Miss him yet? Brian Lewerke has had a full career already and he's only been out of college since 2019. The former Spartan QB1 had a billboard made for him, won 10 games in a season at Michigan State, threw a touchdown during NFL preseason play, played in the USFL with the Michigan Panthers and is now considered one of the most improved quarterbacks over the span of one year by Pro Football Focus.
That may seem like a bunch of miscellaneous accomplishments (it is), but it just goes to show that Lewerke has had a busy career and he's still working on making it in the professional ranks.
However, if you flash it back to his Michigan State playing days, he made an exclusive list with some big names that includes Kenny Pickett, Cade Klbnik, Desmond Ridder, Max Duggan, Cam Ward, Joe Burrow, Bo Nix, Jaxson Dart, and Jayden Daniels. And he's ahead of some of these guys.
What's the list? Just the largest single-year pass grade improvements since 2018.
Biggest year over year improvements in PFF Pass Grade among Power 4 QBs since 2018. Cade Klubnik is in some impressive company, but he does have another year to go pic.twitter.com/kSPVKUiYa8
— CFBNumbers (@CFBNumbers) June 19, 2025
Lewerke's jump from 2018 (horrible year for him, by the way) to 2019 was staggering, jumping 18.5 grade points on PFF. That is good for the ninth-largest single-season jump since 2018.
Although this is impressive, he still has the lowest improvement grade on the entire list of the top 16 quarterbacks to meet this requirement since 2018. Still, he improved drastically and probably dropped the most from 2017 to 2018 of any quarterback. His 2017 season was special, but an injury suffered early in 2018 really held him back but he tried to play through it which was a mistake.
Still, it's cool to see Lewerke on the same list as guys like Ward, Burrow, Pickett, Nix, and Daniels.