Top-10 players outside of the Power Five conferences
By Robert Judin
5. Matt Johnson – QB, Bowling Green
He may have the most generic, vanilla name name on this list, but Matt Johnson has been putting up real-deal numbers for a while.
Bowling Green isn’t exactly known for producing big-time talent when it comes to the NFL. I mean, Shaun Suisham is the most notable name playing right now to come out of Bowling Green.
But the demand for quarterbacks will never die down. Johnson put together a stud-like season as a sophomore in 2013. He threw for 3,467 yards and 25 touchdowns with only seven interceptions, and he completed about 64 percent of his passes. Yeah, that’s the kind of efficiency you want from a quarterback.
Okay, so he suffered a setback in his junior season when a hip injury ended his year one game into the 2014 season.
But so far in 2015, Johnson has been kicking ass and taking names. He started the 2015 season by leading all of college football in passing yards with 1,358 through three games. During the stretch, he threw for 12 touchdowns and only one interception. That’s an average of one touchdown for every 12 pass attempts (148 total). Oh, in case you were wondering, he also completed 61.5 percent of those passes.
The guy is a flat-out gunslinger and will continue to hurl touchdowns … as long as he remains healthy. He’s a little smaller than most NFL teams would like a quarterback to be (6-foot, 220 lbs), but the whole Russell Wilson/Drew Brees thing could happen to him, right? Isn’t that the mentality he needs to take — why not him?
Next: No. 4 Gunner Kiel