It’s the year of the quarterback in college football. With the season just days away, you know of guys like USC’s Sam Darnold, UCLA’s Josh Rosen, Alabama’s Jalen Hurts and Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield. But, as always, there are a lot of fairly new faces starting at programs around the country.

Here’s your chance to get familiar with some of the new starting quarterbacks you’ll see over the next two weeks. This list doesn’t include transfers, so if you’re looking to figure out which quarterbacks are in new places, we suggest you look at our post about impact transfers from earlier in the summer.

By Nick Bromberg and Sam Cooper

KNOWN STARTERS

• Zach Abey, Navy

Abey became Navy’s third starting quarterback in 2016. Will Worth took over the starting job after Tago Smith was lost for the season during the first game of the year. Then after Worth went down, Abey stepped in and started vs. Army and Louisiana Tech.

Those two games turned out to be losses for the Midshipmen. While Navy has a lot of turnover on offense, a whole offseason of starting reps should go a long way to making Abey another productive quarterback. He scored six rushing touchdowns in 2016. He just needs to not throw an interception every nine passes.

• Kelly Bryant, Clemson

Bryant takes over as the very likely starter for now-Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson. Bryant beat out Hunter Johnson and Zerrick Cooper for the job and doesn’t have to be as excellent as Watson was over the past two years.

Will Clemson’s chances improve if Bryant is Watson 2.0? Absolutely. But with four offensive line starters returning and Tavian Feaster at running back — he averaged six yards a carry in 2016 — he doesn’t have to be spectacular. He merely has to be efficient. And we think he can do that. Bryant can be a boon to Clemson’s title hopes, but he’s not going to be a drag on them either.

• Chayce Crouch – Illinois

Illinois fans got a small taste of what Chayce Crouch can do last year, when he played in four games with one start before going down with an injury. Before the season, coach Lovie Smith flat out stated that Crouch would be the guy when 2017 begins. Crouch threw for only 249 yards last season, but showed he is a true dual-threat by racking up 137 yards and two touchdowns rushing against Purdue.

Crouch will receive a boost in 2017 with the return of wideout Mike Dudek, his roommate. Dudek caught 76 passes in 2014 as a true freshman but missed the last two seasons with ACL tears. Smith declared Dudek “100 percent healthy” at Media Days last month. Crouch and Dudek should be a tough duo to contain in the Big Ten West.

• Tyler Huntley, Utah

Huntley’s elevation to the starting role over captain Troy Williams is one of the surprises of preseason quarterback competitions. Williams was seemingly entrenched as the starter for the Utes and said he felt like he had a great camp.

Enter Huntley, a talented sophomore who threw just seven passes last season and was a three-star prospect in the class of 2016.

He’ll need to be more efficient than Williams was in 2016. Williams completed less than 54 percent of his passes a year ago and that was with the benefit of running back Joe Williams running for over 1,400 yards. The running back named Williams is gone too, and Zack Moss and Armand Shyne will take over the primary running duties. With just three senior starters on offense, Utah is clearly playing for the future and the present at the same time.

• Josh Jackson, Virginia Tech

Jackson emerged from a three-way competition to be named Virginia Tech’s starting QB. He was in the same recruiting class as Huntley and was ranked two spots ahead of the new Utah QB in Rivals’ 2016 dual-threat quarterback rankings.

Jackson will serve as a good barometer of second-year coach Justin Fuente’s system. After moving from Memphis, where he had a strong offense with a quarterback named Paxton Lynch, Fuente was able to rely on QB Jerod Evans and WR Isaiah Ford in 2016.

They’re both gone. A much stronger running game from VT’s running backs will go a long way to easing Jackson’s transition into the offense. Evans served as the Hokies’ leading rusher last season, accounting for a third of the team’s rushing total.

• Jake Luton, Oregon State

The Pac-12 North is one of the deepest divisions in college football. It’s hard to make headway when you’ve got Oregon, Stanford, Washington and Washington State on your schedule. But Luton, a junior college transfer, should provide a spark to Oregon State’s pass game. And that spark could be good enough to get the Beavers to 6-6.

Story continues