They were just kids back then, a couple of 16 year olds running plays at quarterback camps. It would be years before DeShone Kizer would land at Notre Dame and Deshaun Watson would win a national title at Clemson. But even in those days at passing clinics in Portland, Oregon and Columbus, Ohio there was an understanding that as African American quarterbacks a future was possible for them that hadn’t always been there in the past.

“[We used to say to each other] how cool would it be if we were two of the top quarterbacks coming out in whatever draft class we decided to come out in … and the impact that would be able to make as African American quarterbacks in the league,” Kizer said on Wednesday on the eve of the NFL Draft.

Their high school dreams are about to come true. Kizer and Watson will be picked somewhere in the first two rounds of this week’s draft. Perhaps both will be taken during Thursday night’s initial round. The idea isn’t as unusual now as it was even a decade ago, before Cam Newton won an MVP, Russell Wilson won a Super Bowl and Robert Griffin III won rookie of the year. In many ways, the fact two black quarterbacks are at the top of the draft seems unremarkable. The way it is supposed to be.

Still, for all the advances the path still remains harder for African American quarterbacks. Sure, players like Newton and Griffin were picked No1 and No2 respectively in their drafts but Wilson fell to the third-round and Dak Prescott, who led the Cowboys to a division title as a rookie last year, was a fourth-round selection.

A Guardian analysis of quarterbacks in the last seven drafts shows the average pick for a black quarterback was 70^th overall as opposed to 53^rd for a white quarterback. But those same black quarterbacks have a career passer rating slightly above 90.0, while the average rating for their white counterparts was slightly below that. This isn’t a precise measure but it clearly shows that African American quarterbacks remain undervalued coming out of college.

It was only 14 years ago that Rush Limbaugh sat on an ESPN studio set, looked into the camera and said with a straight face that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb – then in the middle of his fourth Pro Bowl season – was being praised because “the media is very desirous that a black quarterback do well.”

As a child in Toledo, Ohio, McNabb was Kizer’s favorite quarterback. McNabb had no connection to Toledo, he was from Chicago and played college football at Syracuse. But Kizer’s father’s favorite quarterback was Randall Cunningham, a black quarterback who broke many barriers when the Eagles made him their starter in the mid-1980s. Because his father liked the Eagles for Cunningham, Kizer liked the Eagles too.

Growing up, Kizer watched YouTube Videos of McNabb, trying to copy the passes McNabb threw, dreaming that someday he would be an NFL quarterback. When his father showed him a clip of McNabb pronating his fingers while holding the ball, Kizer started doing the same. Everything he did as a teenager was to become a NFL quarterback. He never questioned the sanity of his dream.

But a generation ago so many did.

“Think about Charlie Ward,” Stanford coach David Shaw, who is working at the draft for the NFL Network, told the Guardian.

In 1993 Ward won the Heisman Trophy, the first quarterback to lead Florida State to a national championship. But in the months before the 1994 draft, his family was told he wouldn’t be anything better than a third- or fourth-round pick. Believing himself a first–rounder, he chose a basketball career and played 11 years in the NBA.

“He hoped and believed and I hoped and believed that wouldn’t happen in the game,” said Shaw, who played wide receiver at Stanford and also left school in 1994.”[You want to think] that you could show people you can play at a high level and the bottom line for me is if you can throw the ball accurately whether you’re an athletic quarterback or are a drop back quarterback who stays in the pocket you should have an opportunity to play in the NFL.”

When asked what has changed, Shaw brought up players like Cunningham and McNabb, whose success broke down the walls that had kept African American quarterbacks out of the NFL. That provided easier opportunities for players like Newton and Wilson.

“There are a lot of guys that are [general managers] now who grew up loving Doug Williams [the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl] so in their minds they’ve seen a great quarterback play at a high level from the pocket who happens to be black,” Shaw said. “So I believe the environment is a lot different. It’s on that person to be effective.”

“You don’t even talk about the African American quarterback anymore,” NFL Network analyst and former NFL coach Steve Mariucci said Wednesday.

His implication was that good quarterbacks are considered good quarterbacks regardless of background and skin color. Gone is the implication that African American quarterbacks in college are more runners than passers whose skills will not translate to the professional game.

The past doesn’t matter too much to Kizer, who has had to fight perceptions that he is a “millennial who lacks focus” and has “diva qualities,” a lazy slur sometimes used to discredit black athletes. Despite constant criticisms of him from anonymous NFL coaches and scouts, he only talked on Wednesday about opportunity. He will get drafted, whether it is in Thursday’s first round or on Friday in the second or third. He is going to have an opportunity, a good one, to be a successful NFL quarterback.

“Obviously there are some notions that if you play in a spread offense and you are as athletic as we are you’re a guy who’s just going to run all over the field,” he said. “I think Deshaun and I have kind of changed that in the sense that we believe we can go and sit in the pocket if we need to and we can understand the offenses the way we need to and we can go out there and ball the way any quarterback can go out there and ball.”

Just like when they were a couple kids with a dream, watching Donovan McNabb and believing that if they worked hard and could play, they would have a chance to be like him too.