Bianchi: State of uncertainty? Football in Florida has a quarterback quandary

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As that noted football analyst William Shakespeare famously wondered some six centuries ago:

QB or not QB? That is the question.

OK, perhaps Shakespeare phrased it a little differently.

But if the Bard were previewing the 2026 football season in Florida, he wouldn’t need Hamlet. He’d need a depth chart.

From campuses in Gainesville to Tallahassee and Orlando to Coral Gables and from NFL offices in Jacksonville, Tampa and Miami, virtually every major football team in the state enters this season confronting some variation of the same existential question:

Do we have the right quarterback?

Which is particularly remarkable because Florida has rarely suffered from a shortage of them.

Seven Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks have played college football in this state: Steve Spurrier, Danny Wuerffel, Tim Tebow, Charlie Ward, Chris Weinke, Jameis Winston and Gino Torretta.

Dan Marino once zinged footballs through the South Florida humidity. Mark Brunell turned the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars into contenders almost overnight. Tom Brady came to Tampa at 43 and somehow added another Lombardi Trophy to his collection.

In Florida, quarterback has never merely been a position.

It has been mythology.

And in 2026, everybody is looking for the next hero.

Let’s start in Gainesville, where quarterback isn’t merely a job; it’s an inheritance.

This is Spurrier’s school. Wuerffel’s school. Tebow’s school. Florida quarterbacks once became celebrities, champions and, occasionally, statues.

Lately, they’ve mostly become mysteries.

Anthony Richardson possessed almost extraterrestrial talent but maddening inconsistency. DJ Lagway arrived carrying five-star expectations and produced tantalizing brilliance mixed with costly mistakes before leaving for Baylor.

Now new coach Jon Sumrall inherits the debris from four dreary Billy Napier seasons and the burden of rediscovering the swagger that once made Gainesville quarterback royalty.

Georgia Tech transfer Aaron Philo won the starting job because he followed new offensive coordinator Buster Faulker from Georgia Tech and brings familiarity with Faulkner’s exotic hybrid system. Meanwhile, Tramell Jones Jr. battled Philo for the starting job and offers intriguing upside should Philo falter.

Nobody is confusing either of them with Tebow. Then again, Florida doesn’t need another legend, but does desperately need somebody capable of making the quarterback feel important again.

Because in The Swamp, competence has never been the standard.

The Gators don’t need just another quarterback.

They need somebody who makes them believe again.

A couple hundred miles northwest, Florida State needs something even more urgent:

A quarterback who might save his coach’s job.

The Seminoles haven’t really been the same since QB Jordan Travis broke his leg late in that magical 2023 season. Neither has coach Mike Norvell.

Three years ago, FSU was undefeated, Travis was its heartbeat and Norvell appeared to have resurrected one of college football’s great empires. Since Travis disappeared from the huddle, that empire has crumbled like it had been built on his shoulders all along.

Now Norvell enters 2026 firmly on the hot seat, entrusting his future to another transfer quarterback.

Ashton Daniels isn’t merely FSU’s new starter.

He might be Norvell’s last lifeline.

The Auburn transfer brings experience and athleticism, but also uncertainty. His career numbers –  24 touchdown passes against 22 interceptions – hardly scream program savior.

But Norvell doesn’t need Daniels to become Jordan Travis. He needs him to restore what disappeared with Travis: confidence, consistency and the feeling that when Florida State has the football, something good is supposed to happen.

DJ Uiagalelei couldn’t restore it. Thomas Castellanos couldn’t either.

Now Daniels becomes the third consecutive first-year transfer trying to solve a quarterback problem that increasingly looks like something much bigger.

If Daniels flourishes, he might pull Florida State from the abyss of irrelevance.

If he doesn’t, Norvell may discover the cruelest truth about quarterback problems:

Eventually, they become the coach’s death knell.

At UCF, the problem has been different.

For years, the Knights have treated quarterback less like a position and more like an emergency room.

Ever since Dillon Gabriel’s early days in Orlando, UCF has not gone through a full season with a healthy quarterback. Consequently, they’ve had some intriguing talent that they could never really count on and have cycled through quarterbacks searching for the stability that once seemed woven into the program’s DNA.

During the Knights’ glory years under coach Scott Frost and QB Josh Heupel, quarterback was where the fireworks began. Now Frost, entering the second season of his Orlando homecoming, is betting James Madison transfer Alonza Barnett III can light the fuse again.

Barnett is no portal lottery ticket. He arrives as a proven winner who led James Madison to the College Football Playoff last season. More importantly, he knows how to command a winning football team.

UCF doesn’t need another quarterback who looks exciting in September and disappears through injury or ineffectiveness by November. It needs somebody who owns the position.

There is delicious symmetry here: Barnett grew up admiring McKenzie Milton, the quarterback who made Frost’s first UCF tenure magical. Now Milton is Barnett’s position coach.

Barnett’s mission is to restore what Milton represented: panache, confidence, leadership and the expectation that an offense once known as UCFast will once again leave defenses gasping and scoreboards smoking.

Meanwhile, Miami’s new quarterback inherits an entirely different burden.

National championship or bust.

Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal is once again adhering to his tried-and-true plan:

Rent an elite quarterback.

Win big.

Repeat.

Cam Ward arrived through the transfer portal and transformed himself into the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft. Then Carson Beck came from Georgia and took the Hurricanes somewhere they hadn’t been in more than two decades: the national championship game.

Now Miami has gone shopping again.

Enter Darian Mensah.

And subtle, this was not.

Mensah’s messy departure from Duke became one of the portal’s great dramas, including a lawsuit over his NIL agreement before a settlement cleared his path to Coral Gables.

Apparently Miami believes controversy is a reasonable cover charge for another potential jackpot.

The attraction is obvious. Mensah threw for 3,973 yards and 34 touchdowns against only six interceptions last season. He isn’t being asked to rescue Miami because Ward already did that.

Mensah is being asked to keep the resurrection rolling — and take it one victory further.

Ward raised expectations.

Beck raised them again.

Mensah’s assignment is brutally simple:

Finish the job.

Now let’s head to the NFL, where Jacksonville spent years waiting for Trevor Lawrence to resemble the generational quarterback the Jaguars thought they were drafting at No. 1.

Last season, he finally did.

The tantalizing flashes became something more convincing. Lawrence played with the authority and command Jacksonville envisioned from the beginning. Now comes the harder part:

Do it again — and perhaps take the Jaguars all the way to the Super Bowl.

Jacksonville has paid Lawrence like a franchise-altering quarterback, built around him and attached its championship aspirations to his right arm.

Last season raised the Jaguars’ ceiling. This season, Lawrence has to live there.

The Jaguars don’t need T-Law to prove he’s talented anymore.

They need him to become terrifying.

Meanwhile, in Tampa, Baker Mayfield isn’t terrifying as he enters the 2026 season; he’s furious.

Tampa Bay spent three years telling Mayfield he was the face of the franchise. Now the Bucs are asking him to prove it – AGAIN!

Mayfield wanted the security of a contract extension this offseason. He didn’t get it. Instead, the quarterback who resurrected his career in Tampa enters 2026 accompanied by something he knows intimately:

Doubt.

Mayfield has provided stability at football’s most unstable position and become the emotional engine of the franchise. Yet when it came time to extend the marriage, Tampa Bay blinked.

Perhaps that’s prudent business, but there is danger in making Mayfield feel unwanted. And let’s face it, his entire career has become a rebuttal to people who stopped believing in him. Cleveland moved on. Carolina discarded him. The Rams provided temporary shelter.

Tampa finally gave him a home, but now the Bucs have given him something else:

A grievance.

And nobody has ever needed much gasoline to light Baker Mayfield’s fire.

Which brings us to Miami, where the Dolphins didn’t simply move on from Tua Tagovailoa. They paid a fortune to make him disappear.

Miami swallowed nearly $100 million in dead money to escape the quarterback it once believed would define its future.

Then the Dolphins made their $99 million confession: Whatever Malik Willis might be was more appealing than what Tua had become.

Willis arrives after serving as Green Bay’s backup, bringing tantalizing athleticism, a dangerous pair of legs and just enough improvement as a passer to make Miami wonder whether the quarterback Tennessee gave up on might finally become an NFL star.

It is an enormous gamble.

Four years into his career, Willis has started only six games. Miami is asking a remarkably small résumé to carry a remarkably large burden.

If he blossoms, the Dolphins will look visionary. If he fails, they will have paid $45 million in guaranteed money merely to exchange one quarterback question for another.

And maybe that is the perfect metaphor for football in Florida in 2026.

Mensah is trying to finish Miami’s championship climb. Daniels is trying to save Norvell’s job. Barnett is trying to restore UCF’s swagger. Florida is searching for its next worthy heir. Lawrence is trying to become elite. Mayfield is playing angry. Willis is playing for the opportunity of his football life.

Different quarterbacks.

Different pressures.

Our state is a pigskin peninsula that has spent generations producing quarterback legends.

In 2026, it has plenty of QB questions.

Now comes the Shakespearean part:

Who will provide the answers?

Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on social media @BianchiWrites and listen to my radio show “Game On” every weekday from 3 to 6 p.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen.

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