News in the sports world during the summer months tends to be slow, which leads to many predictions and projections for the upcoming football season.

The University of Hawai’i Rainbow Warriors football team loses quarterback Brayden Schager to graduation, but freshman signal-caller Micah Alejado dazzled in his first career start with 469 passing yards and five touchdown passes in the 2024 season-finale against New Mexico.

Micah Alejado fires a pass against New Mexico in his first-ever career start for the Hawai’i football Rainbow Warriors. | Photo credit: Michael Lasquero, HSRN

It was a record-setting performance that left many Hawai’i football fans excited for the upcoming season.

The buzz for Alejado was not big enough for one ESPN writer however.

In an article published on May. 19, 2025 that ranked all 136 FBS QB situations into tiers ahead of the 2025 season, ESPN’s David Hale puts the Rainbow Warriors’ QB depth chart in the 20th tier, the lowest tier on the list.

There is a label for every tier to illustrate what each team is working with at quarterback. For example: the seventh tier is titled “Consistently consistent,” the 14th-best tier is called “Best of the Group of 5” and the 19th tier is labeled “It could be worse.”

The article describes the 20th tier as “nowhere but up” and has six other teams in the same position as Hawai’i: Kennesaw State, Kent State, New Mexico, Tulsa, UL Monroe and Western Michigan.

Snippet of the ESPN article ranking all 136 FBS teams’ quarterback situation.

Hale’s article also says the following about the teams in the 20th tier: “Each season, only a few hundred players get to say they’re an FBS quarterback. These guys are among them. That’s something.”

The ranking does take into account the addition of Modesto Junior College-transfer Luke Weaver, who threw for 5,332 yards and 44 TDs in two full season as a starter for the Pirates — but it still lists Jarret Nielsen on the depth chart. Nielsen decided to retire from football and focus on baseball in late April and is in the transfer portal.

Transfer QB Luke Weaver drops back to pass in Hawai’i football’s final practice of the Spring 2025 session, which was opened to the public. Photo Credit: Michael Lasquero, HSRN

Hawai’i did add UCLA QB Dermaricus Davis a few days from the transfer portal a few days after Hale’s article was published, but Davis was a non-factor in his ranking of UCLA in the sixth-best tier.

Below is the tiers that the Rainbow Warriors’ 2025 FBS opponents quarterback situation were placed in:

Tier 10: One more try
Arizona — Noah Fifita, Braedyn Locke

Tier 12: What’s in the box?
Stanford — Elijah Brown, Ben Gulbranson, Dylan Rizk

Tier 13: Wily Veterans
Colorado State — Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi, Jackson Brousseau

Tier 15b: We used to be somebody: established starter edition
UNLV — Anthony Colander, Alex Orji

Tier 16b: We used to be starters in the Big Ten, Big 12 or SEC
Utah State — Bryson Barnes, Jacob Conover

Tier 17: We can make this work
Sam Houston — Hunter Watson, Mabrey Mettauer
San Jose State — Walker Eget, Xavier Ward

Tier 18a: New faces, good places
Air Force — Josh Johnson, Liam Szarka, Maguire Martin
Fresno State — E.J. Warner, Jayden Mandal
San Diego State — Jayden Denegal, Bert Emanuel Jr
Wyoming — Kaden Anderson, Mason Rube, Landon Sims