Buffalo’s under-recruited Patterson is hard to ignore
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Jaret Patterson was nearly inconsolable upon learning how difficult it was going to be landing a football scholarship despite a decorated high school career.
Turned down outright during a visit to Eastern Michigan, the undersized running back left his traveling party to hole up in one of the school’s bathrooms where he broke down and cried.
“We had like four people walking around Eastern Michigan’s football house looking for him, and James found him,” Justin Winters recalled, referring to Patterson’s twin brother, who was offered a scholarship.
“Literal tears. He didn’t understand why he was the one who was getting slept on,” said Winters, who was an assistant coach at Maryland’s St. Vincent Pallotti, where the Pattersons played. “So we went in there and we talked. I told him to wipe his tears, ‘Don’t let nobody see you cry.’ ”
The memory from 2017 is a distant one now for Winters, who was a walk-on linebacker at the University at Buffalo and eventually played a key role in persuading his alma mater to take a chance on both Pattersons.
“He came here, fifth string or first string, and said, ‘I can’t wait until I put the pads on and I’m going to show them,’ ” Winters said. “I said, ‘All right.’ And look what he did.”
Four games into his junior season, the 5-foot-9, 195pound Patterson has essentially re-written the MidAmerican Conference program’s record book, while coming off his most impressive national attention-grabbing moment so far.
In a 70-41 win over Kent State on Saturday, Patterson finished with 409 yards rushing, the second-most in FBS history and 18 shy of Samaje Perine’s single-game record for Oklahoma in 2014. And he scored eight rushing touchdowns, matching the FBS record set by Illinois running back Howard Griffith in 1990. Arizona State’s Kalen Ballage, in 2016, is the only other player to score eight touchdowns (seven rushing and one receiving) in a major college game.
Coming off 301 yards rushing and four TDs in a 42-17 win at Bowling Green, Patterson joined Texas star Ricky Williams (1996) in becoming just the second player to top 300 yards rushing in consecutive games.
Overall, Patterson’s 920 yards rushing this season rank fifth in the nation, with the four players ahead of him having played nine or more games.
Reminded about his emotional breakdown at Eastern Michigan, Patterson acknowledged he wouldn’t have envisioned this kind of production during one of the lowest moments of his life. But the memory of being overlooked is what drives him.