Is Bay Area king of quarterbacks?

Five of the nation's top 30 college Division I-A passing leaders are products of the Bay Area, including No. 1 Sean Mannion (Oregon State, Foothill-Pleasanton high school) and No. 4 Jared Goff (Cal, Marin Catholic-Kentfield).

Five Bay Area senior quarterbacks, including Top 100 recruits Keller Chryst (Palo Alto, Stanford) and K.J. Carta-Samuels (Bellarmine-San Jose, Vanderbilt), have committed to FBS programs and at least four more figure to sign a letter of intent.

JC Shurburtt, the national recruiting director for 247Sports.com, out of Nashville, Tenn., wouldn't quite call the region a "recruiting hotbed" for signal-callers, but said "It's definitely a good place to get quarterbacks. … It's probably a region known more for producing great unknown quarterbacks."

Of course, Serra (San Mateo) graduate Tom Brady is the poster boy of that claim, but even Mannion and Goff — especially considering their early success this season — were probably under-recruited in hindsight.



Mannion was the nation's No. 340 recruit by 247sports from the Class of 2010 and No. 18 pro style quarterback. Other recruiting sites didn't even have him that high.

But today, the 6-foot-5, 220-pound junior leads the country with 1,604 yards passing while completing 71 percent of his passes (133 of 186). Most impressive is his 15-1 touchdown-to-interception rate.

"We really liked him," Shurburtt said. "He was a taller kid with a big arm and good upside. … Oregon State tends to sit back and take those kinds of kids. Mike Riley and his staff are very resourceful in their recruiting and they win a lot of football games."

Goff, of course, has been a major surprise nationally. Goff was ranked 217th nationally and 15th among pro style quarterbacks from the 2013 class, but has stepped in immediately to throw for 1,306 yards and while completing 103 of 168 passes. He threw for more than 7,000 yards and 93 touchdowns in his prep career.

Shurburtt, like most, thought another Bay Area product, 2012 San Ramon Valley (Danville) graduate Zach Kline would be Sonny Dykes' starter. Kline was the nation's No. 38 recruit overall and No. 2 pro style quarterback.

"Goff was a nice looking quarterback for sure, but he's obviously come a long way," Shurbutt said.



Shurburtt said Northern California isn't particularly well scouted, which has contributed to some of the quarterbacks who have emerged. "From a media stand point, I'm not sure it gets the proper exposure," he said. "It's a little bit off the radar."

But not off the statistical charts. The other local products on the college-passing list are Joe Southwick (Boise State, San Ramon Valley), Nick Montana (Tulane, De La Salle (Concord) and Oaks Christian (Westlake Village) and Austyn Carta-Samuels (Vanderbilt, Bellarmine).

Western Pennsylvania, along with Texas and Southern California, both wide areas, might be the only other regions that have greater reputation for producing elite quarterbacks than the Bay Area, Shurbutt said.

Besides Brady, a slew of Bay Area quarterbacks have made to the NFL since the start of 2000 and enjoyed some success including Trent Edwards (Los Gatos), Josh Johnson (Oakland Tech), Trent Dilfer (Aptos), Dennis Dixon (San Leandro), Ken Dorsey (Miramonte-Orinda) and Matt Gutierrez (De La Salle).

Over the years, such legends such as Norm Van Brocklin (Acalanes-Lafayette), Jim Plunkett (James Lick-San Jose), Dan Pastorini (Bellarmine) and Dan Fouts (St. Ignatius-San Francisco) have graced the Bay Area prep fields.

If you stretched the Bay Area boundaries to Northern California, then you can add Super Bowl quarterbacks like Aaron Rodgers (Pleasant Valley-Chico) and Colin Kaepernick (Pitman-Turlock).   



That's one heck of a long, impressive list. 

The other senior Bay Area quarterbacks who have secured college scholarships are Morgan Mahalak (Marin Catholic, Oregon), Manny Wilkins (San Marin-Novato, Arizona State) and Nick Bawden (Los Gatos, San Diego State), while Keaton Dunsford (Cardinal Newman, Santa Rosa), JaJuan Lawson (Casa Grande-Petaluma), Keilan Benjamin (El Cerrito) and Nsimba Webster (Deer Valley-Antioch) are among the quarterbacks likely to secure Division I scholarships.

NOTES: The fathers of Goff and Mannion (Jerry Goff and John Mannion) each attended San Rafael and were two years apart. … California (San Ramon) graduate Quinn Kaehler, a walk-on junior at San Diego State, almost surprised visiting Oregon State and Mannion on Saturday. Kaehler, who had moderate numbers in high school before attending Diablo Valley College, made his first college start and completed 16 of 24 for 251 yards and two scores. He also threw two interceptions, the last one returned 16 yards for a game-winning touchdown by Steven Nelson with 2:38 to play. Oregon State prevailed 34-30.