Why Drake Maye has always been a difficult evaluation for colleges, NFL teams

There are several quarterbacks sitting at the top of the NFL Draft, expecting to go high in the first round. Among those star quarterbacks is Drake Maye out of North Carolina.

Ahead of the draft, On3’s Director of Scouting and Rankings Charles Power joined Andy Staples On3, where he went back and looked at who Drake Maye was as a prospect coming out of high school, explaining that he was a difficult evaluation for college the same way he is for NFL teams now.

“Drake Maye was a really interesting prospect,” Power said. “He’s probably, of that group of quarterbacks, I saw Drake Maye the most. I actually got to see him at a 7-on-7 tournament right before the shutdown. To this day, it’s probably the best 7-on-7 performance I’ve seen from a quarterback. Like the ball didn’t hit the ground the whole weekend. Multi-sport athlete. Among these quarterbacks, certainly the least trained of any of them. He spent a lot of time playing basketball.”

Drake Maye played high school football at Myers Park [North Carolina], where he was a four-star prospect. He was the No. 45 overall recruit in the 2021 cycle, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

“I remember seeing him at a camp as a sophomore and he was rough around the edges mechanically. I still think that’s probably an area where when you hear a lot of the draft discourse with Drake Maye and a lot of it is just mechanics, but you put him on the field and he’s just a baller. There’s no doubt about it,” Power said.

“He was the most efficient passer in high school football as a junior, including the senior class. That’s including guys like Bryce Young, CJ Stroud. Drake Maye was more efficient than them. I think he threw 50 touchdowns and two interceptions. Just really accurate and had a great feel for playing within a live, open environment. Great spatial awareness. Was certainly a better athlete than you would’ve thought from watching his high school football film.”

Drake Maye comes from an athletic family. His dad played football for North Carolina, while his older brother Luke Maye was a basketball player for the Tar Heels. Cole Maye, meanwhile, played baseball for Florida. He was a multi-sport athlete, playing basketball, in high school, showing off some of the skills he needs to play quarterback.

“He didn’t run around a ton because he didn’t have to, but then you watch him play high school basketball and he was the guy who had college level ability in basketball. I went back and into the vault. I’ll probably tweet it out this week, but watching some of his basketball stuff, just really strong shooting mechanics. There’s a lot of things that when you look at quarterbacks tend to translate well. The ability to replicate his motion and spatial awareness.”

In the end, Drake Maye put up massive numbers in college, completing 64.9 percent of his passes for 8,018 yards and 63 touchdowns. He also rushed for 1,209 yards and 16 touchdowns. With that success in mind, it’s no surprise he had so much interest as a recruit.

“So, he was one that, and tying it back into the recruiting angle of this, I think if you were gonna take a poll of these college staffs when these [Class of] 21 quarterbacks started to come off the board, there was no consensus but I think Drake Maye was held in the highest regard among college staffs. Thinking back to that time, I think he was at the top of the board and a take for the majority of the schools that he was interested in, like your big national programs.”

At one point, Maye was even committed to Alabama. He would have been on the team a season behind Bryce Young before he flipped to North Carolina, creating a unique what-if scenario.

“Nowadays it’s hard to assume a guy stays that long, but it’s certainly an interesting thing to think about. He was a guy that Nick Saban definitely loved Drake Maye. There’s no doubt about it. He was a guy that everybody in that program was really excited about.”

He’s not an easy evaluation, but it does seem to be clear that Drake Maye will hear his name very early in the 2024 NFL Draft.