Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr's struggles against BYU haven't hampered his chances of being a first round pick in next spring's NFL Draft. However, his less than stellar outing against the Cougars two weeks ago did see him take a hit as far as his odds of being the No. 1 overall pick.
During a segment of ESPN's College GameDay on Saturday morning, insider Pete Thamel rolled out a new poll he'd done of 25 scouts and executives in the NFL asking them who they believed would be the first quarterback off the board. The poll results for this week were quite a bit different than they were earlier in the year as some of the top quarterbacks have struggled a bit once the games got going.
The good news from this poll is that Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr is still among the top quarterbacks in the game. In fact, he's considered the No. 2 quarterback on the board. That's quite impressive when you look at someone like Darian Mensah who has had an incredible season for the Miami Hurricanes. Granted, Mensah took a hit likely because he has a receiver like Malachi Toney at his disposal.
The bad news is that Oklahoma State quarterback Drew Mestemaker is now considered the top quarterback on the board. The worse news is that the poll wasn't particularly close.
Here’s our @CollegeGameDay report on who’ll be QB1 in the upcoming NFL Draft. We polled 25 NFL scouts/executives. pic.twitter.com/xwehIEEMDf
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) October 31, 2026
CJ Carr loses QB1 momentum after BYU as Drew Mestemaker dominates NFL scout poll
"I re-polled the 25 scouts and executives, we have a new clear-cut leader for QB1. And that's Oklahoma State quarterback Drew Mestemaker. He received 17 of the 25 votes in the QB1 poll. In the three years we've done this, guys, that's the most a single quarterback has received in the poll," Thamel explained during the report.
Carr, as the No. 2 vote getter, had 4 execs say he was the best quarterback available, but it's clear that Mestemaker is making everyone look like a pale comparison. The biggest switch in the poll was Dante Moore.
Oregon announced earlier this week that Moore is shutting it down for the rest of the season after suffering a concussion against USC. He's missed the last three games and will now miss the Ducks' final five contests. He was the odds-on favorite to be the first QB selected in next spring's draft when Thamel conducted his poll in August. Moore received 14 votes while Texas' Arch Manning got 7. Neither QB is in the top four now.
For Mestemaker, his cinderella story continues. He didn't start for his varsity high school team and then had to walk-on at North Texas.
For CJ Carr, a 28-24 loss to BYU paired with completing just 27 of 49 passes and not throwing a touchdown put some serious tarnish on his shine. He can start reversing that with a big game against Navy but at this point, he could throw for 500 yards and 10 touchdowns and some scouts would still claim he was doing it against weak opponents.
Notre Dame needs Carr to play extremely well against Miami on November 7. If he does, he could reenter the conversation for the No. 1 quarterback in the 2027 NFL Draft.
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