Past Mistakes Come Back to Haunt Drew Mestemaker in Loss to Tulsa

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TULSA — For the last nine months, the conversation surrounding quarterback Drew Mestemaker centered around his potential to grow into one of the sport’s next great quarterbacks.

Instead, when it mattered most on Saturday, coach Eric Morris saw a young quarterback who hadn’t learned from one of his rare bad outings last season.

“It happened twice last year too,” Morris said, breaking down Mestemaker’s interception in the end zone at Tulsa. “In our conference championship game against Tulane. I mean, there’s two where we’re down there, and we’re trying to get in. They’re playing, you know, heavy, heavy drop eight zone at that time. You know, which they should be, right? I mean, they’re trying to defend the end zone.”

Then Morris began breaking down the play that all but sealed Tulsa’s 24-10 win on Saturday.

“And to begin with, our protection was terrible on that,” Morris said. “He (Mestemaker) gets pressured, he spins out, makes one miss. There’s a lot of things going on. I mean, he needs to run and get what he can and get down, or you know, but throwing across your body with so many people back as you’re scrambling, usually bad things happen back there.

“And so, yeah. I mean, I think that’s definitely something that he’s shown in the past that he’s done, it has hurt us, and it hurts again tonight.”

It has to hurt a little more, considering Tulsa safety Zach Williams snatched that pass either right off receiver Justin Bowick’s fingertips or grabbed it inches before he made contact.

On the play, Mestemaker started looking right, then spun around to avoid a sack from a defender coming from directly in front of him. He had to survive a little contact with the defender, who made a swipe at his thigh before hurling the ball roughly 30 yards into the end zone where Bowick was waiting for the touchdown that would make it a one-score game with 4:13 to play.

“It was kind of just a bad ball,” Mestemaker said. “I was off platform, it didn’t come out right, and that safety made a great play.”

Time definitely wasn’t on the Cowboys’ side at that point, but the chains were considering it was only first down.

As Morris alluded to, Mestemaker found himself in a similar situation last season against Tulane in the conference championship when he tossed an interception on first-and-goal at Tulane’s 2-yard line before tossing another on third-and-goal only 6 yards out. UNT trailed by 24 in the third quarter and 13 in the fourth quarter on those two plays.​

So, it is safe to say Mestemaker probably found himself in a similar mindset to where he was at Tulsa on Saturday.

“I felt like I tried my best throughout the game trying to get the ball down whenever I got moved off my spot,” Mestemaker said of the pivotal play at Tulsa. “But at that point in the game, we were down, and I was honestly just trying to make a play. And if I’m going to try to make the play, I have to make it.

Mestemaker finished the game 24-of-49 for 241 yards, a touchdown, two interceptions and one lost fumble.

Despite rough moments, the day still felt salvageable for Mestemaker entering the final quarter when he was 20-of-30 for 157 yards and fresh off a fourth-down touchdown to Bowick.

“He sat in there and said straight up that’s the most embarrassing offensive performance he’s ever been a part of,” Mestemaker said, quoting his head coach. “And I agree. I mean, I’d say the same for me. That’s just not how we play offense specifically. Defense, honestly, was the only reason we were in that game.”

All of the offensive issues on Saturday weren’t Mestemaker’s fault. The offensive line struggled often after starting left tackle Jacob Sexton had to be carted off after suffering an injury on the sixth offensive snap.

“You can’t let that rattle you and then go out and try to do something too much,” Mestemaker said. “Which I feel like I did. I just have to take it with a grain of salt. You know sometimes something happens, and someone gets through. We just have to go to the next play and stick to our process.”

Mestemaker and Morris both claimed credit for Saturday’s dismal offensive showing, which goes down as the QB’s worst touchdown-interception ratio, fourth-worst completion percentage and fifth-lowest passing yard total.

“The first thing is everyone knows I need to play better,” Mestemaker said. “I’m not the one to point fingers. I need to play better, and that’ll help the offense play better. I think it’s just being straight up with guys: ‘That’s not us. We need to play better, and it’s just on to next week.’”