Drew Mestemaker runs away with the NFL scouts' QB1 poll

Pete Thamel's August version of this poll didn't give Mestemaker a single vote. Now it isn't close.

Pete Thamel

@PeteThamel

NEW: Oklahoma State’s Drew Mestemaker is the new QB1 in our mid-season NFL scout/executive poll. His 17 QB1 votes are a record in the three years we’ve done the QB1 poll. Results: t.co/GsJg8A5t52

The final count: Mestemaker 17, Notre Dame's CJ Carr 4, Miami's Darian Mensah 3, and Oregon's Dante Moore 1. That last number is the shocker. Moore led the August poll with 14 votes and Arch Manning was 2nd with 7. By midseason Manning had no votes and Moore had 1. The 2027 class was supposed to be stacked and deep, and in 2 months it got turned upside down. One evaluator told ESPN that "Mestemaker seems like the only real choice at this point."

That is a crazy thing to say about this guy. Mestemaker went from a zero-star high school punter and safety to a walk-on at North Texas, and in 2025 he led the FBS with 4,379 passing yards as a redshirt freshman. He followed Eric Morris to Stillwater, and he's still putting up numbers against Power 4 defenses: 2,326 yards, 20 touchdowns and 6 picks so far, good for No. 2 in FBS at 332.3 yards a game. He has also thrown for 200-plus in 19 straight games, the longest active streak in the country by 8. Scouts like the frame too. He's listed at 6-foot-4, 211, and one of them pointed to "the size, the body type and arm strength" right away.

LSU fans saw a different story in the results. Sam Leavitt got 1 vote in August. In the midseason poll he got none, so he's no longer in the conversation with the top arms in the class.

Glen West

@glenwest21

Interesting read on how LSU QB Sam Leavitt is being valued by NFL scouts entering November. Things can change but Leavitt not mentioned with the top tier arms in 2027 class right now. #LSU

Pete Thamel

@PeteThamel

NEW: Oklahoma State’s Drew Mestemaker is the new QB1 in our mid-season NFL scout/executive poll. His 17 QB1 votes are a record in the three years we’ve done the QB1 poll. Results: t.co/GsJg8A5t52 t.co/szpWRfYWvw

Fair point that things can change. There's a whole November left, and a poll that swung this much in 2 months can swing again. But Leavitt went from fringe to zero while a former walk-on went from zero to 17. That's a gap he has to close on the field, and fast.

Watch Mestemaker's streak and whether he keeps carrying an Oklahoma State offense into the back half of the year. He's a top 15 candidate for the Golden Arm Award and has been a Manning Award Star of the Week twice. Scouts are already treating him like the guy. Now he has to hold onto it with every scout in the country watching him.