With Davis Warren preparing to lead Stanford's offense, Pritchard explains why arm talent alone doesn't win quarterback battles
First-year Stanford head coach Tavita Pritchard isn't looking for the quarterback with the biggest arm. Instead, there are a few different qualities that a quarterback for a Pritchard-led program must have.
During Monday's training camp, Pritchard was asked to rank the qualities that it takes to succeed as a QB, from arm strength and accuracy to leadership, decision making, and escape ability from one through three — or if there were other characteristics that he prizes under center.
"I would say competitiveness, accuracy, leadership," Pritchard said, "probably in that order."
When asked his reasoning, he said without flinching that the quarterback has to be competitive, because the entire job description is to go win.
"You've got to have a guy that competes every day," Pritchard said. "That's just going to find every edge to go lead the team to victory."
Transfer Davis Warren is expected to be Stanford's starting quarterback when the season kicks off on August 29 against Hawaii in 18 days. In his lone season as Michigan's starting quarterback, the program went 6-3 while he threw for 1,199 yards and added seven touchdowns and nine interceptions.
While some of the stats have been less than ideal, like his touchdown to interception ratio, the Wolverines still ended up with a 6-3 record when he was under center.
"Accuracy," Pritchard continued. "Arm strength is obviously baked in there, but different types of throws, layering throws, anticipation, so much of those things come [into playing the position]. End of the day, arm strength is overrated because the goal is to throw a ball that the receiver is gonna catch, right?"
Some strong-armed quarterbacks have a hard time completing passes, because they lack some of the nuance of the position. Former Oakland Raiders QB JaMarcus Russell comes to mind. He could throw the ball seemingly the length of the football field, and that arm saw him go No. 1 in the draft.
When he got to the NFL, he went 7-18 as a starter and held a completion percentage of just 52.1% across parts of three seasons.
Warren, who is making a push to become an NFL prospect this season with the Cardinal, had a completion percentage of 64.1% in 2024 with Michigan. That season, with enough snaps, he would have ranked just outside the top-40 in completion percentage with Shadeur Sanders (74%) ranked No. 1, Fernando Mendoza (68.7%) ranked No. 10, and Cam Ward (67.2%) ranked 12th.
Ward was the No. 1 overall pick to the Titans in the 2025 NFL Draft, while Mendoza went No. 1 to the Raiders in 2026.
"And then leadership, of course," Pritchard said. "A guy's got to have leadership affect and qualities to where guys gravitate towards them, and they want to follow them."
In a locker room that was already pretty tight-knit when Warren arrived, the transfer has come in and become a person in the room that is respected and looked to for leadership.
