Inside Oklahoma State QB Drew Mestemaker's rise from high school backup to potential first-round pick

Inside Oklahoma State QB Drew Mestemaker's rise from high school backup to potential first-round pick originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Oklahoma State coach Eric Morris remembers the conversation with defensive coordinator Skyler Cassity in the practices ahead of the First Responder Bowl on Jan. 3, 2025.

Morris, then the coach at North Texas, hired Cassity for the following season with the Mean Green. Cassity had one overwhelming impression afterward after watching Drew Mestemaker – a 6-foot-3, 215-pound walk-on freshman.

"He came over during one of those practices and said, 'Holy smokes, is this quarterback this good?'" Morris told The Sporting News. "He's like, 'The story is crazy. You're going to start him?"

Morris replied, "He practices this good. There is still no evidence of him doing it in a game."

Morris watched Mestemaker, who was a backup quarterback who played safety and punter at Vandegrift High School in Austin, Tex., make the ascent from fifth-string quarterback to the primary backup behind Chandler Morris that season. Mestemaker moved the ball in practice while surrounded by walk-ons. Then, in that First Responder Bowl against Texas State, Mestemaker made a strong first impression.

"He threw a curl route on third down against Texas State where the defensive end was not being blocked," Eric Morris said. "He's about to get smoked, and he stays in there and pipes one. That was the first moment I said on the headset, 'All right boys, we got a player here.' That was the evolution of how it happened, and the rest is history."

North Texas finished 12-2 last season with Mestemaker and Morris before the QB followed his coach to Stillwater, Okla., last offseason. That tandem comes into focus Saturday when No. 18 Oklahoma State (4-1) meets No. 20 Houston (5-1) at 7:30 p.m.. ET on Fox.

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Mestemaker is earning attention as a potential first-round pick in the 2027 NFL Draft. Morris, who has worked with Baker Mayfield, Patrick Mahomes and Cam Ward at the college level, is emerging as one of the game's best quarterback gurus. Mestemaker is heading into his 21st career start, but the evidence is out there now.

"The potential is scary," Morris said. "That's why everybody is so high on all of these draft boards, and the national media knows he's still super young and still hasn't played a ton of football."

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Drew Mestemaker's journey from backup high school QB to college star

Mestemaker and Morris have a unique quarterback-coach relationship. Morris is known for hunting – which is not limited to the armadillos in his yard. Like any other 20-year-old, Mestemaker is making a conscious effort to scroll on his iPhone less, an admittedly difficult task when it's your highlights popping up.

Morris described the quarterback as "quirky" – using the example of how excited Mestemaker was when was talking about the horsepower in his truck. Yet the match fits, on and off the field.

"It's the understanding of how we operate with each other in a game," Mestemaker said at a video conference on Sept. 30. "I've gotten to the point where I can kind of understand what Coach Morris is going to call with how the game flow is going and he understands if I need to see one go through the net and get a quick completion or something like that. We've grown to understand each other on game days."

The 6-foot-3, 215-pound quarterback watched as a backup at Vandegrift. He did the same as a backup behind starter Chandler Morris at North Texas in 2024.

"My whole life I've watched football," Mestemaker said. "Just all those practice reps of not being in the game but watching and putting myself in those shoes has helped me take those steps without getting those reps."

Mestemaker passed for 393 yards, two TDs and two interceptions in a 30-28 loss against Texas State in that First Responder Bowl. It was during a 33-30 overtime victory against Western Michigan on Sept. 6, 2025 when Mestemaker made what he described as his first "big-time throw." On third-and-10 from North Texas' 1-yard line, Mestemaker tight-roped the back of the end zone – as play-by-play announcer Evan Stockton described "avoiding a Dan Orlovsky moment" and fired a 19-yard pass to the sideline to Simeon Evans.

Mestemaker led the FBS with 4,379 passing yards in 2025, with the highlight a 608-yard performance against Charlotte on Oct. 24. Morris and Mestemaker arrived at Oklahoma State with 92 players last spring to overhaul a 3-9 team that had fallen out of contention in the Big 12.

Morris had a quarterback who understood his system to start with.

"He's so smart," Morris said. "He retains information so well. His recall has always been so good. His spatial awareness has always been so good. This is just a product of him now finally playing football. He's getting better. You need game reps to get better."

Sarah Phipps-USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Drew Mestemaker and Eric Morris at Oklahoma State

While the preseason hype was there, Oklahoma State lost 24-10 at Tulsa on Sept. 5.

"I don't think anyone consciously thought we were strolling through the offseason," Mestemaker said. "We definitely went at the offseason hard. Maybe we got caught up all in the hype a little bit maybe. It was kind of a reality check. I wish a reality check wasn't a loss, but it got our team on the right track.'"

Oklahoma State bounced back to beat No. 6 Oregon 39-31 on Sept. 12. Mestemaker helped seal the victory with a 10-yard TD run where he dove into the end zone from just outside the 3-yard line. That's a highlight he admits to watching when it pops up on reels.

"I definitely watched it a few times that night," Mestemaker said.

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Mestemaker describes seeing the field as "attacking grass." The back-and-forth with Morris starts at practice. The difference from last year is Mestemaker is less apprehensive about changing a play at the line of scrimmage. He provides a specific example from a third-and-9 situation against West Virginia in Week 5.

"They were trying to mug the safety up on the left slide and they dropped him all the way back to the deep middle and they tried to bring two guys from the other side and then roll away from it," Mestemaker said. "They were trying to get me to see the safety on the left side and not see the blitz. I felt the blitz, slid left, and hit Wyatt on the crosser. I felt like I was really seeing the defense and the safety rotation.'

See it in real time. That 21-yard pass to Wyatt Young set up a TD that turned the momentum in a 41-24 victory against the Mountaineers. Those are the big-time throws and in-game IQ that Morris sees every week.

"West Virginia was a great example of it," Morris said. "West Virginia came out in a total different defense than what they had done all year, and on the sideline after the first drive Drew is on the sideline talking through, ‘Hey, this is what we need to get to now.' It's like a game of chess. It's cool to see his evolution and growth in that."

Mestemaker is known for hitting the deep-shot play. According to Pro Football Focus, Mestemaker is 16 of 25 (64%) on passes of 20 yards or more for 542 yards, four TDs and no interceptions. That's second to Alabama's Keelon Russell, who is 20 of 30 (66.7%) with 682 yards, four TDs and no interceptions.

"If you look at the games we've had the most success with, it honestly starts with the run game," Mestemaker said. "I think whenever we are running the ball, we get those safeties down in the fit, especially these past few games, and they came down to respect the run and that opens up those deep shots over the top."

That sets up a matchup with Houston, a prime-time spotlight game that has Big 12 and College Football Playoff implications.

Will Drew Mestemaker be top QB in 2027 NFL Draft?

NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah stoked the conversation on Oct. 9 in an appearance with "The Rich Eisen Show." Eisen asked Jeremiah who would be the first QB taken in the first round of the 2027 NFL Draft as of right now.

"Man, where we are right now the most-intriguing player when you put all that stuff together would be Mestemaker, just off early season here," Jeremiah replied.

"Mestemaker from an NFL standpoint was just so much more intriguing with the athleticism that he has to go along with the other array of skills," Jeremiah said. "In an ideal world for him and his development, another year of playing time would be great."

Sporting News' latest mock draft has Mestemaker being selected at No. 17 in the first round to the Cleveland Browns, behind Texas' Arch Manning, Oregon's Dante Moore and Notre Dame's CJ Carr. Mestemaker has earned some comparisons to Buffalo star quarterback Josh Allen.

That race to crown "the next Josh Allen" exists, and Morris said Mestemaker is ahead of where Allen was at this point in their respective careers in some ways. Yet Morris still prefers to separate those quarterbacks.

"I've been around so many great ones, I've been blessed," Morris said. "I've never put these guys in a box. They're all their own separate guys. I don't like to do that. Nobody wants to compare Mahomes vs. Ward vs. Mayfield vs. all these guys I've been lucky enough to coach. They're all different. The one thing he does have that you need to have at that level is elite competitive character."

Mestemaker is aware of that hype, but he is taking it in stride. It's just another reason to stop scrolling.

"I try to stay off of that mostly, honestly," Mestemaker said. "If I see myself pop up I'll scroll past it, whether it's good or bad. It's cool whenever something good pops up to read it, but what if something pops up and you read it? You don't want to get caught in that spiral."