The 30 best college football quarterbacks of the 21st century

• 2X Heisman Trophy runner-up (2010, 2011)
• First-Team All-American (2010, 2011)
• Maxwell Award (2011), Walter Camp Award (2011)

Due to the 2012 NFL Draft, RG3 and Andrew Luck are always going to be linked. They were the top two quarterbacks in the class and had been seemingly dueling for the Heisman Trophy throughout the 2011 season. Luck has gone on to have a much more successful NFL career. However, the former Stanford Cardinal quarterback also edges out his peer in these rankings as well.

Luck won the starting job for Stanford in the 2009 season as a redshirt freshman and, though he wasn’t asked to do much with just 288 pass attempts on the year, he still showed promise with 2,575 yards, 13 touchdowns and only four interceptions on the year. Stanford went 8-5 that season but it was just the prequel to the main event for Luck’s career.

The following season, Luck’s last under Jim Harbaugh, the quarterback led his team to a 12-1 mark, an Orange Bowl win and a No. 4 final ranking. His production exploded to lead to that success, throwing for 3,338 yards, 32 touchdowns and eight interceptions on the year. However, he came up just short for the Heisman, losing out to Cam Newton.

In his final college season after returning for one more year in college, Luck as again phenomenal, throwing for 3,517 yards, 37 touchdowns and 10 interceptions while leading the Cardinal to an 11-2 overall record. Again, though, Luck missed out on the Heisman, finishing as runner-up a second time, this time behind the aforementioned Griffin III.

Ultimately, Luck may not have had the Heisman but his sustained production and team success give him the nod to kick off the top 10 of this list.