We made a lot of Humm because he was an NFL style QB who came to Nebraska from Las Vegas. He had his best year as a Sophomore, then faded a bit. A career 55% passer with 42 TDs and 40 interceptions. Joe Ganz and Zac Taylor were both better QBs than Humm. I remember liking Steve Taylor --- he looked like Turner Gill 2.0. Surprised to see he ended up a 45% career passer -- completed only 41% his Junior year -- with an INT/TD ratio worse than Tommy Armstrong. Leadership counts for a lot, and some of these guys were just great leaders of well-stocked teams. Comparing Devaney and Osborne era QBs is tough, because those vintage Husker defenses made a huge difference in the offenses we could run and the games we won. Nobody would be talking about the hitch in Taylor Martinez's throwing motion if you swapped the '95 defense for Taylor's '12 defense. Tommy Armstrong would have set fewer records on Osborne teams, but won more games and ended up more beloved.
Jerry Gdowski might have been the best QB in the bunch, but he only had one year.
Humm was a very fine passer. I believe he may have had Johnny Rodgers to throw to and that would aid any QB numbers. Gdowski is one of my favorites and I too would include him in the top tier. I would not put Ferragamo in my top twenty although he certainly was quite successful in the pros by comparison. Steve Taylor was a fine player as well. But Turner Gill gets the nod as our best ever in my book. No matter what the stats are Tommie Frazier was the most successful QB and was a superstar no matter how you want to look at it. He was a great great football player, period, that happened to play QB on some of the greatest, most talented teams of all time! He made other players better but they made him better. Brook Berringer was a fine QB as well. Another of our very best QBs was Bobby Newcomb who, unfortunately, blew out a knee early in his career. He was likely the fastest, most athletically gifted and graceful runners every at Nebraska. He was like Taylor Martinez as a freshman - unbelievably fast and most defenses simply underestimated his pure speed. If Taylor Martinez had not been so seriously injured (it must have been bad because he was never the same after), he would have had a chance to win a heisman, much like Eric Crouch.
Both Gill and Frazier were more deserving of the Heisman than Crouch in my view but voters weren't going to select them because they didn't have prolific arms to match their legs.
