Take Two: Is Mason Rudolph the top QB prospect in the 2018 draft?

Take Two returns with a daily offering tackling a handful of issues in the college football landscape. Rivals.com National Recruiting Analyst Adam Gorney lays out the situation and then receives takes from Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell and a local expert from the Rivals.com network of team sites.

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During the last NFL Draft cycle, the debate over which quarterback should be taken first was a hearty one between North Carolina’s Mitch Trubisky and Clemson’s Deshaun Watson.

Trubisky ended up being selected second by the Chicago Bears, and on draft day the Kansas City Chiefs moved up to select Texas Tech’s Patrick Mahomes at No. 10. Watson was selected by the Houston Texans two picks after Mahomes.

This season, much of the debate has centered around UCLA’s Josh Rosen and USC’s Sam Darnold, and the discussion rages about which quarterback should be taken first. Wyoming’s Josh Allen, even with early-season struggles, and Louisville’s Lamar Jackson might be in the debate as well.

One quarterback who could emerge – much like Mahomes last year and even former Notre Dame quarterback Deshone Kizer, who was taken in the second round and started the Browns season-opener – is Oklahoma State’s Mason Rudolph.

After three dominant performances to start the season, the question needs to be asked whether Rudolph is being overlooked as possibly the best quarterback in this draft class. He could emerge further with games against TCU, Texas, Oklahoma and other Big 12 competition coming up.

His numbers are phenomenal. Rudolph is completing more than 72 percent of his passes for 1,135 yards with 11 touchdowns and only one pick. Those numbers could be even better, but Rudolph is out of the game often late in the second half because Oklahoma State is blowing out its opponent.

Rosen, Allen and Darnold have been the primary names mentioned in the discussion to be the first quarterback in the NFL Draft. But is everyone missing the boat on Rudolph, who is so talented and has put up such huge numbers in Stillwater already this season?

“Rudolph is a guy that could very well shoot up draft boards. While I am sure the OSU offense is still considered 'gimmicky' in some NFL front offices, the offense didn't stop Brandon Weeden from being a first-rounder. While Rudolph does not possess the pure arm strength that Weeden has, his arm is NFL-ready and he's much more mobile. The Cowboy offense has evolved a fair bit over the last six seasons as well. The one area where the offense may hurt him a little is that despite teams having four seasons of film on Rudolph, there are only a handful of plays with him under center. That's not as unusual as it once was, so the impact may be minimal.” – Johnson

“We had him just outside of our top 10 at quarterback. We had him ahead of Allen and behind Darnold and Rosen. When you look at the system they run, it’s a spread, they put up points and they put him in great positions. But when you watch him on film against Pitt, a lot of what he did he created on his own. He’s great at keeping his eyes down the field while he’s moving around. He’s a big guy who can scramble around pretty well, he’s hard to tackle, has an above average arm, and distributes the ball. He could be the guy who emerges. I’m not going to say he’s No. 1, but he’ll be the guy people start to fall in love with three or four games into the season like they did with (Deshone) Kizer last year. Then everything levels out. You go through the season tape and the combine and the workouts. That’s when everything shuffles and shifts again, but Mason Rudolph has been high on our radar for a very long time as a pro prospect.” - Farrell