I'd argue that this is more a symptom of our bad QB recruiting than it is of Emory being some majorly slept on talent.
You're doing a counterfactual on Mendoza...we have no idea what would have happened if they had competed head to head. My read is that we didn't recruit Mendoza because Mario is trying to big brain this thing again...he lucked out on the Cam Ward situation (which he deserves credit for) and is now trying to ride the lightning with whoever this mystery QB is supposed to be.
The others are all just below-average QBs. Poff looked terrible in the limited snaps we saw, Jacurri can't throw and TVD turned into a pumpkin as soon as teams started playing Zone defense.
If we're going off of only what we've seen, Emory is at best a below-average QB and probably worse. He was awful against Iowa State (Kirk dropped that ball but Emory also threw his only fastball of the game on that throw for some reason)...blindingly mediocre against Clemson (defense + Breshard won us that game)...and very bad against FSU (Jacolby with a somewhat flukey long run after the catch is what kept us in striking position there, as I recall).
I think Emory is tough, he gives a ****, he's clearly a good locker room guy...I would love to keep him around as a 3rd string guy. Maybe one day he turns into something serviceable.
But if we are serious about not forfeiting whatever momentum this season created for us we cannot bank on him to be the guy.