On the College GameDay Podcast, ESPN’s Rece Davis and Pete Thamel each counted down their list of the top five quarterbacks for the upcoming college football season.
As Davis noted, their rankings are not based on No. 1 NFL Draft pick potential, but rather who they think “will have the best seasons, the most impactful seasons for their teams as a college quarterback for this upcoming season.”
With that said, Davis ranked Clemson’s Cade Klubnik at No. 3, based on the season Davis thinks Klubnik will have and the impact Davis expects Klubnik to have on the Tigers this year.
“At No. 3, I’m going to go with the quarterback for my preseason No. 1 team in the country, Cade Klubnik,” Davis said. “Now, the one thing I want to see from Klubnik is to throw the ball down the field a little bit more, and I think they’re going to be able to do that with the improvements that they’ve made at receiver. Now, he put up big numbers last year. 36 touchdowns, six interceptions. Really showed up in the playoff game against Texas. Rallied Clemson in that game, got them back in it.
“He’s still young, man. I think we forget – I think he’s only 21 years old. So, some of the guys you see that are getting into their senior year of college football, as Klubnik will be, are a little bit older.”
Although Davis ranked Klubnik as his No. 3 QB, Davis admitted he still has “a little skepticism” about the former five-star prospect from Texas.
“I think because of his recruiting story, the expectations were high, and I will admit that I was one of the guys going for a couple years, ‘I’m not sure I see it.’ I have a little skepticism – I’m not going to lie – a little skepticism,” Davis said.
“But I’m banking on physical maturity, growing into the body, maybe a hint of arm strength here and there. We know he can run. We know he’s a competitor. Tone down some of that recklessness, some of the things that [Arizona State head coach] Kenny Dillingham was talking about with [ASU QB] Sam Leavitt – playing the boom box at the right volume, not being reckless with the football. If Klubnik does that and if his receivers mature — some of those young receivers, a couple of them that Clemson played a lot, especially last year – [if] they mature, I’m going to go Klubnik No. 3.”
Meanwhile, Klubnik came in at No. 1 on Thamel’s list of the top five quarterbacks for the 2025 campaign.
Thamel ranked Klubnik ahead of LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier, who landed at No. 2 in Thamel’s ranking, as well as Davis’s ranking.
Of course, Klubnik and Nussmeier will face off in the highly anticipated Week 1 showdown between Clemson and LSU at Memorial Stadium on Aug. 30 (7:30 p.m., ABC).
“I’m going with Cade Klubnik as my top quarterback, and it’s for the very reason that I don’t have [Texas’s] Arch Manning on the list – it is production. Production, production, production,” Thamel said. “He has consistently produced, he has consistently improved, and what a fascinating, fascinating opening weekend. … I would love to be at Clemson to see LSU roll in there. What a game. The amount of NFL talent on that field, on both sides of the ball, is going to be amazing.
“And I think the lesson of Cade Klubnik – you mentioned some of your lack of patience with his development at times – is that development comes at different paces. … I’m a big believer in starts and development, and I think Cade Klubnik is going to ace the test this year, and I think this is a high-end Clemson team. They finally have a decent receiving corps. They went through like a six-year drought at that position where it was pedestrian, to be kind, compared to what it had been. They had set the standard so high and kind of failed to get there. So, I feel really bullish on Cade.”
Back in April, fellow ESPN analyst Greg McElroy also ranked Klubnik at No. 1 on his list of the top 10 college football QBs entering the upcoming season.
As a junior last season, Klubnik completed 63.4 percent of his passes for 3,639 yards and 36 touchdowns with six interceptions, while rushing for 463 yards and seven more scores on the ground.
Klubnik was one of two quarterbacks in the country to throw for more than 3,500 yards and run for 400 last season. Klubnik also finished second nationally in total touchdowns with 43. He was third nationally in touchdown passes with 36, and his six interceptions were second fewest among quarterbacks who threw 28 or more touchdown passes in 2024.
You can see Davis and Thamel’s top 5 QBs for the 2025 college football season below, and hear their commentary on each of those signal-callers in the following video, beginning at the 36:19 mark.
Rece Davis’s Top 5 QBs
No. 5 – Louisville’s Miller Moss
No. 4 – South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers
No. 3 – Clemson’s Cade Klubnik
No. 2 – LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier
No. 1 – Texas’s Arch Manning
Pete Thamel’s Top 5 QBs
No. 5 – South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers
No. 4 – Arizona State’s Sam Leavitt
No. 3 – Penn State’s Drew Allar
No. 2 – LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier
No. 1 – Clemson’s Cade Klubnik