The first real week of college football is in the books, and six quarterbacks faced off against a power five opponent. Let’s see how they fared, ordered from most to least impressive on the week.

Gold: Darian Mensah – 79.35 (Elite)

Mensah put on a clinic against Stanford. Not only did he have more touchdowns than incompletions, he didn’t have a single rep below a two on our scoring scale. His first touchdown of the day scored a perfect 5 – Mensah got the ball out under heavy pressure well before his receiver broke away from coverage, and dropped the pass in the perfect spot for the touchdown. It was a near perfect performance for Mensah, and we don’t expect any other performance to reach this score for some time.

Silver: Dante Moore – 65.13 (Good)

Oregon kept its offense conservative early against Boise State and Moore took some time to heat up, with only one throw in the first half topping 3.5 on our scale. Things opened up for the Ducks in the second half and Moore was a big part of it, throwing for three touchdowns en route to a late win. If we call the first 20 plays simply getting into the groove of the season, Moore had an elite 73.33 score on the remaining plays of the game.

Bronze: Sam Leavitt – 64.39 (Good)

Leavitt’s day against Clemson is one that requires a healthy dose of context. Yes, LSU absolutely manhandled their opponent on its way to a dominant win in the biggest game of the weekend and Leavitt is a big reason why as the engine of LSU’s offense. However, his score was buoyed by his work on the ground as opposed to his passing, and many of his best throws came later in the second half when the game was out of hand. It’s only the first game in Lane Kiffin’s offense and there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about this season for LSU, but there is also certainly room for improvement for Leavitt.

Honorable Mention: CJ Carr – 63.39 (Good)

Carr narrowly missed out on the top three in Week 1 with a very even, steady performance against Wisconsin. Carr’s only negative play was his fumble, and none of his throws graded out higher than a 3.5 on our grading scale. Notre Dame didn’t ask him to do much, and Carr seemed to run the offense as the coaching staff intended with few mistakes or spectacular plays. A solid week 1, but NFL teams will want to see more if Carr is going to be a high pick in April.

Nico Iamaleava – 60.00 (Good)

Iamaleava had an on-brand day against Cal, showing off his high-end traits along with inconsistency that will definitely make teams wary of using a high pick. He threw a beautiful deep ball to get UCLA into field goal range late in the first half, but also had a bad interception and two fumbles on designed runs in the second half. With his size, arm, and athleticism, Iamaleava could realistically be the first overall pick in the 2027 draft, but he’ll need to clean up a lot of what we saw in week 1 to get there.

Trinidad Chambliss – 54.26 (Okay)

Similar to Leavitt, Chambliss’s grade requires substantial context, especially given that he was the only QB on the list with a ranked opponent this week (#24 Louisville). He was outright bad at times (especially in the first half) but like Leavitt, it was his first game with a new playcaller, and he found his stride in the second half. If we provide Chambliss the same grace as Dante Moore and score from the 30th play onward, his score down the stretch (play 30 through the end of the game) skyrockets to an elite 72.55. Given his age (25 on draft night) and size limitations (under 6 feet tall, around 200 pounds), Chambliss already has an uphill climb to being a high first round pick next April. If he remains inconsistent it’s unlikely he gets there, but if he looks the way he did in the second half for the rest of the year, he could very well be the Browns’ pick as the QB of the future.