ROSE BOWL -- LATE AFTERNOON.
Baker Mayfield can swagger in from off-screen, taking a flash to admire the picturesque pregame scene flowering before him and his Oklahoma teammates. there'll be a crowd of over ninety,000 people, virtually equally split between fans coated in red and black and people clad within the same crimson and cream as his helmet and uniform.
DISSOLVE TO: A glimmer of recognition can sweep across his face, associate degree understanding of why this game -- the oldest and largest of all the postseason faculty soccer games -- is termed The gramps of all.
 |
| College football's brightest star |
Mayfield, as per usual, will most likely improvise from there.
The rest of the script is in his hands.
Like such a large amount of before him, Mayfield has gone west for the larger stage and brighter lights. The Rose Bowl is not quite Hollywood -- it's solely fifteen miles away via the one hundred and one superhighway and therefore the a hundred and ten -- however it is the nearest that school soccer needs to a blockbuster event.
A game that has traditionally cellular the highest team from the geographical area against a powerhouse from the Rust Belt can instead boast a marquee that includes Mayfield against the rugged Southern welcome of the Georgia defense, that ranks second within the nation in potency. it's arguably the foremost compelling pairing in school soccer this year, associate encounter that may verify that team gets an endeavor at the national championship in Atlanta every week later.
And it will likely hinge on the performance of Mayfield, a guy who has long thrived on the tension and pressure that comes with being at the center of attention.
He is the sort of protagonist that America -- though probably not in the southeast U.S. and little to none of Georgia -- can get behind.
And why not? Mayfield has the scruffy-cheeked, rugged good looks of a leading man. As a former walk-on at both Texas Tech and Oklahoma, he has an underdog origin story many fans can relate to. He has recently come into possession of the Heisman, probably the most-recognizable trophy in the country.
At this point, he even has the sort of one-name recognition reserved for only the headliners: Rihanna. Magic. Madonna. Tebow. Baker.
And for the next week, until Georgia and Oklahoma kick off on Monday (5 p.m. ET, ESPN and ESPN App), Mayfield will be covered as they are, with reporters hanging on every word and action, hoping for another headline from the quotable quarterback.
After all, he even has, shall we say, a past? He was arrested in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in February and pleaded guilty to public intoxication, disorderly conduct and fleeing from police. He apologized for planting a flag at the middle of Ohio State's field after a win there in September. And most recently, Mayfield was forced to sit out the start of his home finale against West Virginia after taunting and making a lewd gesture to Kansas fans during the game there.
But here's a secret: That doesn't have to be a problem, and might even work to his advantage.
"Give me a break, so he grabbed his crotch and all of that? It was a reaction to an action," said Barry Switzer, the Sooners coaching legend. "But it's that kind of stuff that brings to the team a charisma, an excitement, a confidence that permeates the entire team and raises their play."
It was clear Mayfield had that sort of result on his teammates and also the game geological dating to his terribly initial varsity soccer action in 2011 at Lake Travis highschool in state capital, Texas, wherever he started his junior year on the sideline behind a senior who'd overwhelmed him out for the duty. once that senior went down with Associate in Nursing injury on the fourth play of the season opener, Mayfield entered the lineup and ne'er left it once more.
"All of a abrupt Baker comes in and lights [the stadium] lit," aforementioned David Collins, then Mayfield's offensive organiser and currently head coach at Pearce highschool in Richardson, Texas.
"It was impressive from the primary time he stepped on the sector."
Mayfield was answerable for 3 touchdowns therein blowout win of Lake Travis' across rival Westlake High at the house field of the University of American state, a debut that served notice that he was unafraid of the large moments.
"I wasn't happy that I contend as a result of [the beginning quarterback] got hurt, however i used to be ready simply just in case," Mayfield told the state capital American-Statesman once the sport. "Everything reasonably clicked."
It was that fascinating brew of intensity and excellence, let alone a nobody-believes-in-me chip on his shoulder that may characterize ensuing six years of his career.
Mayfield would continue to assist Lake Travis win a state championship that year, its fifth straight. ensuing year he turned down scholarship offers from Rice and FL Atlantic to become a most popular walk-on at American state school. A year later he left city once bristling at being forced to vie for the beginning job. Then at American state, as a most popular walk-on once more, Mayfield beat out incumbent starter Trevor Knight, UN agency had crystal rectifier the Sooners to Associate in Nursing upset of Alabama within the dish a couple of months earlier.
Nothing, it seemed, was too massive for a quarterback written off variety of times thanks to his less-than-ideal height.
Mayfield, listed at 6-foot-1, can enter the Rose Bowl in a lot of an equivalent situation: a legend in name only and numbers however not essentially extremely regarded at ensuing level.
It's a state of affairs paying homage to another undersize American state male child legend UN agency swaggered his manner through faculty soccer. However, that QB -- Johnny Reb Manziel -- came up short within the NFL. One NFL Network analyst even tabbed Mayfield as "Manziel a pair of.0" before selecting another, additional favorable comparison to a Texan in a lot of an equivalent mildew, Colt McCoy.
0 comments:
Post a Comment