North Carolina Freshman QB Drake Maye Is Earning Attention for the 2024 NFL Draft

Plus more notes on Week 11 of the college football season, including thoughts on the transfer portal and the feel-good story of Ohio State wide receiver Kam Babb.

MORE MMQB: In the Vikings’ Win in Buffalo, There Were the Plays You Saw and the One You Didn’t | Three Deep: Inside Christian Watson’s Big Day Against the Cowboys | Takeaways: Tannehill Rescues Titans; Watch Out for the Buccaneers

The last few years, my Six From Saturday notes have been included at the bottom of my MMQB column on Monday mornings. This year, they’ll be published as a separate post each week. Here are my thoughts on this weekend’s college action, geared mostly toward what should be of interest to NFL fans.

1) Because part of the fun of following draft prospects year-round is looking ahead, it’s notable that NFL teams are starting to pay attention to North Carolina redshirt freshman Drake Maye, who’ll be eligible for the draft in 2024. And you can start with his numbers, in his first year as starter, which are bonkers. He’s completed 70% of his passes for 3,412 yards, 34 touchdowns and three picks, and has run for another 548 yards and five scores in 10 games. From there, you can look at his size (6'4", 220 pounds), athleticism, arm and bloodlines (his dad, Mark, played QB at North Carolina, and his brother, Luke, was a two-time All-ACC basketball player as a Tar Heel), and you wind up with a lot of boxes checked.

Scott Taetsch/USA TODAY Sports

“Very good player—under the radar nationally, but really fun to watch,” said one NFC GM. “He’s an all-around player, can throw, run and competes his ass off.” The GM quickly added that he’s only watched Maye; he hasn’t really studied him yet. But he knew enough to throw him in the pile of guys with high-end potential, a place we, in this space, have put USC’s Caleb Williams (he’s kept playing well) and Texas’s Quinn Ewers (he’s slumped of late) over the course of the fall. What does it mean? Mostly, that those guys will be under the microscope in 2023, and that can be an unforgiving place. That said, Maye, like the other two, has plenty of promise.

2) While we’re there, that microscope has burned Kentucky’s Will Levis of late—he’s laid eggs in two of his three starts (Tennessee and Vanderbilt), and is carrying a 16-to-9 TD-to-INT ratio into the season’s final two weeks. Has he regressed? Is the loss of the well-respected Liam Coen as his coordinator being felt? All the physical traits that scouts loved earlier in the fall are still there. So it’ll be on them to separate fact from fiction on Levis, and, this week’s game, at home against Georgia, should be a good one for all the evaluators to dig into. Regardless, this is a good example of how the “wait till next year” prognostications in quarterback-needy draft years (and last year was one) can be tough to hang your hat on. As are more recent questions on both Alabama’s Bryce Young and Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud.

3) If you want an example of the transfer portal’s effect on college football, the Washington-Oregon showdown Saturday night gave you a good one. A multiyear starting quarterback from Indiana (Michael Penix Jr.) was piloting one team, with a multiyear starting quarterback from Auburn (Bo Nix) piloting the other. That, to me, is a new level of where the transfer phenomenon has taken us, because those aren’t guys who left places seeking playing time. They were already getting that where they were.

4) I loved the postgame scene at Auburn on Saturday night, and you could see the energy interim coach (and former Tigers star) Cadillac Williams brought to Jordan-Hare Stadium as his players upset the underachieving Texas A&M. Could he hold onto the job? With the success of Deion Sanders at Jackson State, and even if you look at how Mike Vrabel rose quickly through the coaching ranks and became a successful NFL coach, the idea of it isn’t as wild as it once was. (Which, of course, is part of why Jim Irsay did what he did with the Colts last week.)

5) Remember the name Harold Perkins. The LSU true freshman had four (!!!) sacks on Saturday to help the Tigers survive the hangover of their big Alabama win, and if you watch the plays he made, you can see it was no fluke. It’s early to be talking about 2025 draft prospects. But it seems clear that he’ll be one.

6) Let’s wrap up this week’s Six From Saturday with a feel-good story. In case you missed it, here was the scene at Ohio State Saturday, when fifth-year receiver Kam Babb recorded his first college catch, an eight-yard touchdown from Stroud.

Look at the looks on the faces of everyone but Kam Babb. Phenomenal. pic.twitter.com/vSaXzqm84U

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) November 12, 2022

His story is remarkable. He’s had four torn ACLs. He missed the 2018, ’19 and ’21 seasons entirely. He had a setback this summer that sidelined him, and hadn’t played yet this year, until Saturday. And yet, twice he’s been elected a team captain. So when Ryan Day called a timeout, his team up 49–14 and Babb going in, Stroud interjected, wanting badly to get Babb the ball. Everyone knew why.

“It was C.J.’s call,” Babb’s position coach, Brian Hartline, said over the phone Saturday night. “And then I had Marv [Harrison] and Julian [Fleming] and Emeka [Egbuka] there, and they’re like, ‘Hey, Coach Hart, if he catches this, we’re storming the field. We’re getting a penalty.’ I'm like ‘You’re not. No, you’re not, we’re not getting a penalty.’ And then after it happened, everyone just went. Coach Day was like, ‘Screw it, I don’t even care. If we get a penalty, we get a penalty, whatever. It’s worth it.’”

And as for what the moment meant, Hartline continued, “It would be too hard to explain in a paragraph. He’s a highly skilled player, first of all, and would be an NFL receiver if it wasn’t for the injuries. And I’m not saying he’s not because of injuries, I’m just saying that he’s an NFL receiver talent-wise and he’s had four ACLs. He has never wavered, both in his role on a team and also with his faith. And he’s spoken about his faith to the team, he has acted on that faith, and people have seen it in person. He’s earned captain twice without playing. I mean, that says a lot. It’s not a charity case. It’s much more than that. He’s gone through multiple offseasons and then just couldn’t go, never made it to the season. He’s a beautiful young man, and, when I say that, he is kind to everyone, he works his tail off, he’s built like a Greek god and he encapsulates everything you would want in a young athlete, as a son, as a significant other.

“But he just keeps having knee injuries, and everyone feels his pain and everyone feels blessed by not having what he’s gone through. But he just keeps pushing on. And this is also a young man that’s never missed a thing. Like every meeting, every treatment, every lift. He didn’t waver. And the guys know that. There’s so much to be said that can't be summed up.”

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Babb is a four-time OSU Scholar Athlete or a three-time Academic All–Big Ten pick. Or that Babb is the one Day had address the team following the death of Dwayne Haskins back in the spring. It’s safe to say the kid’s probably going to be O.K. whether football’s in his future or not. Still, it’s pretty cool he got the on-field moment he did Saturday. And, really, it’s everything that’s right about sports.