Falcons’ Ryan showed his toughness at B.C.
Super Bowl quarterback still has his fans in Boston
HOUSTON — It was the kind of hit that would have other quarterbacks questioning why they ever picked up a football in the first place.
Matt Ryan, then a red shirt sophomore at Boston College, took the snap, dropped back, and quickly scanned the field as he rolled to his right. Just as he dumped off a short pass to his running back, Ryan was flattened by 225-pound Clemson linebacker David Dunham, the chest shot hitting him like the butt end of a swinging log. Ryan’s head snapped forward violently, his helmet flew off and his chin bounced off his chest.
Video of the hit instantly went viral and now, a dozen years later, has more than a halfmillion YouTube views. But it’s what happened after that video clip that captures the essence of who Ryan is as a quarterback, and helps explain how this season he has lifted the struggling Atlanta Falcons — 18-30 the past three seasons — to the NFL mountaintop.
After briefly regaining his composure on the sideline in that 2005 game, Ryan jogged back onto the field and reclaimed command of the huddle.
“He comes back in a play later,
his mouth’s all bloody, he looks at us and, I don’t want to swear, but, ‘Let’s … go,’ ” left tackle Jeremy Trueblood recalled of that 16-13 overtime victory at Clemson Memorial Stadium, nicknamed Death Valley. “I’m like: ‘Alright. I can deal with this guy.’ He’s one tough S.O.B.”
That toughness was on display for the nation the last two weeks, when Ryan directed the Falcons to playoff victories over Seattle and Green Bay to set the stage for a Super Bowl LI showdown against the New England Patriots. Time after time, with pass rushers bearing down on him, he stepped into throws and made key completions with seemingly no regard for his body. In many cases, the leveled quarterback has to monitor the reaction of the home crowd to know if the play is successful.
“You’re on the ground kind of listening to see what happens,” said Ryan, 31, in his ninth season.
Both Ryan and his Super Bowl counterpart, Tom Brady, the New England Patriots quarterback he studied closely when they were both in Boston, have unwavering focus and an undeniable grit.
“I’m not going to get into comparing the two guys; that’s not fair to either,” Falcons coach Dan Quinn said. “But what I can tell you is that both of them are unbelievable competitors, and when the guy can stand there, I’m right about to take the shot and that’s staring right down the face of it, and for years both of these guys know this is going to hurt, but I’m going to put it in the right spot.”
His accomplishments come as little surprise to the people at Boston College, who watched Ryan ascend from gangly kid out of Penn Charter, a small private school in Philadelphia, to a solid, 6-foot-4, ultra-dedicated college standout who went third overall to Atlanta in the 2008 draft, selected earlier than any other Boston College player in any sport.
What he did for that university rivaled the impact of Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie, who captured the national spotlight a quartercentury earlier. Ryan was 3-0 in bowl games, 3-0 in overtime games and beat four top 20 teams on the road — Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech and Clemson.
During the 2006 season, Ryan suffered a broken bone in his left foot. Longtime trainer Steve Bushee informed him he had two choices for treatment: a cast, or surgery to insert a screw that would hold the bones together.
“He looks at me and goes, ‘No, we’re not doing either of those. I’m playing,’ ” Bushee said. “He said, ‘It’s already broken, so I’m not going to break it worse, right? So if I can deal with this, I can play?’ And the doctor, Diane English, and I looked at each other and said, ‘Well, we haven’t really ever had anyone ask us that before, but you know what, we’ll make it happen.’ ”
So Ryan spent the rest of the fall practicing in a walking boot, and playing on Saturdays with an orthotic brace cradling his foot. He didn’t flinch, leading the Eagles to a 10-3 record. It was only after the season that the information was publicly disclosed.
Ryan grew up in the New Jersey shore town of North Wildwood, the third of four children: Motts, Kate, Matt, and John. Motts, whose real name is Michael, played quarterback at Widener, near Philadelphia; John at Brown.
“Motts is a few years older, so if there’s football going on in the yard, Matt’s in there playing with Motts’ crowd,” said their father, Mike. “They were three or four years older. So you either sink or swim. Matt elected to swim.”
Just as he puts pressure on himself to perform, Ryan expects a lot of the people around him. Father Tony Penna, associate vice president and director of campus ministry at Boston College, learned that on a rainy Tuesday night more than a decade ago.
Penna was supposed to deliver a talk on campus about the nature of evil. It was in a big auditorium, and he expected a crowd. Because of the foul weather, nobody showed up. Nobody, that is, except Ryan and his buddy.
“I said, ‘We’re not going to give the talk. It just doesn’t make sense,’ ” Penna said. “But Matt asked me to sit down and give him a summary of the talk. I’m thinking, here’s a first-year student, on the worst night in the world, who comes to a serious talk, and he’s going to get something out of it. I wanted to go home, but he drew the best out of me. I was just going to go home. He has the capacity to draw the best out of people in the moment.”
There’s a strange and somewhat conflicted feeling around Boston College these days. This is a place that’s crawling with Patriots fans, people who want to see their favorite team win a fifth Lombardi Trophy. Yet on the other side is Ryan, universally respected on campus as a player and person.
“This is the best Super Bowl,” Penna said. “We can’t lose.”