Walk on to greatness
Overlooked as a high school recruit, Baker Mayfield has proven that recruiters whiffed on signing him.
David Beaty remembers the high school Baker Mayfield.
Beaty, now the head coach at Kansas, then was the receivers coach at Texas A&M. And the Mayfield quarterbacking the Lake Travis Cavaliers in Austin, Texas, was the Mayfield you see quarterbacking the Oklahoma Sooners in Norman, America.
“You could see the talent,” Beaty said. “Very similar to some of the things he’s doing right now, he was doing on the high school level. Where you’re like, wow.”
Beaty even takes the ultimate step for any Aggie. Beaty compares Mayfield to Johnny Manziel. On the college level. And on the high school level.
But there’s just one question. If the next Johnny Football was right there before every Texan’s very eyes, why didn’tA&Mtake the
quite simple step of offering a scholarship? Why didn’t Texas Tech, where Mayfield first enrolled but without a scholarship? Why didn’t TCU, which Mayfield has always thought was going to offer but never did? Why didn’t Texas, which has been quarterback-starved for going on a decade? Why didn’t Oklahoma, Mayfield’s beloved team as a kid?
One of college football’s greatest careers — any region, any era — accelerates to an exciting finish. Almost surely the Heisman Trophy.
Quite possibly a second College Football Playoff berth. Records by the number, thrills by the score.
And literally any school in the Big 12, any school in the Southwest or the SEC schools that regularly raid Texas, could have had Mayfield’s services. The Sooners were the lottery winners through no credit of their own.
How can that be? Well, the Mayfield story is a monument to group think. To coaches who say they think outside the box but instead tape themselves inside the cardboard of convention and refuse to look past something as innocuous as height. In a world after 5-foot-3 Muggsy Bogues played 14 NBA seasons, college football coaches in the oil patch passed on Mayfield because he was 5-foot-11.
“Lot of people are scared of quarterbacks that aren’t 6-3, 6-4,” said Lincoln Riley. “I think that’s starting to go away a little bit. I think people are starting to see that you don’t have to have every single physical requirement available to be great at a position.”
But what took them so long? Drew Brees — another overlooked Austin kid, from Westlake High School — will go into the Pro Football Hall of Fame at 6-foot tall. Russell Wilson quarterbacked the 2012 Seahawks to the playoffs as a 5-foot-11 rookie. Manziel himself was a quarter inch under 6-foot when he stormed to the 2012 Heisman.
How could coaches pass on a Manziel facsimile in February 2013?
“I was coaching the wideouts at the time,” Beaty said, backpedaling as any of us would. “So I could probably speak on those a lot easier than I could the quarterbacks. He was certainly on the list. He was one of the most talented guys in the state of Texas and in the country.”
But A&M took Kenny Hill Jr. OU took Cody Thomas. OSU didn’t sign a scholarship quarterback but enticed Jake Hubanek to walk on. Texas signed Tyrone Swoopes. TCU signed Zach Allen. Arkansas signed Austin Allen. Baylor signed Chris Johnson. And on and on. The only Power 5 Conference team that offered Mayfield a scholarship was Washington State, and Mayfield decided he didn’t want to go to that far from home. You can’t mount a revenge tour of Texas schools playing at Washington State.
So Mayfield went to Texas Tech without a scholarship, became the first true freshman walk-on quarterback to start a season opener at a major-conference school and eventually left Tech after a spat with coach Kliff Kingsbury.
Kingsbury actually was Manziel’s offensive coordinator in that magic year of 2012, then took the Tech head coaching job. Kingsbury and A&M were talking with Mayfield.
“He was a guy we certainly looked at,” Beaty said. “Obviously, when Kliff left us and went to Tech, it was a natural slide, get him to come over to his place.”
Now Mayfield is on the verge of being a threetime All-American, a three-time Heisman finalist (top four) and the acclaimed greatest quarterback in OU history. Come to think of it, Mayfield is the greatest quarterback in Big 12 history, and you’d be hard-pressed to name any quarterback anywhere with a better college career.
“I’ve been around football for awhile,” Beaty said. “I’ve seen one other guy that can do the things this guy can do, and that’s Johnny. Johnny Manziel. That guy’s extremely talented. And this guy really reminds me of him.
“I think the thing that makes him so dangerous is, his arm talent is ridiculous. He can put the ball anywhere anytime. His feet are phenomenal. His accuracy is second to none. But he can run the ball. He’s so strong. He bounces off tackles. He’s got really good speed. Terrific vision. Great lateral movement. Good change of direction. He’s got just about all of it.”
Except a scholarship offer coming out of high school.
At least that blood’s not on Riley’s hands. He was offensive coordinator at East Carolina when Mayfield came out of Lake Travis.
“I wasn’t real aware of him,” Riley said. “I knew that Washington State and a couple other groups were trying to get him. I don’t have any memories of watching him in high school.
“Guys are going to get missed on, sometimes. That happens. There’s thousands of quarterbacks out there. Thousands of players at each position. Lot of different variables in high school that sometimes are tough to evaluate. Guys are going to get missed on. There’s only so many Division I schools, only so many programs, only so many spots.”
But there are only so many Johnny Manziels, and everyone in Oklahoma and Texas and beyond missed on the latest.
And it’s not like Lake Travis is a sleepy little place far from the spotlight. Garrett Gilbert quarterbacked Lake Travis to Class 4A state titles in 2007 and 2008, then signed with Texas. Michael Brewer quarterbacked Lake Travis to 4A state titles in 2009 and 2010, then signed with Texas Tech. Mayfield quarterbacked Lake Travis to a 4A state title in 2011.
Maybe, coaches just refused to believe their eyes. Maybe that wow factor that Beaty talked about was too much to comprehend. Heck, sometimes it’s hard for us here to really understand what we’re seeing in Mayfield.
“He was almost hard to evaluate,” Beaty said, “because he could run around so well, that you almost saw so many crazy good plays that were off schedule, you might not be able to see how good this guy just purein-the-pocket played. Sometimes that makes it difficult on guys like him and Johnny to evaluate. Everything’s a wow play.”
Wow’s a good word for it. Wow that Baker Mayfield was a high school Johnny Football. Wow that eyes trained to look for talent were Bakerblind. The very thing they were looking for was the one thing they couldn’t see.