Who’s the best quarterback in Maryland football history?

It’s Quarterbacks Week at Testudo Times. Yesterday, we assessed the state of the position entering the 2017 season. Today, it’s time to get nostalgic.

Maryland’s quarterback play hasn’t been the team’s strength for a while, but the Terps’ history under center is noteworthy. Here are five of our favorites, but we’ll leave it up to all of you to vote and debate on who’s the all-time best.

Boomer Esiason

Esiason is a state legend and probably the first name that comes to mind when thinking of the greatest Maryland quarterbacks. He last played in a Terps jersey in 1984, but still ranks third in attempts, completions, and yards. Esiason went to the pros as Maryland’s leader in passing touchdowns, but now sits second to Milanovich.

He also had the best NFL career of any ex-Terps quarterbacks, by far, playing 14 seasons, earning four pro bowl selections, and was the 1988 league MVP. Esiason’s an easily recognizable name to this day; he’s been a part of the Super Bowl radio broadcast team since 2000 and keeps up a radio show in his native New York.

Scott Milanovich

Milanovich is the easy answer off stats alone. He holds a majority of Maryland’s passing records as the career leader in yards, completions, touchdowns, 300-plus-yard games, and 400-plus-yard games. He was a three-year starter at Maryland, and his 1993 and 1994 seasons are the second- and third-most efficient by any Terps quarterback in terms of efficiency rating. He owns more records than there’s really space to put, and the numbers give him one of the strongest cases on this list.

Shaun Hill

Hill led the Terps to the 2001 Atlantic Coastal Conference Championship and won the team MVP for the year. His 13 passing touchdowns that season are tied for 13th in program history. He’s been in the NFL for over a decade now, though he’s been a free agent since the end of the 2015-16 season.

Scott McBrien

McBrien is definitely in the conversation for Maryland’s best quarterback of the last two decades, and his story is almost as compelling a case as his numbers are. After playing his freshman year at West Virginia, McBrien transferred to College Park and went on to start 14 games his junior year and 13 in his senior season, culminating in a Peach Bowl win over Tennessee in 2002 and a Gator Bowl throttling of West Virginia in his final season as the cherry on top. He finished his Maryland career ranked third in career touchdowns and fifth in passing yards.

C.J. Brown

Hear me out; he’s in the conversation due to sheer sample size. Though Brown mostly failed the eye test, he finished his Maryland career ranked fourth all-time in attempts, completions and total yards, and he’s fifth in touchdowns. He also finished with a top-20 completion percentage and passer efficiency rating of Maryland quarterbacks that had played at least two seasons with 200 attempts.

This might be more of a sentimental pick, but he was the Terps’ first quarterback in the Big Ten, has the most total offensive plays and is responsible for more touchdowns than any other quarterback in school history. Plus, my freshman year intramural flag football team was named the C.J. Browners. True story.