If you didn’t know because you didn’t watch any college football this year or read anything about college football this year or you didn’t watch the Heisman presentation or because you live in the jungles of Vietnam, Baker Mayfield won the Heisman Trophy and everything about college football is good and has reached fruition.
In football terms, this couldn’t be better. Baker Mayfield is a living, breathing electric factory. He has the ability to single handedly power the entire state of Oklahoma. That’s just the excitement level. That’s just the antics that you only don’t like if you’re boring and don’t like exciting things. That’s just the putting the flag in the middle of the team’s field you just put a big steaming dump on and it being so cool that literally no one makes fun of it because the flag won’t stick in because it’s a turf field. That’s the having so much passion to be the best that you talk endless shit against a team that would struggle in Texas’ 5A division.
He also has the stats to back up being the best player in college football. He played his way from walk on to maybe the best quarterback in the history of Oklahoma football. In the last two years, both of which probably should have been Heisman campaigns, he showed remarkable consistency and played his way into the top ten of many draft projections. 71% both years, 40+ touchdowns both years and under 10 interceptions in both years. To question Baker’s footballing ability is really just not a very smart thing to do. Say what you will about his height, but that will be worked through. Compare him to Manziel and I will tell you that is a poorly made and extremely lazy comparison.
And beyond the spectrum of his own on-field success, there is no one to write about like this dude. He is an award-winning column that was brought to life and sent out into the world. Personally, I wrote more words about Baker this season than exist in the entirety of the Holy Bible. As a website overall, his name permeated our site in some absolutely fantastic articles. He was the source of so much of our Heisman coverage, like here, here and here. He played his way into the hearts of people that hated him, like here or here. He was even the subject of some incessant rambling from myself here and in my personal favorite thing I ever wrote after Bedlam (it’s the erotica).
It didn’t stop at the columns. It spread to our Twitter account, which benefited from listing the merits of Baker’s career, with a simple catch phrase that should make anyone with a heart run through a wall, “If you don’t bet on yourself, nobody else will.”
3 D1 offers out of high school
Told he was too short, too slow, too brash
Walked on at Texas Tech, told he wasn’t good enough to start
Walks on again at Oklahoma
3 Big 12 Titles, 2 Playoff appearances, 1 Heisman Trophy
If you don’t bet on yourself, nobody else will pic.twitter.com/DioB2kb9IN
— Student Union Sports (@StudentUSports) December 10, 2017
The Baker train does not stop here. He will continue to succeed and he will continue to be polarizing. He will continue to be passionate and emotional and loyal and GODDAMN ELECTRIC. So get on the train before it’s too late. Punch the fucking gas.