Rewind to 2013. There's a 6-foot-1, 190-pound quarterback at Lake Travis High School in Austin, Texas. Despite compiling over 7,000 yards and 80 touchdowns while only throwing eight interceptions in his two years as the starter, undersized quarterback Baker Mayfield failed to garner major college interest.
As the No. 1029 player in his class, three-star Mayfield had four division I college offers: Florida Atlantic, Rice, New Mexico and the only power-five conference team on the list – Washington State.
However, rather than walking on to a smaller school, Mayfield decided to enroll at Texas Tech University as a walk-on.
As the only non-freshman QB on the roster, redshirt sophomore Michael Brewer was expected to be the starter for the Red Raiders. Brewer and Mayfield knew all about each other seeing as though Brewer was the starter for Lake Travis in Mayfield's freshman and sophomore seasons.
However, in the summer before the 2013 season, Brewer injured his back and first year head coach Kliff Kingsbury (now with the Arizona Cardinals) announced that unknown walk-on freshman Baker Mayfield would be the team's starter for the season opener against SMU.
Even though he was the first walk-on true freshman to start the season opener in BCS history, Mayfield looked like a seasoned veteran in his first game. The former three-star recruit completed 43 of his 60 passes for 413 yards and four touchdowns while adding an additional rushing touchdown.
Mayfield would go on to start the next four games for Texas Tech but would suffer an injury in week 5 against Kansas. The team would then begin to lose games and although Mayfield would eventually return from his injury, at the end of the year, the walk-on would decide to transfer citing a lack of communication from Kingsbury.
“When I got hurt, there was no communication between me and my coach,” Mayfield told ESPN. “When I got healthy, I didn’t know why I wasn’t playing right away. At that time, we were losing a couple games in a row. I was still clueless as to why I wasn’t playing. That was really frustrating for me because I started the first five games and we won. So, I just didn’t really know exactly what he was thinking or what the situation was.”
Baker would choose the University of Oklahoma as his next destination again deciding to walk on to a major Big 12 program.
Due to Big 12 transfer rules, Mayfield would have to sit out the next season until he was eligible to play in 2015.
When the time came, Mayfield beat out Trevor Knight for the starting QB job and once again, had the chance to prove himself.
The rest is history as Mayfield would become a star for the Sooners highlighted by nearly 5000 yards and 48 total touchdowns in his 2017 senior season. One CFB Playoff appearance and Heisman trophy later and the former walk-on was set to continue his career in the NFL.
Due to some concerns — mostly concerning his lack of NFL size, possible attitude problems and inflated statistics from playing in a high-octane spread offense, Mayfield was a bit of a question mark early in the draft process.
In NBC Sports' first 2018 mock draft after the 2017 draft, Mayfield wasn't even projected to go in the first round and in NFL.com's first mock after Mayfield's 2017 Heisman season, the Oklahoma star was projected as a mid-first-round pick.
Nonetheless, when it came time for the Cleveland Browns to pick a new franchise player, Mayfield was the pick. Since it was the Browns, the worst NFL franchise for the last decade, there were worries that Mayfield would just be another name on the back of the infamous Browns QB jersey.
Mayfield was able to prove his doubters wrong winning the Pro Football Writers of America NFL Rookie of the Year by throwing for 3725 yards and 27 touchdowns while leading the Browns to their best season in over a decade.
Mayfield was expected to take the step from star to possible MVP candidate. That hasn't happened as the second-year QB is experiencing a major sophomore slump. It's still early in Mayfield's career and we'll just have to see if he can recapture the magic from his rookie year. But, at the same time, he's doing better than is expected for three-star walk-on quarterbacks.
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