Drew Mestemaker Plays Like Top Draft Pick but Iowa State Loss Reminds Him He Can’t Play Superhero

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Drew Mestemaker’s been the undisputed hero of Oklahoma State’s season thus far, but the Cowboys don’t always fare well when he embraces that role himself.

At Ames, Mestemaker, widely considered the top draft-eligible quarterback this fall, threw an interception while staring down second-and-five at the OSU 22-yard line. On this play, he threw across his body, and it looked like Mestemaker could have picked up additional yardage with his legs.

“We were going tempo, and I felt like they kinda covered us up pretty well,” Mestemaker said. “I felt Miles slipped behind the defense and was trying to — he’s a clear-out route, but I thought he was open.

“I was trying to make a play and — I feel like I’ve had this conversation before — trying to make play and then it goes the wrong way. I just can’t get out of structure and start making stuff up at that point in the game. Gotta stick to our rules.”

Coach Eric Morris said as much in his post-game press conference, putting the blame for that turnover squarely on his quarterback.

“That was really Drew’s big blemish of the game, right,” Morris said. “We were rolling right, and he throws left to a read that’s not even a part of that read of that play. Really untimely.”

The quotes from both Mestemaker and Morris were reminiscent of comments they each made after the season-opening loss to Tulsa, which saw Mestemaker force an end zone pass to Justin Bowick in the fourth quarter only to see it picked off on first down.

“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,” Morris said after the loss to Tulsa. “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’s eerie how timely that advice would have been for Mestemaker during his Halloween trip to Ames, Iowa. Perhaps that advice was on his mind earlier in the fourth quarter when he recorded what might have been his most memorable play of the night: a 3-yard scramble on fourth-and-3.

“It was an amazing play,” Morris said. “That’s an amazing effort. It wasn’t a great call by me. They had the perfect call for what we called there on a fourth down. So incredible effort. That was a big-time play.”

It was a gotta-have-it kinda play considering the Cowboys trailed by 10 points with less than 11 minutes to go.

“They didn’t play us like that in empty the whole game,” Mestemaker said. “They came out and played us and we did not have a play call on to beat man at all.

“I knew I had to get as much as I could. I was one-on-one with the linebacker, spun and just reached. Guess I barely got it. I knew it was on — I don’t know which yard line it was on, but I knew it was on the five-yard mark. I was just trying everything I could to reach across that.”

He finished the game completing 27-of-42 passes for 323 yards, five touchdowns and that pick.

Mestemaker completed 4-of-6 passes for 31 yards and a go-ahead touchdown on his final drive. He took what the defense gave him, largely keeping his passes short and quick.

“I felt good,” Mestemaker said of that drive. “I knew we could go down and score. I threw the pick the drive before. I knew I had to make up for it, honestly, but I couldn’t get in that mindset of trying to be a superhero. I knew our guys were making plays all over the field. I knew we could drive down the field and I knew we could score.”

It remains to be seen if Saturday night will limit what Oklahoma State can accomplish this season. It probably won’t impact Mestemaker’s stock, at least not negatively, though it is a reminder that he’s still relatively young as a starter, something Morris noted following the Tulsa game when he last criticized his quarterback for taking out his cape.

As for the man himself, Mestemaker made it clear he and the Cowboys have huge week ahead now that they have two losses in Big 12 play.

“We gotta wash it,” Mestemaker said after Saturday’s loss. “We gotta learn from it. We got some big turning points that we gotta learn from. But this will define this team, honestly, this upcoming week, we’re on the road again against a good K-State team. We gotta learn we can’t shoot ourselves in the foot that many times. We gotta learn from it, get better and move on.”