The last couple of weeks drew a lot of LinkedIn posts citing “last day summaries and ‘open for work’ updates.” And after a solid week of resume studies, phone screenings and interviews, I found relevance in a Wall Street Journal headline yesterday (October 10, 2026). 

Written by the WSJ's Robert O’Connell, the piece was called “He Never Started a Game At QB in High School. He’s Now a Top Prospect.”

It examined the story of Oklahoma State Univ.’s 20-year-old QB Drew Mestemaker, who has been called the most unlikely superstar in college football and is suddenly a projected first-rounder in next April’s NFL draft.

Through 5 games this season for Oklahoma State, he’s tallied 15 TDs, a 4-1 record and led his squad, which didn’t win a single conference game last year, to a national No. 18 ranking.

But just 3 years ago, Mestemaker, couldn’t get any college — including the JUCO schools — to respond to an email. 

Response to Hard News

“The remarkable thing is that Mestemaker wouldn’t be the dynamo he is today without being told he couldn’t play the position at all,” writes O’Connell. “Heading into his senior year at a powerhouse Texas high school, Mestemaker was sure the starting job he’d spent 3 years waiting for would finally be his.”

But when a highly rated passer transferred to his school, Mestemaker was on the losing side of a training camp battle again.

While crushed, Mestemaker levied himself to help and get on the field by whatever means necessary.

“So Mestemaker spent his last high-school season playing defensive back, making it his mission to outsmart opposing QBs. What he didn’t realize then was that his season in QB exile was starting to shape him into the perfect prospect,” O’Connell continues.

“Mestemaker packed on muscle that helped him deliver big downfield hits — which would one day turn him into a weapon as a ball-carrier. And as he studied positioning in the secondary, he acquired the answer key for the coverages and disguises that teams would one day deploy against him."

The experience required him to deeply understand the rules of the defense, he says.

Meanwhile, every spare second of free time included private tutelage in passing mechanics and obsessive work ethic. He’d been disappointed about not getting under center, but was undaunted.

After the vouching of his passing coach, just one program —the Univ. of North Texas, coached by Eric Morris — offered him a walk-on spot, and Mestemaker turned heads from his first reps. 

His failure to get on the field in high school was leveraged into his greatest asset, says the Mean Green’s QB Coach Sean Brophy. “He was this beautiful piece of clay that we got to mold,” he says. “No bad habits, no prior history, just someone we got to work with from start to finish.”

By the time his freshman season began, Mestemaker rose from a last-ditch option to the No. 2 quarterback on the roster. Last season, he won the top job.

Handed the reins of an offense for the first time since middle school, Mestemaker threw 34 TDs, ran for 5 more and passed for 4,379 yards — the most in the nation.

“There’s a delusional competitive spirit, when you’ve been told ‘no’ your entire life,” Brophy says. “He got the opportunity and he seized it.”

When Morris took the Oklahoma State coaching job this offseason, the first order of business was bringing along the guy that, again, nobody had wanted.

In just his second game for Oklahoma State, Mestemaker threw for 2 TDs, ran for another and knocked off No. 6 Oregon. It was the biggest upset in the Cowboys’ history. 

Relevant Observations

This article got my attention for several reasons:

• We’ve seen a lot of good people sent to disappointing “new chapters” from the employers they expected to be their last, not only in the ag dealership, manufacturing and supply communities but also with several business media peers.
• With as many new positions as we’ve had in many years, in all areas of the business, I’ve been looking at more resumes, conducting interviews and trying to pull back the layers to gauge hunger and drive.
• And attempting to assign the proper weight to character, grit and perseverance, even when the qualified professional resume and experience is lacking.

What Mestemaker learned, and what many displaced folks must too, is that hardship or painful situations will work toward a greater lesson and refinement, if leaned into and allowed to do its constructive work. 

Mestemaker reminds us that some talent will rise to the moment they’re given.

What is a grit story in your career, or that you’ve witnessed in your business? Use the comment field below to share, and to help identify the DNA of those who are yet to soar; that just need to identify they’re capable of it and will choose to harness it.