Have Indiana, Miami reshaped college football’s QB philosophy with portal wins?

The College Football Playoff semifinals featured four teams with transfer quarterbacks.

It’s an interesting fact. It’s also a coincidence. Sometimes that’s just how the statistics work in a sport where more than 60% of Power Four starters in 2025 were former transfers.

But if you pull back a little, you can see a trend forming.

Indiana, Miami, Ole Miss and Oregon all started transfer quarterbacks this season. They did the same in 2024. They’ll do it again in 2026, each program spending heavily either to retain a transfer starter or to secure a premium portal replacement.

Five of the last six quarterbacks to start a national championship game were transfers. Of the last 12 semifinalists, more than half turned to a transfer starter the following season.

So, is this the start of a new tendency where the best teams will choose proven transfers over the model of recruiting and developing blue-chip quarterbacks from high school?  

This is what we can learn from Indiana and Miami’s quarterback strategies and what it may mean for the rest of the sport.

Indiana, Miami’s path to quarterbacks

Curt Cignetti’s quarterback blueprint came into focus almost immediately. His first major non-James Madison transfer was Kurtis Rourke, a veteran who fit the profile of what Cignetti seems to covet in quarterbacks.  

Rourke brought experience, immense production as a former MAC Offensive Player of the Year, high-level accuracy (69.1% CMP rate in 2022) and the quick processing required for success in Cignetti’s RPO-heavy system.

It worked out. Indiana reached the playoff. Rourke was drafted.

Cignetti followed the same logic with Fernando Mendoza. A two-year starter at California with legitimate NFL traits, Mendoza was identified as the passer capable of elevating Indiana even further.

He delivered: A Heisman Trophy, national championship and likely No. 1 overall pick.

What did Indiana do as a follow-up? It went out and got another proven, multi-year starter.

The Hoosiers took Josh Hoover from TCU. Hoover is a three-year starter with 9,629 career passing yards and 71 touchdowns. He fits the same quick-processing, quick-release-style as those that came before him in Bloomington.

By adding Hoover, Cignetti minimized risk and all but ensured Indiana would again field an elite offense.

It also clarified Indiana’s broader quarterback philosophy.

The Hoosiers opted not elevate the team’s 2025 backup, Alberto Mendoza, as the team’s starter moving forward. Third-year sophomore Tyler Cherry — a big four-star flip for Cignetti’s staff down the stretch of the 2024 cycle — will spend at least another year waiting his turn. Indiana’s 2025 quarterback take, Jacob Bell, ranked as the No. 86 quarterback in the country. The Hoosiers didn’t even take a high school passer in 2026, and their 2027 QB take, Jameson Purcell, is good but isn’t considered a lock to even be an Elite 11 selection.

One transfer take at quarterback is considered a bridge. Three straight transfers, with no obvious end to the strategy in sight? It’s clearly the way Cignetti wants to build his roster while Indiana’s contending window remains open.

Miami’s had a much more chaotic path transfer portal path the last three cycles. The result was identical: An elite quarterback passing through Coral Gables for a season.

The Hurricanes moved off the homegrown trio of Tyler Van Dyke, Emory Williams and Jacurri Brown after the 2023 season to chase Cam Ward, who flirted with the NFL Draft before landing at Miami.

He eventually became the No. 1 overall pick a year later.  

Miami did it again the next offseason. Despite keeping Williams on the roster, the Hurricanes pulled Carson Beck out of the draft for a sixth collegiate season.

Beck delivered the best season of his career and led Miami to the national championship game.

Then the Hurricanes passed on Williams again. This time they managed to get Darian Mensah at the buzzer of the 2026 portal window — at least once Mensah freed himself from a lawsuit Duke had filed against him.

Mensah finished the 2025 season second nationally in passing yards and touchdowns. He represents the safest bet to keep Miami’s offense operating at an elite level.

Like Indiana, the Hurricanes haven’t really made any high-profile QB swings out of high school. They signed the nation’s No. 53 signal caller, Judd Anderson, in the 2024 class. Miami nabbed four-star passer Luke Nickel, the No. 16 QB, from the 2025 class. The 2026 cycle saw the Hurricanes land Dereon Coleman, a three-star passer and the No. 23 QB in the country.

Have Indiana and Miami made a run or two at top high school passers? Sure. The Hoosiers were a surprising factor in Julian Lewis’ recruitment for a time while Miami had Husan Longstreet on campus for a junior day.

Mostly, the two teams have shown a comfort and willingness to avoid fistfights for blue-chip high school quarterbacks and instead targeting someone in portal season.

Advantages of a portal-first strategy

Five of the last six national championship participants started a transfer the following season. The only exception was Michigan.

The 2023 title winners had a huge question at quarterback in the post-JJ McCarthy era. Due to several factors — cost, timing, Jim Harbaugh’s departure — the Wolverines opted to stand pat and move forward with a quarterback room fronted by a combination of Alex Orji and former walk-on Davis Warren.

It was a disaster.

Michigan stumbled to 8-5 with the worst passing offense in the Power Four.

It’s an extreme example, but a revealing one. When a program lacks conviction at quarterback and gambles on development instead of certainty, the downside is enormous.

Indiana and Miami have chosen a different approach: They reduce risk via the portal.

The Hoosiers could have tabbed Alberto Mendoza as their 2026 starter. But if they didn’t have conviction in him as a championship QB after years of practice reps, what would make them think it’ll change once he’s QB1? Same with Williams and Miami.

It makes sense. The cost for a top-level transfer quarterback pushed above $4 million this cycle. Even an average Power Four starter costs $1.5M-plus. Mensah, after his settlement, likely cost Miami considerably more.

But missing at quarterback is even more expensive. For programs with championship-caliber rosters, paying a premium for guaranteed production is often a rational use of funds.

If Georgia Tech is paying, on average, $1.5 million for unproven production, isn’t investing an extra million or two for guaranteed production worth it?

That’s especially so when you consider the alternative of betting on a blue-chip quarterback out of high school. Five-star quarterbacks especially require a huge upfront investment despite being unfinished products.

The 2023 five-star quarterback class illustrates that volatility. Arch Manning paid off for Texas. Jackson Arnold (Oklahoma) and Malachi Nelson (USC) did not. Nico Iamaleava (Tennessee) and Dante Moore (UCLA) developed into excellent college passers, but both left their initial schools within two seasons.

All five programs invested heavily to land a five-star recruit. Only one benefitted for the course of their career. 

That trend carried forward to the 2024 cycle. None of the three five-star quarterbacks from that crop remain at their initial school. One (Longstreet) of the four five-stars from the 2025 cycle has already transferred after a single season.

By embracing the transfer model, programs like Indiana and Miami eliminate much of that long-term uncertainty.

Have Indiana, Miami created a new model?

Probably not.

There are simply too few elite quarterbacks in the portal each offseason for most programs to rely on it annually. Even Miami nearly whiffed in 2026 after missing on Sam Leavitt and Demond Williams Jr. before Mensah entered late.

Landing elite transfers requires money, timing and a clear path to success.

Wisconsin is a clear example of the downside of relying on that model. The Badgers have been in a tailspin under Luke Fickell because of their inability to find the right transfer quarterback. They’re on the fourth in four seasons, this time turning to Old Dominion’s Colton Joseph — a dynamic dual-threat with questionable passing traits — to save Fickell’s job.

For a program like Wisconsin, a developed high school quarterback would provide stability the portal often cannot.

That remains true across the sport.

Think of the momentum someone like Malik Washington at Maryland or Cal’s Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele — yes, he’s technically a transfer but was also a long-time Cal commit — created for those programs in 2025. They were excellent as true freshmen and provide building blocks for the program moving forward. Both were top-100 recruits and well worth the effort for both schools to land.

You can find examples like that across the country. Minnesota is thrilled to have Drake Lindsey after his strong redshirt freshman season. They had a one-year transfer bridge in 2024 (Max Brosmer) but saw enough from Lindsey that season as a backup to make him the guy. Now, they’re going to get multiple years of starters reps from one of the better QBs in the Big Ten. Noah Fifita continues to be one of college football’s best passers at Arizona. Texas A&M is happy with Marcel Reed, a high-upside four-star recruit who’s developed into of the best quarterbacks in the FBS.

None of those players were obvious five-star, no-doubt recruits. But each program saw traits they liked in those players as underclassmen and let them grow into impact players who, overall, are cheaper than having to go out and pay a premium for a player in the portal.

Elite programs still want those five-star quarterbacks, too.

Michigan paid Bryce Underwood more than $2 million a year out of high school, because he offered both immediate relief for the program and long-term, face-of-the-program upside.

Ohio State signed Tavien St. Clair even though it knew Julian Sayin would start in 2025 and 2026. St. Clair isn’t cheap. He is, however, a likely successor to Sayin and comes with an upside few other passers provide. Even Tennessee, so recently burned by Iamaleava, signed Faizon Brandon in the 2026 class. He’s a promise of stability instead of portal turbulence.

Transfer quarterbacks offer a high floor. But they also carry annual risk. Sometimes the quarterback you need isn’t there or you bet wrong and lose a player who could have been a star in your system.  

The pursuit of blue-chip passers out of high school comes with its own issues. When it works, however, it WORKS. It’s an answer to the most important question on your roster for years.

Undoubtedly, programs like Indiana and Miami will continue to dive headfirst into the portal to find answers at quarterback. The incentives are obvious.

Eventually, however, both will turn inward for a quarterback. Having a multi-year answer at the position and saving money in the process is too much of a value to ignore.