Is Drake Lindsey the Biggest Wildcard Quarterback in College Football?
The Minnesota redshirt sophomore can help lead the Golden Gophers to new heights under head football coach PJ Fleck this fall.
Fernando Mendoza was the best quarterback in the Big Ten last season. He was the best quarterback in the FBS. He won the Heisman trophy. He led the Indiana Hoosiers to a national championship. He was then drafted No. 1 overall in the 2026 NFL Draft by the Las Vegas Raiders. Mendoza led, without a doubt, one of the most impressive and stunning college football national championship teams of all time. However, this time last year, nobody saw any of that coming. That not even the most clairvoyant college football fans and analysts alike did not see any of it coming is one of the many things that makes sports great, how unpredictable all of this can still be, even with how much information we all have at our disposal.
This is why I have been thinking a lot about CBS Sports’ Mike Renner’s Way-Too-Early 2027 NFL Mock Draft, which he released last month.
It has the three usual suspects at the top – Arch Manning, Jeremiah Smith, and Dante Moore. It’s a pretty safe bet as we sit here in mid-June that these three collegiate phenoms will hear their name called in the first three picks, in some order, next April. Three stars on three different teams, each with national championship expectations this fall. These three are the best mid-June guesses as to who takes home the Heisman trophy next season, too.
And yet, those three stars are not the reason Renner’s mid-May mock has continued to rattle around my brain over the course of the last month. It was actually the player listed right after those usual suspects. It was Drake Lindsey, the starting quarterback at Minnesota, going No. 4 to the Cleveland Browns. In what is shaping up to be an all-time great year for an NFL team to need a franchise quarterback, Renner mocked Lindsey ahead of South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers, Miami’s Darian Mensah, Notre Dame’s CJ Carr, NC State’s CJ Bailey, Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss, Ohio State’s Julian Sayin, USC’s Jayden Mavaia, and the list goes on and on. There are so many potential big-time quarterbacks, depending on how their 2026 season unfolds, who could go early in a loaded 2027 NFL Draft.
Lindsey to the Browns at No. 4 is the good stuff.
The Golden Gophers haven’t had a player taken that high in the draft since defensive tackle Carl Eller went No. 6 overall in 1964. The Gophers haven’t had a quarterback drafted since Craig Curry was drafted by the Miami Dolphins in 1972, who took him in the eighth round. The Gophers have developed several first-rounders in my lifetime, including Rashad Bateman, Laurence Maroney, Willie Middlebrooks, along with some other big-time guys like Marion Barber III, Antoine Winfield Jr., Boye Mafe, Eric Decker, et cetera. The Minnesota Golden Gophers have been a solid program for most of my time on this planet.
There is just no historical precedent for a Minnesota quarterback going No. 4 overall.
The former three-star recruit is listed at 6’5” and 230 lbs. As a redshirt freshman last season under the perpetually underrated PJ Fleck, he started all thirteen games for Minnesota. He guided the Gophers to an 8-5 final record, the most wins ever by a freshman quarterback at Minnesota. In six of his final seven games last season, Lindsey didn’t throw a single interception.
It’s hard to believe Fleck has already been at Minnesota for a decade. In that time, he’s quietly been extremely successful. He had an 11-win season in 2019. He’s won eight or nine games in four of the last five seasons. He’s built a sky-high floor for most Gopher teams under his watch in the Big Ten.
Sure, there was a lot of mystery and intrigue about Max Brosmer when he transferred in from New Hampshire, and Tanner Morgan was perfectly solid for several seasons. However, a 6’5” quarterback with a cannon for an arm getting top-5 pick buzz in the NFL Draft is uncharted waters for this program under Fleck and for Minnesota football.
Minnesota hasn’t been ranked since the 2022-23 college football season. Their preseason betting win total, per FanDuel, sits at 6.5 wins as of this writing. Minnesota lost its best player to Oregon in safety, and the former No. 1 overall player in the state of Minnesota as a prep player, Koi Perich. As I already wrote in this very piece, though, even with the loss of Perich, that betting win total seems low, especially when you take into account Fleck’s track record. If Lindsey is anywhere close to being worth the No. 4 overall pick in the 2027 NFL Draft, the Gophers are going to win eight or more games.
They do return Darius Taylor at tailback, who rushed for over 100 yards in his final two games last season. He’s averaged nearly 5 yards per carry across three seasons. They brought in former blue-chip offensive tackle Bennett Warren from Tennessee. They took a flyer on another former blue-chip wideout in Perry Thompson from Auburn. Per ESPN’s Bill Connelly, the Gophers are No. 7 in FBS in returning production, borderline top-10 in both offense and defense. Simply put, there is a lot to like about Minnesota, before you even throw in a third-year quarterback with thirteen starts under his belt getting high first-round buzz.
I don’t have any idea if Lindsey will end up being the No. 4 pick in the 2027 NFL Draft, but if he does, I do wonder what kind of season Minnesota will have as a result. Does Lindsey guide the Gophers to their first College Football Playoff appearance? Does that brutal 6.1 YPA inch closer to 9.1 in a pivotal draft year for Lindsey? It’s a sneaky huge year for offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Greg Harbaugh Jr. Minnesota gets Michigan, Mississippi State, Iowa, UCLA, and Northwestern at home. Could they steal one or two in Happy Valley, Seattle, or Madison?
I don’t know.
Still, I think I know the difference between the expected eight-ish wins and ten-ish wins is what Lindsey ultimately develops in his second year as QB1 for the Gophers. I love the boldness of Lindsey at No. 4 by Renner, and I love what that could mean for the Minnesota football program if he plays up to that billing this fall.