Before his promotion from third quarterback to starting quarterback in preseason training camp, Tulane redshirt freshman Darian Mensah received even less attention out of high school.
When he takes the first snap against No. 18 Kansas State on Saturday at Yulman Stadium (11 a.m., ESPN), he will continue a journey that few people outside his immediate circle could have imagined a few years ago.
Tulane was the only FBS team to court him out of San Luis Obispo, Calif. St. Joseph High. Former recruiting coordinator Wesley Fritz watched his highlight video on social media, passed it along to coaches, and they went way beyond their usual recruiting reach to offer him a scholarship before his final season.
His only subsequent offers came from Idaho State, an FCS school that had a 1-10 record in 2022, and Lindenwood, a Missouri-based FCS program in the Ohio Valley Conference.
“Of course it was frustrating to see people around you being recruited and getting these huge offers that you thought you were better than yourself. But I didn’t have time to focus on not getting those offers,” he said. “I just had to keep working and focus on that instead of the negative. I knew what I could do.”
Clearly. On Saturday, he will face the highest-ranked non-conference opponent the Green Wave has ever faced in the 11-year history of Yulman Stadium. He is coming off a nearly flawless debut against Southeastern Louisiana, completing 10 of 12 passes for 205 yards and two scores and leading Tulane to touchdowns on five of his six series.
Mensah makes it all look easy, but getting to this point was tough. He grew up on California’s Central Coast in a single-parent family alongside his twin sister Grace – a midfielder on the Oregon soccer team – and two older siblings.
“It was hard,” said Naomi Brebes-Mensah, his mother and an acupuncturist. “We were on food stamps and living in public housing. They were latchkey kids and came home alone. A lot of people had to help. Our neighbors helped take him to practice. My sister, my dad, my brother donated their shoes, their cleats, whatever. I had to ask for help a lot. It’s humiliating.”
They have also faced racist criticism. Her father is black and Brebes-Mensah describes herself as a blonde woman with blue eyes and Portuguese roots. Her grandfather’s family emigrated to Morro Bay, a fishing village about 15 minutes from San Luis Obispo.
“My kids were, for the most part, the only black kids in town,” she said. “They grew up in a white community, so they had to deal with a lot of that. Darian took it really well. Gracie had a little more trouble with the teasing and stuff like that.”
He also had a problem with football. Before his junior year, he left San Luis Obispo High and went to St. Joseph, a Catholic school 45 minutes from his home. Due to transfer rules, he had to sit out the first five games, and when he became eligible, he started playing receiver and didn’t play quarterback until late in the season.
Although he completed over 70 percent of his passes his senior year and St. Joseph won eight straight games by an average of 30 points, it was too late to attract interest from major colleges other than Tulane.
“The recruiting process has been so accelerated that we are in some ways devaluing a player’s performance as a senior,” said Tulane coach Jon Sumrall, who acquired Mensah. “He didn’t have the long list of offers you normally see for a Division I quarterback, but I’ve told our team time and time again that it’s not how many (recruiting service) stars you have, it’s about performance.”
Mensah insists the Central Coast, which is about halfway between Los Angeles and California’s Bay Area, is short on young players because of its remote location. He is a prime example of that: a 6-foot-3, 200-pound player with a strong arm and good athletic ability who would normally be considered a top-tier talent.
“I’ve always believed in myself,” he said. “My sister and I have always believed since I was a kid and my mother always believed that I would make it here, so it was no surprise to me.”
He did everything in his power to speed up that process. Last year, as the quarterback on the scout team behind Michael Pratt, Kai Horton and Justin Ibieta, his role was to help the defense prepare for the opponent.
He went even further.
“The coaches told me to throw on defense, and I just said, ‘No, I’m not doing that,'” he said. “I wanted to work on my game and I realized I could really play here.”
That belief remained even when Sumrall declared the race to replace Pratt in preseason training camp to be alternately a three-way battle and a two-way battle between former five-star prospect Ty Thompson and 2023 Military Bowl starter Horton.
Mensah outperformed his fourth-year competition in both practice games and didn’t let up.
“I’m really angry every day,” he said. “Playing with that is my true confidence.”
Kansas State represents a big step up from Southeastern Louisiana, but Mensah seems to be handling the situation in a way that goes beyond his stellar performance in his first career game.
“He just brings that California swag,” running back Shaadie Clayton-Johnson said. “I’m in the backfield with him and I’m like, ‘Bro, why am I so nervous?’ He’s the quarterback and he’s got more going on mentally than I do, and he’s so calm.”
He got his mentality from his mother, who had him write down affirmations and thanks throughout his life.
“As a family, we believe in having the right mindset and mental strength since day one,” she said. “I really pushed that. We always said don’t focus on what you don’t have; focus on what you have and what your intentions are. Every time he said, ‘Oh, maybe not,’ it was like, ‘yeah, but you’ll get there. We just knew it was going to happen.’
