When former UConn quarterback Joe Fagnano accepted an invite to the East-West Shrine Bowl last December ahead of the 2026 NFL draft, he likely never imagined he’d be preparing for his first NFL start less than a year later.

Then again, Fagnano’s football journey has been anything but linear, and Thursday night will be no different.

It’s no secret that the Ravens have struggled to stay healthy at quarterback in 2026. After Lamar Jackson sustained his second major injury of the season last Sunday and Tyler “Snoop” Huntley was subsequently knocked out of the game with turf toe, Fagnano—who had been serving as Baltimore’s emergency third quarterback—was forced into action and finished what ultimately became a 36–10 loss to the Bills. 

Now, with Jackson heading to injured reserve and Huntley’s injury set to knock him out for the remainder of the season, Fagnano is in line to make his first career start as the Ravens get set to host the 5–2 Jaguars on Thursday Night Football to open Week 9.

While his time as Baltimore’s QB1 may ultimately be short-lived—as the Ravens are finalizing a trade with the Cardinals to bring in veteran Jacoby Brissett—Thursday night belongs to Fagnano. To get a better understanding of his unexpected rise from college walk-on to NFL starting quarterback, Sports Illustrated spoke with Nick Charlton, who was both Fagnano’s head coach at Maine and his offensive coordinator at UConn.

Fagnano’s seven-year collegiate career was defined by consistency

A native of Williamsport, Pa., Fagnano attended Williamsport Area High School, where he played both baseball and football for the Millionaires—yes, the Millionaires—from 2015 to ’19. His best season on the gridiron came as a junior, when he started 11 games and completed 64.6% of his passes for 2,460 yards and 30 touchdowns against just four interceptions.

Despite receiving an offer from Bucknell—which sits less than an hour outside Williamsport—Fagnano opted to walk on at the University of Maine, where he’d begin his seven-year collegiate career.

“We weren’t even planning on playing him at quarterback,” Charlton revealed of Maine’s initial plans for Fagnano entering the 2019 season. “But we felt really strongly about him, and it was practice No. 2 when we put him on full scholarship. It became extremely clear just what type of player he was going to be at a very young age.”

An impressive training camp saw Fagnano quickly climb the Black Bears’ depth chart, and he earned the backup role before ultimately taking over as the starter midway through his true freshman season. He finished the year 4–2 while throwing for 1,835 yards, 17 touchdowns and a passing efficiency rating of 176.8.

Fagnano’s “consistent and steady” presence, as Charlton describes it, would help guide Maine through a sea of uncertainty in 2020, with both the COVID-19 pandemic and the transfer portal coming to a head at once.

“We were dealing with a lot of outside adversity to just even play games and continue to field a team,” Charlton explained. “[Joe] was keeping guys together, he was communicating with the players, and really was helping us almost as an extension of the coaching staff to kind of keep guys at bay. A lot of guys were starting to leave across FCS because the season was either going to get canceled or get moved to the spring, but Joe was steady throughout the whole thing. It really showed true leadership.

“And then when we got to the spring,” Charlton continued. “We started playing games and it was just another example of his leadership to be able to keep the team together. Because a few guys left, but the majority of our team stayed, and the starting quarterback was somebody to rally behind. His consistency really is a big part of his leadership. He’s a big lead-by-example guy and is somebody who just does it every single day.”

Fagnano followed Charlton from Maine to UConn

After four seasons at Maine, Fagnano transferred to UConn ahead of the 2023 season and reunited with Charlton, who had been hired by Jim Mora as the Huskies’ offensive coordinator the year prior. While UConn’s scholarship situation, as Charlton explains, prevented the Huskies from bringing Fagnano aboard for his first season calling the offense, the two were able to reconnect in 2023 after the coordinator made it clear to Mora that he wanted the quarterback in Storrs.

“I’m a very firm believer in Joe and really wanted to bring him down to UConn to see if he was interested,” said Charlton. “Fortunately, he ended up going in the portal, was interested and ended up coming to the University of Connecticut.”

Fagnano won the Huskies’ starting quarterback job entering the 2023 season, but suffered a shoulder injury in just their second game and would miss the remainder of the season. 

“Again, another example of those moments on the football field,” Charlton explained. “The highs and lows and all those things, a lot of those were out of Joe’s control.”

The 2023 season would prove to be Fagnano’s and Charlton’s final year together, as the coach left to become the Browns’ run-game specialist the following season.

Fagnano, meanwhile, remained at UConn and put together a career year in 2025. While throwing for 3,448 yards and 28 touchdowns against just one interception, the quarterback led the Huskies to a 9–3 record and a spot in the Wasabi Fenway Bowl. 

Fagnano then entered the 2026 NFL draft, where his journey to the Ravens began.

Fagnano beat out a 2025 Heisman Trophy finalist for the Ravens’ reserve QB job

Despite attending both the East-West Shrine Bowl and the scouting combine—where he competed in nearly every drill, including the 40-yard dash and the vertical jump—as well as a handful of predraft visits, Fagnano went undrafted this spring. He then signed with the Ravens on a three-year undrafted free agent contract alongside fellow quarterback Diego Pavia, who was coming off a season in which he led the SEC in completion percentage (70.6%), passing touchdowns (29) and passer rating (170.4) on his way to finishing second to only Fernando Mendoza in the Heisman Trophy race.

After spending most of the summer in Baltimore, however, Pavia was waived just one day before Ravens rookies reported to training camp—a corresponding move to make room for the signing of veteran center Ethan Pocic. As such, Fagnano effectively won the club’s fourth quarterback job behind Jackson, Huntley, and veteran Skylar Thompson.

Then, after an impressive preseason showing in which he led the NFL in passing yards (509) and completed 74.7% of his passes for three touchdowns and one interception, Fagnano made the Ravens’ initial 53-man roster—marking the first time Baltimore had kept three quarterbacks since the 2020 season.

While it may have been a shock to many, Charlton says he saw this coming nearly five years ago.

“It sounds crazy, but my last year at Maine,” he explained when asked when he knew Fagnano had what it takes to make it at the next level. “... his level of maturity, that was really evident at a very young age. It was very apparent. You know, ‘Cool Joe.’ The whole experience, going from [Maine] to UConn, it really gave me a good perspective on just how good of a player, and specifically a quarterback, Joe really is. Playing FCS football at such a high level and then competing against those FBS teams, the way he operated, the way he played the position, the physical toughness—obviously his natural ability—his processing and just how calm and collected he is. I always felt like he was going to have a chance.”

Now, that chance has arrived.

Fagnano will become the second UDFA rookie QB to start a game this season

As we’ve noted previously this season, 2026 has been an uncharacteristic year for signal-callers, as, for just the second time since ’07, a rookie did not start in Week 1.

In fact, despite 10 quarterbacks being selected in the 2026 draft—including two, Mendoza and Ty Simpson, in the first round—only one has started a game entering Week 9: former Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels, who, like Fagnano, also went undrafted this past spring. 

Before fielding questions about his preparedness, the emotions ahead of his first start and more during his first press conference as the Ravens’ starting quarterback, Fagnano thankfully answered the most important question of all when he was asked by the Baltimore Banner’s Jonas Shaffer to clarify how to pronounce his last name. 

In case you were wondering... @joefagnano on pronunciation 🙂 pic.twitter.com/mJEIDMl67a

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) November 3, 2026

“Fin-YAWN-oh.” 

And with that, it’s time for Fagnano to play ball.  

“It’s exciting,” he said Tuesday when asked about the emotions of being thrown into the fire on a short week. “... I have guys counting on me to play good football and that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to put my best foot forward. I’m going to play as best as I can. I’m going to prepare the best way that I know how, and I have trust in the coaching staff. They’re going to put us in the right position. I’ve got great players around me—I don’t need to name names, I think we know who—but how can you not be confident going into a game like that?”

Naturally, Charlton shares the same confidence. 

“I’m just really proud of him,” he says. “I look at a lot of the experiences that we had, I was a young head coach, he was a young player, going to FBS and going to UConn. I look back at those memories fondly. … It’s going to be about the mission at hand and what he needs to do next and just being about the work. He’s very, very process-oriented. However everything goes, he’s always Joe. I expect him to play well and to go out and give it everything he has because that’s what he’s always done. He’s kind of had people count him out and he found a way to exceed that. … I can’t predict how everything’s going to go in the future, but I do know this: Joe has always overcome every obstacle that’s been put forward for him. So my expectation always is that he’s going to overcome it.”