Oregon lands Rivals’ No. 1 QB, rises up team recruiting rankings
NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...
Dan Lanning and the Oregon staff have landed their quarterback in the 2027 cycle.
Chandler (Ariz.) five-star QB Will Mencl, the No. 1 passer in the updated Rivals300, announced his commitment to the Ducks live on the Rivals YouTube channel on Wednesday evening. He chose Oregon over Auburn and Penn State.
“The culture is the biggest thing with Oregon,” Mencl previously told Rivals.” Dan Lanning runs a really tight ship with what he believes and a standard he holds players to.”
The addition of Mencl is, obviously, gigantic for the Big Ten program. His pledge helped Oregon move past Notre Dame, Florida and Georgia in the Rivals Industry Team Recruiting Rankings. It now has the No. 6 class in the nation, as of April 22.
[ $19.99 gets you a FULL year of On3 | Rivals national coverage ]
There’s now nine commits in the class overall and seven are of the blue-chip variety. To no surprise, Lanning and Co. are in position to push for yet another top-five haul in Eugene.
Mencl the latest to choose Oregon this month
The five-star signal-caller is now the No. 13 overall prospect, No. 1 QB and No. 1 player in Arizona after Monday’s update to the Rivals300 rankings. He’s now the No. 3 QB in the Rivals Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all major recruiting media companies.
Mencl is now the third industry top-100 prospect to choose the Ducks in April, following Raleigh (N.C.) Millbrook four-star EDGE Rashad Streets and Dothan (Ala.) four-star cornerback Ai’King Hall. They are both also top-50 recruits and top-10 players at their respective positions in the Rivals300.
April has also brought a commitment from West Linn (Ore.) four-star CB Josiah Molden, the top-ranked recruit in Oregon this cycle. Molden and King form a rock-solid duo in the secondary, while Little Elm (Texas) Guyer four-star Zane Rowe and Alabaster (Ala.) Thompson four-star Cam Pritchett create a formidable defensive lineman duo on the pledge list.
Mencl now headlines the offensive side of the haul alongside Tyler (Texas) four-star running back CaDarius McMiller, the nation’s No. 10 RB. Turlock (Calif.) three-star offensive tackle Avery Michael and Salt Lake City (Utah) Olympus three-star athlete Sam Ngata round out the class thus far.
Oregon’s haul ranks No. 3 in the Big Ten, behind USC and Ohio State. The Ducks are still trending for other blue-chippers this spring, too.
Scout’s Take on Will Mencl
Rivals’ Director of Scouting and Rankings Charles Power recently said this about Mencl as he continues to sit atop the Rivals300 QB rankings:
“Will Mencl is a quarterback we continue to like. He has some real competition for that top QB spot, but our exposure to Mencl is a little more extended than what we’ve gotten from other quarterbacks. We saw him all week at the Navy All-American Bowl and he was the top QB we saw during the national all-star circuit. Really accurate QB, a guy who can layer the football and showed high-end processing ability in live settings. We liked his junior season and when you look at the top QBs, he has the highest rushing output of our top four in this cycle, he ran for 17 touchdowns and much of that output was in big-time playoff games. I think he’s a QB that’s shown a well-rounded skillset and is one we continue to like, with the caveat that our No. 1 QB spot is currently anything but settled.”
More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos