Big Sky short on big-name QBs: 11 of 12 teams will start a new signal caller from last season
It was telling, perhaps, that when the Big Sky Conference sent out its preseason all-conference nominees, the quarterback group was hardly a who’s who of familiar names.
Just four players were named, and only one had significant starting experience at any program, let alone at his current. That player, Northern Arizona’s Ty Pennington, ultimately won the vote.
Pennington, a junior this season who won Big Sky Newcomer of the Year honors in 2024, threw for 2,288 yards and 13 touchdowns last season with the Lumberjacks and rushed for 437 yards and another seven scores.
But Pennington’s recognition as the league’s most accomplished passer heading into 2025 was notable because of what it said about the league this year and about how wide open the Big Sky appears to be, considering the uncertainty around who is going to play the game’s most important position for most of the league’s 12 teams.
The status was notable enough for league commissioner Tom Wistrcill to comment on it this summer during the Big Sky football meetings.
“The returners, you know, at quarterback aren’t really deep in our league,” he said in July. “Now, some stars are going to emerge that maybe we’re not thinking of, and hopefully we get a chance in Nashville (at the national championship game) to find a way to win.”
The turnover is in some ways natural. Tommy Mellott, the top player in the FCS a year ago who threw for 2,759 yards and ran for another 1,050 for Montana State last year, graduated and is now vying for a spot on the Las Vegas Raiders’ roster. Miles Hastings (UC Davis) and Kobe Tracy (Idaho State), the league’s top two passers by yardage, graduated as well.
But that next group, which could have been counted on to ascend to the top of the league statistically, includes a couple players who decided that they would take their talents to a different program. Carson Conklin, a 2,876-yard passer for Sacramento State last year as a redshirt freshman, transferred to Fresno State. Kekoa Visperas, with a year of eligibility left and coming off a 2,171-yard season, left Eastern Washington to play at Tennessee Tech.
Jack Layne, a redshirt sophomore starter last year at Idaho, followed head coach Jason Eck to New Mexico. He will be the Lobos’ starter.
Richie Munoz, who started all 12 games for Weber State as a sophomore last year and threw for 2,568 yards, transferred to Incarnate Word, Eastern Washington’s opening-game opponent.
The players who remain in the league, then, comprise a group that has some playing experience but come with a series of questions.
Jared Taylor, EWU’s senior starting quarterback, spent the last two seasons as a run-first complement to Visperas. He will get his chance to throw the ball like a No. 1 quarterback.
Keali’i Ah Yat may well be a favorite to start as a redshirt sophomore at Montana, but that position remains unsettled. Ah Yat has thrown for 1,392 yards in his career with the Grizzlies.
Idaho will start Joshua Wood, but the former Fresno State quarterback never started a game in three seasons for the Bulldogs.
Idaho State’s Jordan Cooke, a redshirt junior, has appeared in just two games for the Bengals. UC Davis starter Caden Pinnick is a redshirt freshman. Portland State sophomore Gabe Downing, the presumed starter, has appeared in just one game.
As of Aug. 22, the starter at Montana State, looking to replace Mellott, is uncertain. And the list of such uncertainties goes on.
Considering just how important the position is to a team’s success, it raises interesting questions about a program like Cal Poly, which looks ready to start Bo Kelly, a redshirt junior with 17 career appearances for the Mustangs. Could Kelly’s experience help lift the program back into Big Sky contention?
Perhaps the most intriguing player in the league, though, is Jaden Rashada. Once a four-star recruit, Rashada started his career at Arizona State, transferred to Georgia in 2024 and then moved again to Sacramento State this offseason.
His career at Pittsburg High School in California included throwing for 5,275 yards and 59 touchdowns as a junior and senior. But as a college player, he’s appeared in just three games. Whether he can live up to his recruiting pedigree is another question surrounding Sacramento State.
In the absence of many answers, the clearest conclusion about the Big Sky is this: Every team is one great quarterback away from relevance. It’s just unclear which quarterbacks will, in 2025, be great.