Robert McDaniel will be wearing different shades of blue and gold come the college football season.
After spending four months enrolled in Westwood as an early graduate out of Hughson High School, McDaniel is trading in his UCLA uniform for that of San Jose State.
The quarterback’s move to Silicon Valley was first reported by Pete Nakos of On3 Sports on Wednesday night. The Hughson native star confirmed the news in an announcement on his social media accounts on Friday afternoon, posting a graphic of himself photoshopped in a Spartan jersey with the caption “Ready to work!” accompanied with the crossed swords emoji.
McDaniel, the former Husky and three-star recruit by 247Sports, entered the NCAA transfer portal nearly two weeks ago amid the expected arrival of quarterbacking brothers Nico and Madden Imaleava. The siblings will reportedly join the Bruins following an NIL dispute and holdout by Nico, 20, at the University of Tennessee after he led the Volunteers to a 10-3 record and an appearance in the expanded College Football Playoff last season.
A native of Long Beach, Iamaleava was a five-star recruit and the third-ranked high school prospect in the country for 2022. He committed to the Vols after signing the most lucrative deal in the NIL era, an $8 million contract with the Spyre Sports Group while still in high school. As part of the mega-contract, Iamaleava was slated to make roughly $2.2 million for the 2025 season, and it’s believed he was holding out this spring for $4 million.
Madden, like McDaniel, is a true freshman and is expected to transfer in from Arkansas to seemingly become the heir apparent under center for the Bruins. The 19-year-old was a four-star recruit out of Long Beach Poly.
Without a clear path to significant playing time for the next handful of years, McDaniel landed with the Spartans.
SJSU is expected to start fifth-year senior Walker Eget in 2025. Behind him on the depth chart are juniors Xavier Ward and Macloud Crowton, redshirt freshman and Jesuit grad CJ Lee, and Tama Amisone, who like McDaniel graduated high school early to enroll at his new school and get a head start on the playbook and the team’s strength program.
The Spartans are led by Ken Niumatalolo, the Naval Academy’s all-time winningest coach with a 109-83 record over 15 seasons. In his first year with the Spartans in 2024, he had Eget and Emmett Brown (now at Coastal Carolina) split time at quarterback to achieve a 7-6 record. They went 3-4 in the Mountain West Conference, finishing fifth out of 12 teams.
Niumatalolo and offensive coordinator Craig Stutzmann run a pass-heavy offense. Last year, their quarterbacks threw for 4,183 yards, the most in all of the Mountain West and fifth-most in the entire nation. They averaged 321.8 yards per game.
The 6-foot-2, 195-pounder verbally committed to the University of California in March 2024. McDaniel flipped to the University of Arizona nearly three months later, but after a flurry of staff changes in the Wildcats’ program, he delayed his signing day ceremony 24 hours before shocking attendees by placing a UCLA cap on his head. The Turlock Journal reported that he had 20 standing scholarship offers from Division I programs at the time of Dec. 5 ceremony. One of those was from San Jose State.
Greg Biggins, a national recruiting analyst at 247 Sports, showered McDaniel with praise in his scouting report.
“We liked him at his Pro-Day workout where he played with a quicker pace than most of the quarterbacks and showed off a strong, downfield arm as well,” Biggins said. “He plays with urgency, has good feet and always looks on-balance in getting himself ready to throw. He had a very strong senior year as well and showed he’s not just a regional guy but one of the nation’s best signal callers. He has a quick release, can change speeds, and is a smart, high IQ quarterback. He should have no problems picking up a complex college playbook and we really like his upside. He has an NFL ceiling and his game is definitely trending up.”
McDaniel owns every school record for a quarterback at Hughson High, including career passing yards (7,860), passing touchdowns (96), completions (509) and completion percentage (.603). He started under center for the last three years and led the Huskies to a 35-7 record en route to a Trans-Valley League title in 2024, three straight Sac-Joaquin Section blue banners, and the Division 5-AA Northern California and state championships in 2022.In his senior year, McDaniel completed 180 of 293 attempts for 2,889 yards and 34 touchdowns as the Huskies compiled a 13-1 record.
