When the ink had dried on Austin Mack’s National Letter of Intent last night it brought to close a dizzying 3-months of drama-filled coast-to-coast quarterback intrigue.

Yup, the 2023 quarterback recruits gave those who follow college football recruiting one of the wildest rides in recent memory.

There was 5-star Arch Manning who signed with Texas.  There was 5-star Jaden Rashada’s 13,000,000 NIL deal that fell through at Florida who eventually signed with Arizona State.  There was 5-star Michigan-native Dante Moore who flipped from Oregon to UCLA.  Oregon then flipped Baylor’s 4-star commit Austin Novosad.  Oregon-native,  4-star QB Sam Leavitt switched his pledge from Washington State to Michigan State in the final days before the early signing period.  Of course, the late Mike Leach started it all of when Mississippi State got Chris Pardon to back off of his commitment to Florida State. Then Tennessean Brock Glenn announced he’d sign with Florida State leaving Ohio State without a QB for a couple of weeks before flipping 4-star Lincoln Kienholz from Washington.  The Huskies in turn flipped Austin Mack from the 2024 recruiting class to the 2023 class.

Wild, to say the least.

Who won will be in the eye of the beholder and in reality, the winner won’t be known for a couple of years.  On paper, though, Ohio State appears to have been helped out by FSU and the Buckeyes in turn helped the Huskies come out on top of most of the moves.

Ohio State upgraded from Glenn who finished ranked as 21st in the nation to Keinholz who is 11th.  Washington getting Mack to reconfigure his academics, going from the class of 2024 to the 2023 class, moved up to the 8th best QB.

But if Washington coach Kalen DeBoer didn’t have the foresight to get Mack to reclassify the Huskies might have had to move on the Transfer Portal to build depth.

However, hitting the portal for a QB to go to Montlake to sit behind Michael Penix for a year would have been nearly impossible, at least to get a championship-caliber signal-caller.

UW didn’t sign a signal-caller in 2021 making it imperative to ink one this cycle—especially with Sam Huard transferring to Cal Poly.

The South Dakotan, Keinholz was late to the national scene but when Washington offered him a scholarship on April 14th of 2022 it legitimized his status as a national player.  At that time he was rated as the 1,550th best player overall for the 2023 recruiting class.

However, his star was already on the rise, drawing offers from nearby Big-10 schools Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

With the final scouting done Kienholz was the 138th best overall and 11th highest-rated signal-caller.

That’s up an incredible 1,412 spots from the time Husky offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb’s plane left Pierre, South Dakota.

The Huskies were initially jilted by Keinholz’s defection but recovered quickly and found a path forward.  The Kienholz flip actually cleared the path for the higher-rated quarterback, Mack.

But it wasn’t easy.

First, DeBoer and Grubb would have to see if Mack’s academics were in order to move to Montlake in time for this coming season.  It would take an extra workload, but Mack would be in position to reclassify to 2024.

Next the coaches paid a visit to 2024 QB commit EJ Caminong at his Seattle-area school and assure him that he would still have a spot in the class.

Next they had to get back to Mack and get him to commit and to be petition to be reclassified.

The 6-3, 185 pound Kienholz was a 3-year starter whose football feats likely won’t be touched in the Mount Rushmore State for quite some time.

As a senior at T.F. Riggs in Pierre, he completed 67-percent of his passes for 3,422 yards with 46 TDs and just 6 interceptions.  Additionally, he ran for 1,436 yards and 24 TDs.  He left as the state’s all-time passing leader in virtually every category.

Down in Folsom, California, 6-6, 210-pound first-year starter Mack completed 269 of his 382 pass attempts in, arguably, a much tougher division.  He threw for 3,498 yards, 40 TDs and 5 picks.  Folsom’s final record was 12-2 winning the Sec Joaquin Section D1 Championship.

In the end everybody wins.

According to an NFL scout: “They are very different QBs and both are going to excellent offenses with excellent coaches. If they both progress evenly I just give Mack the edge due to his size and excelling a tad higher than Klienholtz.  But that’s just on sheer measurables.  Both I believe could be elite college QBs if they stay in their current system and do not get enamored with the transfer portal.”

Just last night Mack competed the loop signing his National Letter of Intent with the Washington Huskies and announcing that he’ll enroll this summer.