A LOYAL PAIN
Toledo corner a thorn in the side of opposing WRs
Ninth of an 11-part series. Coming tomorrow: safeties.
At the time, Quinyon Mitchell was a man of few words.
That made the ones Mitchell chose during his initial meeting with Corey Parker feel all the more significant.
Parker was hired out of the Michigan high school ranks to coach Toledo’s defensive backs in February 2022, when Mitchell was coming off of a promising first season as a starter. A relationship that would become key to Mitchell’s development into a two-time AllAmerican started with Parker asking what he could do to help the player reach his full potential.
“He said without a doubt one of the most impressive things that I’ll ever hear from a player nowadays: ‘Coach me hard, and don’t let me get away with anything,’ ” Parker told The Post. “In that moment, I knew I could give him my all without flinching. Sometimes you want to let a kid know passionately how important a certain technique or a certain play is, but some players haven’t been raised in an environment where speaking to them with that type of passion is going to be received.”
Two years later, Mitchell could be the first cornerback selected in the top half of the first round of the 2024 draft.
“His Senior Bowl performance was one of the best I’ve ever seen for a cornerback,” ESPN draft analyst Matt Miller told The Post. “The way he competed in the drills, he was manhandling guys. Receivers were trying to come off the line of scrimmage, and he’s like, ‘Nope.’ I loved watching his tape — so polished — but in the back of your head, you are like, ‘This is Toledo. How good is this?’ Really, really good is the answer.”
So, what did hard coaching look like from Parker to Mitchell?
“Set ridiculously high goals … and work toward them,” Parker said. “Coaching him hard is after he dropped three interceptions [early in the 2022 season], going into the Northern Illinois game, ‘You are going to catch an extra 40 doggone balls after a grueling practice. I don’t care if you are mad at me about it. Catch the ball.’ ”
Mitchell responded by making four interceptions against Northern Illinois — tied for the most in a game by an NCAA player since 1972 — and returning two for touchdowns.
“He makes defensive football offensive,” Parker said. “He’s not just a big, strong, fast guy. He’s a big, strong, fast guy that really starts to dial in on attention to detail on his attack. He’s going to try to take away a receiver’s best thing they do. If a man is going to beat you, make him beat you doing something uncomfortable. That’s how we lived.”
Mitchell’s breakout 2022 season generated transfer interest. He was told that he could command “anywhere from $250,000 to $350,000” in NIL money, Parker said.
But Mitchell saw it as a chance to repay the loyalty that Toledo showed him in recruiting, when he was academically ineligible out of high school and missed the 2019 season.
“Toledo was always reaching out. That’s why I went to Toledo,” Mitchell said at the NFL combine. “It was getting humbled — having to sit out six months and realize it’s bigger than football and you have to take care of yourself off the field.”
The 6-foot, 195-pound Mitchell has the size-strength-speed combination that teams seek for press man-to-man coverage. Mitchell bench-pressed 20 reps at 225 pounds and ran a 4.33-second 40-yard dash, which were tied for the best and second-best marks, respectively, among cornerbacks at the combine.
“I didn’t come to be mediocre,” Mitchell said. “I came to break records.”
Mitchell’s speed can be a difference-maker closing on balls thrown in front of him — creating a pass breakup (school-record 46 in his career) on what would be a 6-yard catch — and in chasing down ballcarriers who break free on the other side of the defense. But it’s his physicality that is harder to quantify and thus more rewarding for scouts to identify.
Parker passed down to Mitchell the press coverage techniques that he learned from Jeff Hafley at an Ohio State coaching clinic and refined under Mike Macdonald and Chris Hewitt during his Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship with the Ravens. It wouldn’t be a surprise then if, years later, Hafley (Packers defensive coordinator), Macdonald (Seahawks head coach) and Hewitt (Ravens assistant head coach) are among those who like what they see.
“This young man came to my office and said, ‘Coach we’re a family, I’m not [transferring] anywhere,’” Parker said. “What would that have looked like if I didn’t coach him hard? What if I always told him everything he did was good? Or harped on everything he did that was bad? You can be demanding without being demeaning. When you do good things, I’ll pat you on the back for four seconds because that play took four seconds. Time for the next play.”
Mitchell’s next play will be as a highly touted NFL rookie.