At this time last year, Arizona State University quarterback Sam Leavitt was just fighting it out to be named the starter for the Sun Devils. The 19-year-old was a new face on campus in Tempe.

Now, the redshirt sophomore is gaining serious steam as a consensus first-round NFL draft prospect. According to a report from ESPN’s Pete Thamel, a senior college sports insider, most in the industry rate Leavitt highly.

Advertisement

From Thamel:

“NFL scouts consistently see Leavitt as the best NFL prospect in the Big 12. He’s entering his third year in college after transferring from Michigan State, and he laughed off his early inclusion in some mock drafts.

He said Dillingham told him on the flight to Big 12 media days that only 20% of first-round mock draft picks from this time of year end up there.

‘It instilled a little bit of a reality check,’ Leavitt said with a laugh.”

Leavitt wouldn’t be the first quarterback under Dillingham to be taken in the first round — Dillingham coached Bo Nix at both Auburn and Oregon. Nix was selected No. 12 overall by the Denver Broncos in the 2024 draft.

Advertisement

When asked by Thamel if Leavitt could also be a top-15 pick, he was full throttle in his answer.

“Yes, 100%,” Dillingham said to ESPN. “He’s competitive. He cares. He’s intelligent. All the football stuff everybody sees. Everybody sees the talent.”

The Big 12 as a whole is also seen as a conference with a handful of draftable prospects, potentially as many as seven, Thamel reports.

There are only three returning quarterbacks in the Big 12 this season who enter with 10 or fewer starts.

“We’re entering a golden age of quality quarterbacks with what’s coming this year and next in college football,” Thamel writes. “While the highest-end quarterbacks are still to be determined, the sheer volume of strong prospects is unusually high. And no league forecasts that possibility better than the Big 12, which has at least a half-dozen quarterbacks who already project as NFL draft picks.”

Advertisement

Baylor’s Sawyer Robertson, Cincinnati’s Brendan Sorsby, Iowa State’s Rocco Becht, Kansas State’s Avery Johnson, TCU’s Josh Hoover and Texas Tech’s Behren Morton are on the NFL’s radar as well.

One newcomer on the scene who Thamel called “one of the league’s most intriguing and important quarterbacks” is someone Arizona high school football fans know well: Utah transfer Devon Dampier, the dynamic signal-caller who led Scottsdale Saguaro to the 2021 Open Division state title and is now set to take over for the Utes.

Logan Stanley is a sports reporter with The Arizona Republic who primarily focuses on high school, college and Olympic sports. To suggest ideas for human-interest stories and other news, reach out to Stanley at logan.stanley@gannett.com or 707-293-7650. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @LSscribe.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: ESPN report: Sam Leavitt best QB prospect in Big 12