College football's unluckiest QBs: How dropped passes affected completion percentages in 2025

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When you play quarterback, there are some aspects of the position you can control, and plenty you can't. It's up to you to call the play, know the play, read the defense, and deliver the football on time to the right option. However, once the ball is out of your hand, the rest is up to fate and your intended target.

You can make the right choice, put the ball on target, and then watch your intended receiver straight drop the ball. Some players get luckier than others in this aspect, and while perusing social media, I saw a video and a tweet that inspired me to look a bit deeper into this idea.

pic.twitter.com/4ZMHqtGKzC

— James Foster (@NoFlagsFilm) April 29, 2026

The Arch Manning Wars will continue in 2026 between sides that formed their opinions of him while he was still in high school and will cling to those beliefs no matter what. Still, while watching that video of all those drops, I couldn't help but wonder if the Manning scion was unluckier than most.

A quick search showed that he was somewhat unlucky. According to PFF, Texas receivers dropped 22 of Manning's pass attempts last season. That's a lot, but 19 quarterbacks saw more over the same period. If Maryland's Malik Washington was seen strangling a teammate at any point last year, he'd have to be forgiven because his teammates dropped 39 of his passes.

No other QB had more than 31 dropped passes (Tulane's Jake Retzlaff).

Still, the raw number doesn't really tell the tale of who was unluckiest. A quarterback who attempts 500 passes is likely to have more balls dropped than one with 250. So I adjusted the completion percentages of all qualified QBs from last season by subtracting the drops from their pass attempts to see what their completion rate would've been without them, and then looked at the difference between this adjusted rate and the actual rate.

Arch Manning completed 61.4% of his passes last season, but would've completed 64.92% without the drops. That's a difference of 3.52%, which isn't a small number but isn't big either. That 3.52% difference ranked 44th nationally.

Here are the largest differences among qualified quarterbacks last season. It turns out that if you're looking for a wunderkind QB to buy stock in if they finally get teammates who can catch, it's not Arch Manning you should be looking at, but Michigan's Bryce Underwood.

We can also see that Malik Washington remains one of the unluckiest QBs even when we look at the rate differences, as his completion rate climbs from 57.7% to 62.9%. Still, Washington shouldn't complain too loudly because that 62.9% adjusted completion rate ranks only 99th among 128 players, so his accuracy can use some work regardless.

These are the QBs on the other end of the spectrum. The guys who were throwing to men with hands of glue.

Yes, I, too, am shocked that Ohio State receivers can catch the ball. Julian Sayin led the nation in completion rate already, but his numbers could've been slightly better if not for those six drops!

What's the lesson here? I don't know that there is one. Quarterbacks are helped out by having good receivers, just like receivers are helped out by having good quarterbacks. The biggest lesson might be that, just because you see a highlight reel of players dropping a bunch of passes on social media, that doesn't mean your QB was unluckier than anybody else.

That said, Arch Manning getting to throw to Cam Coleman in 2026 will probably lead to better numbers regardless. So maybe don't sell your Manning stock just yet.