“I don’t think this is entirely new to the conference,” U.S.C. Coach Steve Sarkisian said of the quarterback talent in the Pac-12. “But this happens to be one of those years, or even in the last couple of years, where the stars have really aligned.”

Image Marcus Mariota is a two-time first-team all-conference player. Credit... Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

Contrast can be found in the SEC, where Alabama, Georgia and Texas A&M — all ranked in the top 10 — entered the season with new quarterbacks. The SEC has dominated the sport nationally for years, mostly through advantages in its breadth and depth in talent. The Pac-12 may be catching up in overall talent, but a big part of its surge is an advantage at football’s most important position, particularly this year.

“It’s kind of too early to tell,” Washington State Coach Mike Leach said, “but they’ll remember this group and individuals in this group forever in the Pac-12.”

In June, when the ESPN analyst Mel Kiper Jr. ranked his top quarterback prospects for the 2015 N.F.L. draft, five of the top 11 were from the Pac-12. (Hogan was on the list; Kessler was not.) In July, when 39 quarterbacks were named to the “watch list” of the Davey O’Brien Award, given at season’s end to the nation’s top quarterback, the Pac-12 had eight players on the list. No other conference had more than five.

It is not entirely surprising. The combination of the West Coast’s warm weather and the Pac-12’s history of pass-happy offenses has always made for top quarterbacks. The difference is the timing — nearly every team has an experienced, quality quarterback, giving nearly every team hope that it can contend.

No quarterback garners more attention than No. 3 Oregon’s Marcus Mariota, a junior who has been a first-team all-conference player for his first two seasons. The Ducks (1-0) host No. 7 Michigan State (1-0) on Saturday, a sink-or-swim test for both teams’ national championship hopes and for Mariota’s Heisman prospects.