Is there a franchise quarterback in the upcoming 2027 NFL Draft class? We went into the college football season convinced this group was going to be generational.

Arch Manning, Dante Moore, and plenty of other quarterbacks with a ton of upside headlined it. Now we’re in the middle of October, and we’re scrambling to find a QB1.

That’s a massive shift in a matter of weeks. The class that was supposed to hand some team a franchise quarterback is starting to look like a class where the top pick at the position could come down to which quarterback has the fewest questions.

Darian Mensah is the Cam Ward of this class, and not just because he’s coming out of Miami

I’m a huge fan of Darian Mensah, and his ability to play with touch is remarkable. The Miami quarterback is a really fun player to watch. Few quarterbacks in college football layer the ball the way he does.

But Mensah doesn’t fit the mold of a typical No. 1 overall quarterback to me. The narrative around him reminds me a lot of the one we had with Cam Ward. Mensah doesn’t have that upper-echelon talent. In other years with a crop of high-level quarterbacks, he probably wouldn’t go No. 1. Because of the rest of this class, though, it’s hard to see him being anything other than QB1.

That’s not a knock on Mensah. It’s a statement about where this class stands. A good quarterback can float to the top of the board when the guys who were supposed to be great haven’t separated.

Drew Mestemaker as QB1 potential, but should not come out in this draft class

And you may say, Tegan, we’ve got Drew Mestemaker, he has QB1 potential. Believe me, I know. I am in the Drew Mestemaker fan club over here. I’ve been pushing agendas for him all summer, and I’m not jumping off that bandwagon now.

I still want the Oklahoma State quarterback to go back to school after this season. Mestemaker has not played a ton of football, and we’ve seen how critical experience is to a quarterback’s development. The more reps you can rack up in college, especially when you don’t have to rush to the pros, the better off you are. That’s especially true for a guy without much tape.

Another year at Oklahoma State would turn Mestemaker into a seriously intriguing prospect in 2028. I’m talking unquestioned No. 1 overall pick intriguing. Next year’s class looks loaded with other potential talent, and he could still rise to the top of it with another great season. I would not rush him out in this draft.

Austin Simmons has the tools, and the question marks

And then we have Austin Simmons, a quarterback I think is incredibly talented. He has so much anticipation, and his baseline talent is fantastic. The tools are there.

I do have a question about him being a lefty. To be fair, that’s purely my personal preference, and I’ll own it. The bigger issue is whether Simmons can put it all the tools together. His game has some real inconsistencies. You could credit some of that to the situation around him, and that’s a fair point. But the accuracy questions are real too, and his accuracy has been pretty inconsistent.

That’s the problem with betting on Simmons as QB1. You’re buying a player who flashes everything you want, then asking him to do it every single Saturday. He hasn’t done that yet. And there’s also the possibility of him staying at Missouri for another year.

Where I land on QB1 as of right now

Here’s my position. Mestemaker has the highest ceiling of anyone in this conversation, and that’s exactly why he needs another year in Stillwater. Simmons has the talent, but the accuracy keeps him from being the guy right now. That leaves Mensah.

He’s not the generational quarterback we thought this class would hand us, and he won’t be the kind of No. 1 pick who makes everybody forget about the board.

But if the draft were held today, he’s the safest bet to be the first quarterback off the board. The rest of the class keeps making that case for him, and Manning and Moore are running out of time to get their respective stocks back up to QB1 contention.