There are still four-plus months before the early signing period, and rankings will no doubt change. But one question has jumped out about the Class of 2027: Where are the elite quarterbacks?
For the first time since the Class of 2019, no quarterback ranks among the top 10 prospects nationally in the 247Sports Composite. And before several services shuffled their rankings earlier this week, no QB ranked inside the top 20.
That changed when Nebraska commit Trae Taylor jumped from No. 25 to No. 11 after some strong performances on the summer camp circuit. The No. 2 quarterback, five-star Alabama commit Elijah Haven, is ranked No. 22. The only other five-star QB prospect in the class, Miami commit Israel Abrams, sits at No. 33.
This is in stark contrast to previous recruiting classes.
QBs in the 247Sports Composite
Top 10Top 25Top 50
Class of 2027
0
2
3
Class of 2026
3
4
6
Class of 2025
3
4
6
Class of 2024
2
3
3
Class of 2023
4
5
5
Class of 2022
1
2
6
The last two cycles featured quarterbacks who ranked No. 1 overall in their respective class, Bryce Underwood (Michigan) in 2025 and Keisean Henderson (Houston) in 2026.
The 2023 cycle, notably, included four of the top eight national prospects: Arch Manning (No. 1, Texas), Nico Iamaleava (No. 3, Tennessee/UCLA), Dante Moore (No. 5, UCLA/Oregon) and Jackson Arnold (No. 8, Oklahoma/Auburn/UNLV).
Why the shift?
Brian Stumpf, who runs the Elite 11 quarterback camps, has an interesting theory: Some of the top quarterbacks in the ’27 class might be getting dinged because they are actually being seen too much.
“In just looking back through the last couple classes,” he said, “I know Arch, Nico Iamaleava, Bryce Underwood, there’s been a couple of guys — like one big-time guy in each of the previous classes — that chose not to compete at some of the high-profile events in the summer.
“And I think that can impact rankings from the standpoint of those guys stay away, and they don’t get — I don’t know if humanized is the right word — but people don’t see them in person and realize that they’re not robots or cyborgs. In some cases, the general recruiting media, if they don’t see them, they (might) just reference back to their early ranking.”
The Class of 2027 has been different in that regard. This year, all the top quarterbacks competed in both the Elite 11 Finals and The Opening, which returned after a seven-year hiatus. Recruiting analysts had ample opportunities to watch these prospects up close and, as Stumpf references, identify some of their flaws.
In Taylor’s case, competing at the Elite 11 — where he won the MVP — raised his profile and led to a bump in his ratings. Haven, meanwhile, dropped one spot, and Stumpf remains extremely bullish on the Louisiana native.
“I think he was probably the consensus No. 1 quarterback a couple months ago and, to his credit, he came out and competed straight out of basketball,” Stumpf said. “And he’s a human. He’s a 17-year-old kid. He’s going to make throws and miss throws, and the last three months is really the first time he’s ever done full-time quarterback stuff at all. He’s got all the tools in the world, he’s a great kid, he wants to learn and get better, but he’s not by any means a finished product.
“And so I’m sure some people might have seen that coming out of events, and does he get docked a little bit in the grand grading schemes? Probably. Whereas if he had stayed home, maybe would he be ranked slightly higher? That’s for those guys to answer.”
A Power 4 personnel staffer, who was granted anonymity because he is not authorized to speak about prospects publicly, said the Class of 2027 is “a down quarterback year, no question. Bad year.”
It’s not only a lack of elite talent at the top, but the group lacks the depth of the ’26 class that featured “Power 4-potential, high-caliber starters deep into the three-star swaths of QB prospects.”
The Class of 2028 “has a similar depth issue,” the staffer said, “though the top ’28s are better prospects than the ’27s, without question.”
The staffer wondered if the “obsession with very talented but traditionally mechanically unsound players who have been popular among young players” is hurting development.
Stumpf, who routinely evaluates the best quarterbacks in the country, said he doesn’t know if quarterback training has gotten better or worse, but that this generation of players may be missing out on crucial development because of the temptation to specialize in the sport from an early age.
“Some of the things that I’ve seen, particularly out here on the West Coast in the last four or five years, is guys that are stopping multi-sport participation earlier on in their process versus continuing to play baseball or continuing to play basketball,” he said.
“And I think some of those guys are losing a little bit of the natural athleticism that you really like to see at the position and stuff that you really like to see in guys like an Elijah Haven or some of the top guys in this class that are still playing multiple sports and how it’s paid off for them and shown up in their games.”
And as Stumpf notes, and as has become clear over the years, a quarterback’s ranking at 16 or 17 doesn’t mean much in the big picture.
The Class of 2019 — “everyone was saying it was the worst quarterback class in history,” Stumpf said — included only one QB in the top 30 (Spencer Rattler) and three in the top 60 (Bo Nix and Jayden Daniels were the other two) in the national rankings. Nix and Daniels are firmly entrenched as starters in the NFL, while Rattler started 14 games over the last two seasons with the Saints.
“I think the book is obviously yet to be written,” Stumpf said.
At least one Power 4 program isn’t concerned with where quarterbacks are currently ranked.
“Honestly, it’s not even something we think about,” he said. “I don’t know. I’ve never done a huge comparison on where the top quarterbacks ranked, but that is interesting.
“I would have to think that’s a little more of an anomaly.”