These five under-the-radar college football transfer QBs could be poised for instant impact in 2025 season

Every college football team in the transfer quarterback market is looking for their version of an automatic fit. Joe Burrow’s second year at LSU, Baker Mayfield at Oklahoma or even Cam Ward at Miami last season show the ceiling of what a signal caller from another program can bring when dropped into surroundings that are poised for success. 

It’s hard to see anyone in this transfer portal class having that impact right now, but portal production can come from unlikely places. Projecting Ward’s success was easy last year; he was dropped into an offense with a solid offensive line and great skill players around him (Damien Martinez, Jacolby George, and Xavier Restrepo), but who would have thought last February that former Ohio State backup Kyle McCord would lead the nation’s most prolific passing attack at Syracuse under a first year head coach? 

Maybe you can’t always see the forest through the trees, but here are five under-the-radar transfer QBs to watch in the 2025 college football season.

Mendoza threw for 3,000 yards in just 11 games at Cal and joins an Indiana team coming off its best season in school history piloted by Kurtis Rourke (who transferred in from Ohio). Former Notre Dame center Pat Coogan is set to be the captain of the offensive line, which is a positive, and Mendoza gets exceptional wide receiver Elijah Sarratt back from last year’s team. Don’t regard the Hoosiers as simply a flash in the pan.

Before he was embroiled in one of the oddest NIL situations of the player compensation era, Sluka rushed for over 3,000 yards at the FCS level for JMU coach Bob Chesney and offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy while all three were together at Holy Cross. Now they’re reunited. Sluka has also shown that he can produce at the FBS level primarily as a runner. Although his time was limited, he rushed for 124 yards against Kansas in a September win over the Jayhawks. Sluka’s passing will need to get better, but he could perform in a run-first system at the Sun Belt level, and it’s hard to imagine there won’t be some place in the offense for him. But it remains to be seen how the James Madison QB race will shake out. With Alonza Barnett still recovering from a knee injury suffered in the regular season finale and FCS transfer Camden Coleman in from Richmond, the picture is murky behind center for the Dukes. 

Stone was replaced by Kevin Jennings last season at SMU, but the year before that he led the Mustangs to the conference title. Now Stone joins a Wildcats offense that was one of the nation’s worst in David Braun’s second year as coach. But Stone will team up with one of the most interesting transfer receivers in the nation: former South Dakota State wideout Griffin Wilde, whose 1,147 yards were seventh-most for any wideout in the FCS last season. Their connection will raise the offensive output by default in Evanston. 

With Jeff Brohm at the controls of the offense and electric wideout Caullin Lacey back in the fold, there’s a cause for optimism that Moss can be the QB he showed early in his time at USC, but he must iron out the mistakes that led to him being benched in November by Lincoln Riley. 

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: if Iowa just had a little bit of offense … We know the Hawkeyes won’t beat themselves, and we know they’ll be solid on defense and special teams, but what we never know is when exactly they’ll have a pulse on the offensive side of the ball. Cade McNamara wasn’t able to bring it as a transfer last year, but perhaps Gronowski, arguably the best QB in FCS and a legitimate NFL Draft prospect, can finally get them the offensive output they need to execute Kirk Ferentz’s complimentary football vision.