Williams: Mayfield needs to quit playing politics and just play
Posted: December 17, 2015 - 5:39pm | Updated: December 18, 2015 - 12:14am
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By Don Williams
Someday when this football thing comes to an end for Baker Mayfield, I picture the Oklahoma quarterback transitioning smoothly into a next career: Lobbyist.
Name another college athlete equally gifted at performing on the football field while politicking off it.
The degree to which Baker continues to sway public support for Baker in his crusade against Texas Tech is truly remarkable.
And plenty of people, grown-ups in high places, are eating it up.
This week, ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas tweeted this: “That OU’s Baker Mayfield will lose a year of eligibility because TTU wouldn’t release him is just wrong. He was a WALK-ON. Release him, TTU!”
To a fan who asked Kirk Herbstreit’s opinion, the popular ESPN college football analyst responded: “I think the NCAA should swoop in and right a wrong. Makes no sense to me.”
Even in West Texas, my cohorts at AGN Media in Amarillo tweeted this: “It’s simple. No scholarship, then schools should have no say.”
All those Twitter posts are based on dubious premises, ones Mayfield and his father James are happy to let go unquestioned.
All were in response to Tuesday after Baker decided it was time for Baker’s grievances to be run up the flagpole again. Hey, a few days had passed since the slight of not getting invited to New York for the Heisman proceedings.
A man needs his headlines.
But bear with me a moment as we recap the whole shebang again: Mayfield left Tech in December 2013, disgruntled at not being quarterback by acclamation after his his zero-TD passes, two-picks, four-sack game in a loss to Kansas State and his zero-TD, seven-sack performance at Texas — two of his last three showings in a Red Raiders uniform.
Kliff Kingsbury didn’t sign off on Mayfield transferring to Oklahoma, which didn’t stop Mayfield from joining the Sooners anyway. Surely, a bright guy from Austin, with an uber-involved father, knew NCAA and Big 12 rules dock a player one season’s eligibility for an intra-conference transfer.
Proceed at your own risk.
Mayfield & Son have been raising a stink and working the court of public opinion ever since.
This fall, his second season to play college football, Mayfield used his junior year of eligibility, giving a dandy performance: The Sooners are 11-1, and Mayfield finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting.
Which brings us to Tuesday, and Mayfield telling a group of reporters “it’s quite ridiculous that they (Tech) didn’t pay for any of my school and they’re able to take a year of my eligibility away.”
Of course, any rational observer knows that’s not true.
Texas Tech didn’t take away a year of Mayfield’s eligibility. Mayfield knowingly threw away a year of eligibility by the path he chose. The transfer rules have been in place for years, a sensible deterrant to every disgruntled player having carte blance to skip from one program to the next each offseason.
Think of the chaos that could cause.
Nor was Texas Tech the only entity who didn’t see it Mayfield’s way.
The Big 12 faculty reps, whose board comprises members from every school, voted against him.
But Mayfield’s sympathy votes have always depended on key components to his story being taken at face value. That’s just one. Here are a couple of others: that he was just any ol’ walk-on and that he wouldn’t have received a scholarship from Tech in a timely fashion.
To his credit, Mayfield established right from the get-go that he’s not just any walk-on, starting the Red Raiders’ season opener as a true freshman and earning Big 12 offensive freshman of the year recognition in 2013.
Kingsbury’s not the only coach, nor even in a minority, who’d say no-dice to a quarterback he’d helped develop transferring to a team against whom he competes every year.
As to Mayfield’s assertion that he wasn’t going to get a scholarship? Kingsbury has dissented more than once, which gets reported less and less, if even at all anymore.
Mayfield & Son have turned Kingsbury’s stance into a gridiron George Wallace: Walk-on now, walk-on tomorrow, walk-on forever.
Kingsbury said Mayfield was going to get his scholarship in the spring of 2014 — two instances being right after he left and again in July 2014.
“His father had been made aware of that,” Kingsbury said. “That wasn’t an issue. That never had anything to do with his decision (to leave Tech) whatsoever.”
Again, you rarely see that reported anymore.
And powerful opinion shapers such as Bilas and Herbstreit just go along. Have either ever bothered to get Kingsbury’s side?
One other thing: If being able to afford college was so essential to the Mayfields, why not take a scholarship out of high school? Surely, a QB with clips from a 16-0 state-championship team in his scrapbook could have gotten tuition, books, room and board somewhere. According to reporting at the time, he passed up scholarship offers from Rice, Florida International and Washington State while hoping for one from TCU.
And the portrayal of Mayfield, the “unrecruited walk-on”?
Here’s a Kingsbury quote: “We went after him hard. When I was at the University of Houston, I recruited him as a sophomore. Coach (Eric) Morris offered him at Washington State. He kind of got left out there at the end, but we knew he was a scholarship-type player, so we’re excited that he’s here, obviously.”
That’s from Aug. 16, 2013, before anyone could see any storm clouds.
A year and a half ago, after Mayfield’s parting with Tech, Kingsbury said, “He had a chance to get scholarships at a lot of schools, and he chose to go to OU. More power to him. That’s what he wanted to do, but he was held to the same rule (regarding transfers) that other players are.”
Each year, dozens of players transferring from their original FBS school to one in a different conference think nothing of sitting a year to comply with the NCAA transfer requirement.
Where’s Jay Bilas to grandstand on their behalf?
Picking another team, choosing another conference, that’s how most dissatisfied players do it — everyone but No. 6 for the Sooners.
But if we’ve learned anything over the past two years, it’s this: Baker Mayfield is special. Really special. One of a kind.
Just ask him, or give it a week and he’ll tell you again.
don.williams@lubbockonline.com