We saw one of the first big dominoes in the 2026 transfer portal fall on Saturday afternoon when former North Texas quarterback Drew Mestemaker committed to Oklahoma State, following head coach Eric Morris who also left North Texas for OSU. It is a huge win for Oklahoma State, and a huge loss for North Texas.
It is also another sign as to how much the gap is widening between college football’s haves and have-nots thanks to NIL and the transfer portal.
Drew Mestemaker move shows how transfer portal makes and breaks programs
From a practical standpoint, North Texas did everything right.
It is a small FCS program that took a literal zero-star recruit in Mestemaker, a quarterback who did not even start in high school, and watched him develop from a fifth-string walk-on to a starting quarterback in one year. He not only worked his way up to the starting job in that one year, but he ended up leading the NCAA in passing yards in his first full year as a starter, helped take North Texas to the American Conference Championship Game and had it one win away from being a potential College Football Playoff team.
Even though North Texas lost that conference championship game, it still won the New Mexico Bowl to complete a 12-win season that is the best in program history. North Texas had never won more than nine games in a season before.
In the years prior to the transfer portal, his presence at North Texas would have made it a major favorite in the AAC going into 2026 and again on the radar for the playoffs as a Group of Five contender. Great quarterbacks are the ultimate X-factor in football (in both college and the NFL), and North Texas had the type of quarterback who could have made it a factor.
Now it is back to the drawing board and starting from scratch. Not only at the head-coaching position, but also at the most important position on the football field.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma State gets an immediate boost to a program that desperately needs it.
Oklahoma State is coming off a brutal two-year run that saw it become one of the worst Power Four teams in the country. But despite that lack of success, it is still a major program in a major conference that — in theory — has deep pockets and a head coach who is now willing to embrace the modern college football landscape. Getting a top quarterback in Mestemaker immediately changes the outlook and upside for what Oklahoma State can be this season. It is also going to give Mestemaker an opportunity to play in a top conference, at a big program and potentially position himself to be a potential pick (and perhaps an extremely high pick) in the 2027 NFL Draft.
It is a huge win for him, both financially and in terms of his long-term outlook.
It is a huge win for Oklahoma State, its first-year head coach and its fans who saw just four wins over the previous two seasons combined. With Morris and Mestemaker in the mix, there should be an expectation to double that total this season. At a minimum.
The only group of people it is not a huge win for is North Texas and its fans. But that is the way of the world in college football now in the transfer portal and NIL era. Big money and big schools are what win. Even if and when the small schools do everything right.