Grad transfer QBs who moved up a level

Arkansas landed its quarterback for the 2019 season Monday when SMU graduate transfer Ben Hicks announced his decision to play his final year with the Razorbacks.

The move reunites him with head coach Chad Morris and offensive coordinator Joe Craddock, who he played for his first three seasons with the Mustangs. After redshirting in 2015, Hicks started 24 of 25 games at SMU with Morris and Craddock calling plays.

Including the 2018 season, when he played for head coach Sonny Dykes, he threw for 9,081 yards and 71 touchdowns in his career, shattering the previous school records of 7,179 yards and 51 touchdowns.

However, Hicks completed only 56.7 percent of his passes and threw 34 interceptions, doing so at SMU of the American Athletic Conference. There is concern from some fans about the jump from that level to the SEC.

With that in mind, HawgBeat took a look back at several other graduate transfer quarterbacks who transitioned up a level in recent years to see how they fared…

Kolney Cassel: Sacramento State —> Hawaii

A three-star prospect coming out of Washington, Cassel originally signed with and spent two years at SMU. When June Jones was fired and replaced with Chad Morris, though, he decided to head back west and play at Sacramento State, an FCS program. Injuries limited Cassel to just 10 games in three seasons with the Hornets, so he was granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA. With the extra season, he gave the FBS level another shot as a graduate transfer walk-on at Hawaii in 2018. The Warriors were going back to the run-and-shoot offense, which Cassel learned at SMU, but he appeared in just one game and completed his lone pass for eight yards. Instead, redshirt sophomore Cole McDonald emerged as Hawaii’s starter and put up big numbers.

Jared Johnson: Sam Houston State —> UTSA

After three successful seasons at Sam Houston State and earning Southland Conference Offensive Player of the Year honors in 2015, Johnson decided to play his final season at the FBS level. He appeared in seven games for the Roadrunners, completing 41 of 75 passes (54.7 percent) for 564 yards, four touchdowns and one interception. Johnson served as incumbent starter Dalton Sturm’s backup the entire 2016 season.

Alex Thomson: Wagner —> Marshall

Thomson was a lightly recruited prospect and actually walked on at Wagner thanks to an academic scholarship, but evolved into a legitimate NFL prospect who has trained with Phil Simms. When he announced his decision to become a graduate transfer with two years of eligibility remaining last offseason, he was pursued by several Power Five programs. Tennessee made the biggest push, but Thomson ultimately turned down the blueshirt opportunity for a scholarship at Marshall. Limited during the preseason because of an injury, he appeared in just four games - all starts - and completed 53 of 100 passes for 506 yards, five touchdowns and three interceptions. He’ll have to battle Isaiah Green, who started the other nine games as a redshirt freshman last season, for the starting job in 2019.

Vernon Adams: Eastern Washington —> Oregon

Oregon made waves in the college football world when it dipped down into the FCS to find its replacement for Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota. Adams was a back-to-back runner-up for the Walter Payton Award, the FCS version of the Heisman Trophy, in 2013 and 2014 and then carried that success over to Oregon despite the large jump in level of play. He won the starting job after just a couple of weeks of practice, but had to battle injuries throughout the season that limited him to 10 games. Adams still managed to complete 64.9 percent of his passes for 2,643 yards, 26 touchdowns and six interceptions, leading the Ducks to a 7-3 record in his 10 starts.

Dakota Prukop: Montana State —> Oregon

With the Adams transfer working out well, Oregon tried to replicate it the next year with Prukop from Montana State. An FCS first-team All-American in 2015, things didn’t turn out quite as well for him with the Ducks. He won the starting job, but lost it after five games to true freshman Justin Herbert - now a top NFL prospect who recently chose to come back for his senior year. As for Prukop, he finished the season completing 65.7 percent of his passes for 1,214 yards, eight touchdowns and two interceptions.

Kurt Benkert: East Carolina —> Virginia

A torn ACL in fall camp kept Benkert from starting at East Carolina in 2015 and then he decided to follow his fired head coach, Ruffin McNeil, to Virginia, where McNeil was the defensive line coach. With two years of eligibility remaining, he became one of the Cavaliers’ best quarterbacks of all time. His 3,207 passing yards in 2017 and 455 passing yards against UConn that season are UVA single-season and single-game records. Benkert also ranks third in Virginia history with 5,759 career passing yards and 46 career touchdown passes.

Dru Brown: Hawaii —> Oklahoma State

Of the four G5-to-P5 graduate transfer quarterbacks I found, Brown is the only one who has yet to have success at his new school and the jury is still out on him. Although he arrived in Stillwater with only one year of playing eligibility, he did have a redshirt available and that’s what the Cowboys did with him in 2018 with redshirt senior and former walk-on Taylor Cornelius emerging as the No. 1 guy. Brown is expected to compete with redshirt freshman Spencer Sanders for the starting job next season. After beginning his career with one year at the JUCO level, he completed 62.0 percent of his passes for 5,273 yards, 37 touchdowns and 15 interceptions in two seasons as Hawaii’s starter.

Ryan Finley: Boise State —> NC State

Finley was a rare graduate transfer who actually had three years of eligibility remaining. Similar to Benkert, he followed one of his coaches to his new school, joining offensive coordinator Eliah Drinkwitz at North Carolina State, and it worked out great. In three seasons with the Wolfpack, he broke the school record for career completion percentage (64.5) and ranks second behind Philip Rivers in career passing yards (10,501) and third in career touchdown passes (60), behind Rivers and Russell Wilson. Finley will likely be one of the first five or six quarterbacks selected in the 2019 NFL Draft.

Gardner Minshew: East Carolina —> Washington State

Perhaps the biggest success story among the G5-to-P5 graduate transfer quarterbacks is Minshew, who played sparingly and put up decent-but-not-great numbers in two seasons at East Carolina before deciding to transfer. He was originally committed to Alabama, where he would be a backup quarterback and eventually a graduate assistant, until Mike Leach gave him a call and asked if he wanted to lead the country in passing. He finished 52 yards shy of Ohio State’s Dwayne Haskins for the most passing yards, but his 367.6 yards per game was the best in the nation. Minshew also completed 70.7 percent of his passes and threw 38 touchdowns to only nine interceptions, helping him finish fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting.