In August, Drew Mestemaker did not get a single vote. Two months later, 17 of 25 NFL scouts and executives say the Oklahoma State quarterback will be the first passer taken in the 2027 draft.
Pete Thamel repolled the same kind of panel at midseason and published the results on Saturday, October 31. Notre Dame’s CJ Carr finished a distant second with four votes, Miami’s Darian Mensah got three and Oregon’s Dante Moore, the summer favorite, got one. The 17 votes for Mestemaker are the most any quarterback has received in the three years the poll has been run.
“Mestemaker seems like the only real choice at this point,” one scout said.
August vs. midseason
| Quarterback | School | August votes | Midseason votes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drew Mestemaker | Oklahoma State | 0 | 17 |
| CJ Carr | Notre Dame | 1 | 4 |
| Darian Mensah | Miami (FL) | 0 | 3 |
| Dante Moore | Oregon | 14 | 1 |
| Arch Manning | Texas | 7 | 0 |
| LaNorris Sellers | South Carolina | 2 | 0 |
| Sam Leavitt | LSU | 1 | 0 |
In August, Moore led with 14 votes, ahead of Texas’ Arch Manning with seven, South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers with two, and LSU’s Sam Leavitt and Carr with one each. Manning, Sellers and Leavitt were shut out this time.
The Oregon game as the turning point
Thamel points to one game as the pivot for the whole class: Oklahoma State’s 39-31 win over Oregon on September 12, when the Cowboys were nearly three-touchdown underdogs. Mestemaker threw for 317 yards and two touchdowns, ran 75 yards for another score and outplayed Moore. He was named Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week two days later.
“The size, the body type and arm strength are the things that stood out to me right away,” a veteran scout said. “He’s got arm talent, power and accuracy.” Scouts list him at 6-foot-4 and 211 pounds.
Mestemaker did not start at quarterback for his high school varsity, walked on at North Texas and followed coach Eric Morris to Stillwater. Through seven games he has completed 157 of 239 passes for 2,326 yards, 20 touchdowns and six interceptions, and he has added 150 rushing yards and two scores. His inexperience will come up before the draft, but he is projected to have 27 career starts by the end of this season, and Thamel writes that he is likely to declare.
The panel lines up with the boards. Mel Kiper Jr. kept Mestemaker at No. 2 overall and as his top quarterback in his October 30 top 25, and he is a top-three pick in most of the latest mock drafts. Oklahoma State plays at Iowa State on Saturday night.
Moore’s fall and Mensah’s rise
Moore could have gone as high as No. 2 in the 2026 draft but went back to Oregon, then suffered a concussion on an illegal hit at USC on September 26 that will keep him out for the rest of the season. Thamel writes that, depending on where he lands, the injury could cost him tens of millions of dollars with a double-digit fall within the first round. Former Titans general manager Ran Carthon still sees Moore as a first-round pick.
Mensah has climbed the other way. He is completing 81.4 percent of his passes, four points above the FBS single-season record of 77.4 percent that Bo Nix set at Oregon in 2023, and has 22 touchdown passes against one interception. Thamel writes that both Mensah and Carr can make big jumps with long College Football Playoff runs, and that scouts will flood South Bend on November 7, when Notre Dame hosts Miami.
Not a 1983 class
The scouts agree the class is not what it was billed to be in the summer. “Before the season, this class was going to rival 1983,” one scout said, referring to the draft in which five quarterbacks went in the first round. “But there’s been a lot of moving parts and Arch has fallen. It’ll be interesting to see who resurfaces.”
Two quarterbacks went in the first round in each of the last two drafts, Cam Ward at No. 1 and Jaxson Dart at No. 25 in 2025, and Fernando Mendoza at No. 1 and Ty Simpson at No. 13 in 2026. Thamel still expects more than two in 2027, if only because of need.
Multiple scouts said Manning could still play his way into the first round because of his tools, pedigree and potential, despite his accuracy and turnover problems this season, and there is a chance he returns to college, possibly at another school. NFL executives have already told Tom Pelissero they doubt many of the top quarterbacks will declare.
The Sorsby question
The other variable is Brendan Sorsby, the former Cincinnati and Texas Tech quarterback, who drew late first-round interest before last year’s draft. His admission that he made thousands of bets on sports, including college football, means he will be perhaps the most thoroughly vetted quarterback in the class. He has been working out with veteran NFL assistant Rich Scangarello on the offense Kyle Shanahan runs in San Francisco.
“People are almost forgetting about Sorsby,” a veteran scout said. “There’s no question he can be a first-rounder. We’ll see how that all goes. He’s got to go to an all-star game and show the talent, excel during that week and answer all the questions.”
The draft runs April 29 to May 1 in Washington.
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