Initially seemed like an easy vote for Thorson with all his records and bowl wins. I still voted for him, but your article reminded me how good some of the others were, particularly Basanez.
Ultimately, I landed with Thorson for a few reasons. It was tough to not vote for the others - especially Baz and Schnur - but I looked at it impartially based on wins, particularly signature / bowl wins, the talent they played with, and coaching they received.
1) Thorson: wins, wins, and more wins. 3 more bowl wins combined than all of the other QBs on this list. The OL he played behind was a sieve, and if not for JJTBC’s brilliance he would have had a miserable first few years - and he still led us to the championship game in our first season without him. Plus, the offensive system we had in place was badly exposed - resulting in massive changes as soon as we saw how much Thorson and JJ propped it up.
2) Basanez: Incredible leader, teammate, and tough competitor. He is the only QB in the past 50 years with a OSU victory, and he nearly had two (2002 was close and that team got jobbed by the refs). He had a productive and fun four year stretch... but also played behind the best OL on this list aside from Schnur. He’d have won many more games with a better DC.
3) Schnur: arguably the most important player in modern NU history. Others have spoken to his transformative 95-96 teams: do we really think they’d have pulled those off with any other quarterback? He had the most talented teams overall and he led them to our first two Big Ten championships in decades.
4) Kafka: 2009 was an incredible year that few saw coming. He also had the most impressive NFL career - including his coaching. He set the QB rushing record in 2008 to save us against Minnesota when Bacher was hurt. Which reminds me:
5) Persa: We only had 10 games of rarely-seen waterbug-esque QB play behind a OL that made Swiss cheese blush. Then that awful Achilles that ruined two seasons. He was undersized and, when healthy, the most entertaining QB to watch of any on this list.
6) Kustok: it’s hard to imagine our last conference champion fell so low, but that 2000 team was loaded and the spread with DA2 caught everyone by surprise. If he had knocked off Iowa in 2000 to lead us to the Rose Bowl, or had a better 2001, he’d be much higher on this list.
7) Bacher: his leadership after Randy Walker’s untimely passing helped “right the program”. Particularly when Fitz was finding his feet as a head coach. Our offense was abysmal without him in 2006: he led us back to respectability in 2007 and his 2008 season is the most underrated season of any QB on this list. Also, look at the rest of his recruiting class to see what he overcame.
8) Siemian - his signature win over Notre Dame stand tall. His ACL injury may have cost us a bowl appearance, but he should have played much more as our featured QB before that - and has been our best NFL QB as a player.
9)
Peyton Ramsey (ducks). Seriously though, the Big Ten Network features Nebraska’s past stars and their Big Twelve championship teams - so why doesn’t his performance at Indiana now count for us as well?