Week 8 of the 2024 college football season was a great time to be a quarterback in the Big 12 Conference, with multiple league members earning national praise for their performance.
Four Big 12 quarterbacks performed well enough to earn spots on Pro Football Focus‘ Week 8 list for the top 10 highest-graded quarterbacks.
Despite an underwhelming start this fall, Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels bounced back in a massive way. Daniels headlined all quarterbacks with a 91.0 PFF rating after tossing 247 yards through the air and three passing touchdowns. The dual-threat playmaker also added a fourth score of the day in the rushing attack with seven carries for 58 yards.
Daniels’ in-state rival and opponent in Week 9, Kansas State’s Avery Johnson, checked in two spots behind Daniels with the best passing game of his young career. In his eighth career start, Johnson decided up West Virginia’s defense by going 19-29 for 298 yards and three scores. His performance earned him an 88.4 PFF grade.
The lone undefeated Big 12 quarterback on the list was BYU’s Jake Retzlaff, who has been impressive in his first year as the full-time starter. On Saturday, Retzlaff led a game-winning drive to put his team up 38-35 with ten seconds to go. He earned an 87.2 PFF grade by going 13-26 with two touchdowns and two interceptions as well as 81 yards and a score on the ground.
The fourth and final Big 12 passer to earn praise on the list is Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week, Sawyer Robertson, who upset Texas Tech 59-35. Robertson had arguably the best performance of any signal-caller in the league in the Week 8 win, going 21-32 for 274 yards and five passing touchdowns. Despite the monster numbers, Robertson earned an 83.0 PFF grade, good for 10th place.
