Unfortunately, Haener did suffer a high ankle sprain last weekend. The good news is that it is not season-ending. The bad news is that his tribe won’t be able to count on him for important wins until he returns. That is the tough part of the game, but we already knew going in that players would have injuries and bye weeks that complicate the voting and that’s something that will hopefully balance itself out over the course of the season—or new rules will be made.
Haener won’t have immunity if The Leaders go to Tribal Council…and the first person to be voted out will come after Week 5’s outcome. That’s next Saturday. It gives me one week to introduce you to all four tribes and all 24 contestants. The people! Not just the players.
And by the way, this can be a collaborative process and the more help I get from you, the more we crowdsource the information on these quarterbacks, the better informed everyone who plays is going to be. I also want to find ways to INCREASE THE STAKES so that you are even more invested in who stays and who goes home week to week. Including finding out who you are rooting for, rooting against, and who you would be willing to place your bets on as the Ultimate QB Survivor come next April.
We got nothing but time for that. Please SHARE QB Survivor and Seaside Joe with friends who might be interested. This game would also be great for like a college football or NFL Draft subreddit. If only they knew!
Here are all the notable QB games in Week 4 of college football:
*QB Survivor contestant
Kent State at Georgia, 9 AM PT: Stetson Bennett* (Kent State’s Collin Schlee is a little interesting too)
Maryland at Michigan, 9 AM: Taulia Tagovailoa*, J.J. McCarthy (2024 class)
Clemson at Wake Forest, 9 AM: D.J. Uiagalelei, Sam Hartman*
Central Michigan at Penn State, 9 AM: Sean Clifford
Bowling Green at Mississippi State, 9 AM: Will Rogers*
UCLA at Colorado, 11 AM: Dorian Thompson-Robinson*
Florida at Tennessee, 12:30 PM: Anthony Richardson*, Hendon Hooker*
Middle Tennessee at Miami, 12:30 PM: Tyler Van Dyke*
Minnesota at Michigan State, 12:30 PM: Payton Thorne*
James Madison at App State, 12:30 PM: Chase Brice
Oregon at Washington State, 1 PM: Bo Nix, Cameron Ward*
N Illinois at Kentucky, 4 PM: Will Levis*
Arkansas at Texas A&M, 4 PM: K.J. Jefferson*, (Texas A&M has benched Haynes King in favor of former LSU QB Max Johnson)
UNLV at Utah State, 4 PM: Doug Brumfield
Vanderbilt at Alabama, 4:30 PM: Bryce Young*
Wisconsin at Ohio State, 4:30 PM: Graham Mertz, C.J. Stroud*
UConn at NC State, 4:30 PM: Devin Leary*
New Mexico at LSU, 4:30 PM: Jayden Daniels
Kansas State at Oklahoma, 5 PM: Dillon Gabriel*
Boston College at Florida State, 5 PM: Phil Jurkovec*
USC at Oregon State, 6:30 PM: Caleb Williams (2024), Chance Nolan*
Wyoming at BYU, 7:15 PM: Jaren Hall*
Utah at Arizona State, 7:30 PM: Cameron Rising*
Stanford at Washington, 7:30 PM: Tanner McKee*, Michael Penix*
Previous Results:
Grayson McCall played on Thursday night, as Coastal Carolina beat Georgia State 41-24. McCall played pretty well, you could tell that head coach Jamey Chadwell was trying to draw up deep passing opportunities for McCall because they were playing on ESPN2 and maybe some scouts would be watching. He finished 19-of-27 for 268 yards with two touchdowns, plus a rushing score, and his receivers dropped a few perfect passes so his numbers could have been even better.
However, I will say that he was off-target a few times and that also cost him another score or two.
After four games, McCall is completing 70% of his passes with 11 touchdowns, one interception, a 191.2 passer rating, and two rushing touchdowns. McCall’s career record is now 24-2 and in those two losses he has scored five touchdowns with only one interception. Prior to McCall’s arrival as the starter, Coastal’s Division-I record was 13-23.
He’s 24-2.
Anything you got to say about QB Survivor, Week 4 of college football, players to watch (not just quarterbacks), and the Seattle Seahawks. Do it in our comments section today!
Kenneth - what are your thoughts on Penix as a pro QB? Sorry if I've missed any comments to this effect in previous posts - he looks like he has an arm, can throw in tight windows and move through progressions pretty quickly. I'm not smart enough on watching QBs to know if his skills will translate to the pro game, but curious as to what you think.
How do QBs who emerge or we missed get to join the field? Jalon Daniels is an example of someone we didn't get to vote for except as a write in. Davis Brin leads the nation in passing at Tulsa and Caleb Williams is a no-brainer from USC.
Here are the top 15 non-freshmen QBs in pass efficiency:
1 Max Duggan TCU.
2 C.J. Stroud Ohio St.
3 Todd Centeio James Madison
4 Grayson McCall Coastal Carolina
5 Graham Mertz Wisconsin
6 Tanner Morgan Minnesota
7 Caleb Williams Southern California
10 Riley Leonard Duke
11 Stetson Bennett Georgia
12 Michael Penix Jr. Washington
13 Taulia Tagovailoa Maryland
14 Spencer Sanders Oklahoma St.
15 Dillon Gabriel Oklahoma
16 Davis Brin Tulsa
17 KJ Jefferson Arkansas