Dillon Duff enters 2026 with a real shot to climb into the backup quarterback mix, and that alone says plenty about where the young St. Louis product stands after a quiet 2025.
Duff, born Sept. 30, 2006, redshirted last season and did not appear in a game, but he heads into this year competing for a spot behind Avery Johnson. That battle has already drawn positive reviews from both the old and new regimes.
Former head coach Chris Klieman said Duff kept making steady progress while earning more work.
“Dillon is learning, but he’s getting the chance to get more reps so the few reps he got in the spring he’s learned from and continues to improve every day. All three of those guys are going to continue to battle for that two spot.”
Klieman was even more direct about Duff’s makeup, pointing to how the quarterback handled the learning curve.
“What I really like about Dillon Duff is nothing is too big for him. He was drinking through a firehose trying to learn the offense and maybe he’d screw something up with the cadence or motion, and it never overwhelmed him.
He’d go and execute a play, and he had that moxie of just making plays with the few snaps that he had. All three of those guys have a chance to be really, really good.
I don’t know how it’ll shake out, but it’ll be fun to have an entire fall camp where we can do double reps and get a couple guys on each field and get some of those rep counts up. The experience factor of getting under center is going to help.”
New head coach Collin Klein offered a similar read on Duff during his first fall press conference.
“Dillon Duff has worked incredibly hard. He’s very, very efficient throwing the football, has made really, really good decisions and protected the ball at a really, really good clip.
I have told all those guys and have been very excited with what all three have done. Who takes the job here down the stretch?
We’ll see, but I know they’re all working really, really hard, have done a nice job in the offense. We’ll kind of see how it goes.”
Klein has repeatedly stressed “consistency” this fall as the clearest path to playing time, and that gives Duff a strong case to be Johnson’s first backup option.
Before arriving in Manhattan, Duff starred for John Merritt at De Smet Jesuit High School in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Rivals ranked him the 35th-best pro-style quarterback in the Class of 2025, ESPN had him 44th among pocket passers, and On3 listed him as the 56th-best quarterback. On3 also placed him as the 10th-best overall prospect in Missouri.
His senior year brought first-team all-state recognition from the Missouri Football Coaches Association and All Metro Team honors from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after he led De Smet to a state championship.
Duff passed for 2,735 yards and 26 touchdowns while adding 666 yards and nine more scores on the ground. He also set the school record for completions in a season with 200 and tied the program mark for passing touchdowns.
As a junior, he earned all-state honors as an athlete after throwing for 1,863 yards and 15 touchdowns on 138-of-225 passing and rushing for 595 yards and eight touchdowns. De Smet won back-to-back district titles and reached the state semifinals in both his sophomore and junior seasons.
Duff also played basketball and helped De Smet win a state championship while earning all-conference and all-district honors.
His recruiting path included offers from Arkansas State, Duke, Georgia Tech, Indiana, Kent State, Miami (Ohio), Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Northwestern, UCF and Western Michigan, along with interest from Clemson. His primary recruiter was former position coach and ex-offensive coordinator Matt Wells, with help from his play-calling predecessor, Conor Riley.
Duff comes from a deeply athletic family. His father, John, played basketball at St.
Louis University, and his sister, Mackenzie, plays soccer at Clemson. His grandfather, Pat Duff, was a running back at USC, and the family tree also includes a cousin and two uncles who played football at Missouri, plus another cousin who played football at Illinois.
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