Photo of future Pro Football Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers (left) is from a visit he made to his alma mater early in his NFL career. At right, quarterback Sam Darnold has been supportive of his school at San Clemente since before he even went to USC. Photos: imgarcade.com & @TritonFootball / X.com.
Here’s our yearly update of our all-time list of quarterbacks who have started at least one game in the NFL updated through the 2025 season and including projected starters for the final NFL regular season games of this year. We have no new starters, but 11 from the state who had at least one start, including another listing from longtime veteran Josh Johnson of Oakland Tech. Will this be the last year that future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers of Chico Pleasant Valley gets updated on this list?
FOR A GOLD CLUB COMPANION COLUMN TO THIS LIST WRITTEN WHEN IT WAS FIRST COMPILED IN 2018 THAT GOES OVER MANY OF THE TOP YEARS FOR CALIFORNIA QBS, WHERE CALIFORNIA QBS STAND IN THE NFL RECORD BOOKS AND FOR LIST OF SCHOOLS WITH THE MOST STARTING QBS, CLICK HERE.
This also is a list for Gold Club members only on CalHiSports.com but the intro to the list is being kept for free. To get many more lists and stories, all-time state record updates and more, please consider becoming a Gold Club member today. Rates are as low as 6.8 cents per day. For details, CLICK HERE.
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Notes: In addition to the players updated to reflect starts from the 2025 season, we also have made some changes based on additional research that was conducted last spring by our friend Chuck Nan, a researcher with extensive experience in both the NFL and MLB spaces as well as the football/baseball sports information director at Santa Margarita. Chuck found some errors in the previously published lists, which are mostly from using lists of starting quarterbacks for each NFL team on Wikipedia. Most of the fixes are for QBs in which their first starting year were incorrect. We also have removed one player, previously listed Jack “Moose” Myers of Ventura, who was not a QB for the Philadelphia Eagles in 1948 but played other positions.
This is not a list of every quarterback from a California high school who has been a back-up or has been on an NFL roster. This is a list of those who have started at least one game during one season. We are including American Football League teams prior to its merger into the NFL, but we are not including those from any other pro football league (USFL, etc.). There didn’t start to be more than one California QB starting for those very early NFL teams until 1945 so that is when this list begins. We believe the first starting QB for an NFL team that still exists would be Roy “Bullet” Baker of Long Beach Poly, who played for the Green Bay Packers in 1928-29. Another starter from before 1945 was Roy Zimmerman of Arcadia Duarte (school now known as Monrovia). He started at QB in 1943 for the Steelers and then in 1944 and 1945 for the Eagles. Chuck Fenenbock (Pittsburg) also got a start as a QB in 1945 for the Lions.
This also is not a list of those who may have gone to a California high school at some point during their high school years but moved out of state afterward. An example of that would be Super Bowl winning QB Jim McMahon. He started at Andrew Hill (San Jose) but graduated from a high school in Utah.
(All players listed in alphabetical order with year or years they started at least one game and for which team)
