Stock Watch: How the 2025 NFL Draft QB class performed in Week 12
Stock Watch: How the 2025 NFL Draft QB class performed in Week 12
Shedeur Sanders stays strong atop the class while another name getting QB1 consideration just weeks ago continues his mudslide.
Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders continues to separate himself atop the 2025 NFL Draft quarterback class.
We are now 11 weeks into the college football season, and just one quarterback has been the same player week in and week out. Sanders continues to rise above the mess, as he now has the Buffs in position to compete for a Big 12 title and a shot at the College Football Playoffs just one year after finishing 4-8 and 1-8 in conference play.
With the rest of the unstable class, however, who saw their rollercoaster stock take a rise and who saw it take a dip? This has been one of the most up-and-down classes in recent years. Most of the time bad quarterbacks play bad football and good ones play good football. This year, however, there are a handful of quarterbacks who have multiple versions of themselves that can show up on gamedays.
As always, I have charted this week’s games and added them to the Weighted On-Target Percentage database. This helps me weed out the social media highlights and provide a better picture to look at. You can find the full database here.
So who stood out in Week 11 and who saw their draft stock take a nosedive?
Note: Indiana’s Kurtis Rourke, Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart, and Miami’s Cam Ward had byes this week
Shedeur Sanders, Colorado vs. Utah
I noted last week that his last two outings had been my two least favorites of his season. However, Shedeur Sanders bounced back a bit in this big win against the Utah Utes on Saturday.
It was a slow start for Sanders, throwing an interception on the very first play of the game, but he bounced back with a massive second half to finish with 340 yards and three touchdowns the rest of the way out. And he opened it up down the field much more in this game as well.
The highlight play of the game came on a 4th and 5 when Sanders got the Utes to jump on a hard count, caught them offsides, then proceeded to drop a dime 40 yards down the field for a touchdown on a free play. Overall, there were threaded throws over the middle and along the boundary, and Sanders operated the short game up to par as always.
I’ve been given no evidence to come off of Sanders as my QB1 in this class and I doubt I ever will.
Drew Allar, Penn State vs. Purdue
Penn State’s Drew Allar has caught a ton of fans this season by just doing what is asked of him within the Nittany Lions offense. The issue is they do not ask him to do a ton, and this game against Purdue was another example of that.
It’s their star tight end, not their big-armed quarterback, that they have built their offense around.
While Allar did throw his first deep ball in his last handful of games, it came on a busted coverage to a wide-open wide receiver. There continues to be just an ultimate lacking of playmaking throws on Allar’s tape. So yes, while Allar has the second-highest Weighted On-Target Percentage late into the season, he also has the lowest volume of throws of any quarterback in the class.
Penn State is in prime territory to make the College Football Playoffs (they won’t have an opportunity for a second loss in the Big Ten Championship game), but it’s hard to bet on them or Allar at this point. I maintain that I’d be baffled if Allar decided to declare for the draft this upcoming April over returning for his senior season.
There are still a couple steps Allar can take to become an elite quarterback.
Carson Beck, Georgia vs. Tennessee
Carson Beck experienced a much-needed bounce-back game in the win over the Tennessee Volunteers. For whatever happened to Beck in the losses to Alabama and Ole Miss, and even in the win over Texas, there were many glimpses of his old self this weekend.
And Beck will have plenty of opportunity in big games to prove he can overcome all that was plaguing him early in the season. As the SEC continues to cannibalize itself, the two-loss Bulldogs may just find themselves back in the conference championship game. They are certainly back in the top 12 to make the College Football Playoffs after defeating the No. 7 Volunteers.
While Beck has played himself far out of Day 1 of the 2025 NFL Draft, there is still something that allows me to favor him over the likes of the other guys in his tier like Garrett Nussmeier and Jaxson Dart: we’ve seen him do it before at a high level. We saw that again this weekend.
Beck was not shy to push the ball down the field and he connected at a consistent rate. In Saturday’s upset win, Beck was 1-of-2 on deep balls, 5-of-7 on intermediate throws along the boundary, and 8-of-11 on intermediate throws over the middle. This was without a doubt his best game of the season.
Can he build on it?
Jalen Milroe, Alabama vs. Mercer
I always get a chuckle out of Alabama’s late-season FCS scheduled game every year. Most teams put those games at the front of their schedule, but not the Crimson Tide.
And it went as expected as Milroe tallied three total touchdowns and was on the bench by the start of the fourth quarter for the backups to get some playing time.
For Milroe, however, it was an opportunity to get his eyes right as a passer, back to where they were early in the season. He had a tough stretch against Tennessee and South Carolina, and even a week ago against LSU, his legs put the Tigers to rest early where he didn’t have to do much with his arm but stay on schedule.
In this game against Mercer, Milroe took the liberty to let the football fly. His first deep ball of the game was a dime that slipped through the hands of his receiver down the hashes, but he did connect on two other deep shots in this game. Milroe finished on-target on 3-of-5 looks when pushing the football deep down the field. He was 2-of-2 throwing outside the numbers as well.
Then he did the usual damage with his legs as well. Good luck bringing down the 6-foot-1 and 220-pound quarterback who has the eyes and explosiveness of a running back.
Closing the season against two SEC opponents (Oklahoma and rival Auburn), let’s see Milroe play with fast, effective eyes as a passer before potentially getting to the SEC Championship game and College Football Playoffs.
Garrett Nussmeier, LSU vs. Florida
Get ready to learn “back to school.”
And even then it could get murky for LSU Garrett Nussmeier as they are bringing in the No. 1 overall recruit in the nation, Bryce Underwood, next season. If Nussmeier goes back to school and has a three-game stretch like this, if he has a one-game stretch like this, the fanbase and national audience is going to be clamoring for Underwood.
Nussmeier is a carbon copy of Mac Jones.
He’s a fine passer until you speed up his process or force him to work from behind the sticks or off-schedule. There are no athletic traits present to overcome when structure breaks down, and his arm falters when he pushes the football deep down the field or toward the boundary.
Nussmeier is quite literally the worst deep ball thrower in the class. He was on-target on just 2-of-5 deep shots against Florida in LSU’s third straight loss, bringing his on-target percentage down the field to an abysmal 32 percent on the season.
Quinn Ewers, Texas vs. Arkansas
I’ve said my piece on Quinn Ewers. Texas will not be a competitive team for a national championship until they bench the senior quarterback for Arch Manning.
Ewers continues to be petrified to make a mistake, opting to check the football down ad nauseam, and is incredibly off-target when he does take a rare shot. This allowed Arkansas to hang around in this football game and even make a late push to threaten the Longhorns.
Throwing the football 25 yards or deeper five times against the Razorbacks, Ewers was not on-target on a single one of them. Not one. This has been a common theme all season long as he has been on-target on just 33 percent of deep shots taken.
Per usual, 17 of his chartable 30 throws came within five yards of the line of scrimmage with nine of them being thrown behind it. It’s getting extraordinarily difficult to justify using a draft pick on Ewers, let alone an early one at this point.