How Oklahoma State’s Drew Mestemaker Showed NFL Future Against Houston

Oklahoma State quarterback Drew Mestemaker threw a past against Houston that everyone was talking about in the days afterward.

That pass was in the first half, a 54-yard bomb to wide receiver Wyatt Young. Mestemaker rolled to his left side and threw the football to Young on a dime as he was running down the sideline. The play had the feel of a schoolyard play, something that was designed but fell apart.

Turns out it wasn’t. During practice last week the right-handed throwing Mestemaker worked on throwing the football while rolling to his left. In this case, he threw it more than 40 yards in the air.

Head coach Eric Morris didn’t devise it to impress NFL scouts. It was another way to Mestemaker out in space and make a play.

Eric Morris on Drew Mestemaker’s Pass

“That’s probably the first time a bunch of people in America have seen him roll left and throw that, but we had probably five or six reps of it during the course of the week,” Morris said. “He had been super accurate getting it out there, so we trusted him to be able to get out there and throw.”

It's another one of those throws that makes NFL scouts drool. Mestemaker has already proven his ability to process information, to get the football down the field and to take a hit in the pocket while throwing. He took a few of those in the game against Houston and finished with his fifth straight 300-yard passing game.

Morris has worked with quarterbacks that can do unique things. He was the offensive coordinator at Texas Tech for quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who has become well known in the NFL for his ability to make passes at unique arm angles and make split second decisions while on the run.

He was also the head coach for Cam Ward at Incarnate Word and his offensive coordinator at Washington State, where Ward emerged as one of the best quarterbacks in the country.

He said that OSU offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Sean Brophy works with Mestemaker on making “off-platform” throws, or the ones that look like a schoolyard play-call but really aren’t. They practice it so that when it comes up in a game there is some muscle memory that Mestemaker can lean on.

It's another reason there's potential that Mestemaker could make the jump to the NFL after this season. He's practicing the kinds of things that make him attracted in the eyes of NFL scouts and general managers, the same things that Morris schooled both Mahomes and Ward in when they were in college. Those aren't bad footsteps to follow in.