By Chase Goodbread | Published Dec. 6, 2017

The snub

The Muldrow dorm

By all accounts, Mayfield brims with confidence. But don't tell Hayden Shaw that his friend of four years is overly obnoxious or over-the-top cocky, a feeling many outsiders get about the brash quarterback.

Shaw was among several residents on the sixth floor of the Muldrow Tower dormitory with whom Mayfield made fast friends upon his arrival at OU in 2014 as a transfer from Texas Tech. At that point, Mayfield hadn't even told the OU coaching staff he planned to walk on. He says now he was advised not to make contact with the OU staff before enrolling because Texas Tech would not release him to transfer within the Big 12, and he didn't want to violate any NCAA contact rules.

Under the circumstances, who could have blamed the Big 12 Offensive Freshman of Year for being surly or withdrawn in a dorm cell with regular students, as an as-of-yet uninvited walk-on at a new school?

Except, Mayfield wasn't that way at all.

He organized two powerhouse intramural teams in softball and football with the rest of the Muldrow gang, and ultimately formed permanent bonds with Shaw and others.

"We watched him play against Oklahoma the year before at Texas Tech, Big 12 freshman of the year and everything, and a couple months later, here he is showing up at Muldrow to move in with us. It was weird," Shaw said.

The softball team formed in the spring of 2014, and Mayfield played shortstop. The team never lost and eventually won the championship. And the same Mayfield swagger that has driven Big 12 defenses nuts the last few years was on display with the Muldrow nine.

"First game, we played a team of musclehead guys from the gym. We hit twice through the lineup before they got a single out on us and we won 41-1," Shaw said. "Baker hit a bomb, and on his next AB, he switch-hit. That's Baker."

As for intramural football, the team decided to play Mayfield at wide receiver in order to keep a lid on his identity. Having the Big 12 OFY playing quarterback would have been the ultimate intramural ringer, but also would have drawn scrutiny. For mere intramural mortals, of course, Mayfield was uncoverable at receiver. But when the team needed him for a desperation TD pass at the end of a game, his cover was blown. Shaw received word that Mayfield, as a member of the Sooners football team, couldn't play anymore.

"I want to say we played three, four games and nobody noticed who he was, just a guy who would get open against anybody," Shaw said. "We've asked ourselves what could have been if he hadn't been discovered, but the game he threw the TD pass was a must-win game. We had to have it."

Less than a year later, Mayfield uprooted Trevor Knight as the Sooners' starter at quarterback. Knight had gone from being the toast of the program, after upending Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, to eventually transferring himself.

The Manziel comp

The Mayfield-Manziel comparison is not only rooted in the brashness of how the quarterbacks conduct themselves on and off the field, but is also rooted in the frequency with which Mayfield breaks off the design of a play and resorts to improvisation. Manziel did the same thing at Texas A&M, often with great success, and Mayfield is highly dangerous as a scrambler as well. While scouts see the ability to turn a broken play into a big play as a positive, it's not a good sign if a quarterback is more effective outside of a play's design than within it.

Nevertheless, one NFC scout we talked to sees the Manziel comparison as a lazy one.

"Manziel was all over the map with his footwork, he'd throw the ball jumping out of bounds, or just throw it up and count on Mike Evans," said the scout, who believes Mayfield will be a first-round pick. "Baker doesn't do any of that type of stuff. He doesn't take so many stupid chances. Baker sees the field. When you rush him, he keeps his eyes downfield. That's more like (Russell) Wilson."

Other top quarterbacks in the college game might look more the part but have given scouts cause for pause; Wyoming's Josh Allen, for instance, has struggled against much inferior competition than what Mayfield has faced. Mayfield's needle, however, has continually moved forward. He completed 70.5 percent of his passes for 4,627 yards, 43 touchdowns and only six interceptions in his senior season, and his previous two years generated very similar production. But beyond the stats, scouts see a special talent with top-notch accuracy and touch on the deep ball.

He's also got a steep experience edge over his peers. In one season at Texas Tech and three at Oklahoma, Mayfield made 47 college starts. Many NFL teams believe 30-plus starts make for the best baseline for a quarterback evaluation. Other top quarterbacks in Mayfield's draft class offer scouts smaller sample sizes: Lamar Jackson (33), Josh Rosen (30), Allen (25) and Sam Darnold (22).

As for his arm strength, you could just take Hayden Shaw's word for it. Remember Mayfield's intramural softball teammate? He played first base as Mayfield fired "absolute rockets" at him from shortstop.

"My left hand, it got cooked sometimes," Shaw said. "I tried my best to catch it in the webbing, but if it caught the palm, yeah, it hurt a lot."

Softball arm strength, for Mayfield at least, translates to the football field. NFL scouts have little concern in this area.

The transfer

In December 2013, about eight miles from the Texas Tech campus at BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse in Lubbock, four Red Raiders quarterbacks gathered for what amounted to a goodbye dinner.

Davis Webb was the only one among them who would stay at TTU, and even he would transfer out, to Cal, two years later. Also at the table were three others who already were making exit plans. Michael Brewer would follow his gut, finishing up his final two years of eligibility at Virginia Tech; Clayton Nicholas would follow a coach, Sterlin Gilbert, to Bowling Green; and Baker Mayfield would follow his dream: to be the quarterback at Oklahoma.

"There were four of us in that room that knew each of us could play, and we obviously weren't going to play at one time at one school," said Nicholas, now at his third school in Faulkner University.

For Mayfield, however, it was a little more complicated than that. Just three months earlier at Texas Tech, he had become the first true freshman walk-on quarterback to ever start a season opener at a Power Five program. In that game, he threw for 413 yards and fired four TD passes in a 41-23 dismantling of SMU. The Red Raiders opened the season 5-0 with Mayfield at the helm until a right knee injury sidelined him for a month, at which point Webb took over.

Mayfield reclaimed the starting job to end the regular season, but Webb's performance in his absence -- he averaged 421 yards over four starts -- made for a debate about the program's future at quarterback. To Mayfield, there was no debate.

He cited poor communication from coach Kliff Kingsbury's staff as the reason for his transfer, along with the fact that he wouldn't be on scholarship for the spring semester.

In classic Mayfield fashion, he announced his decision to transfer on the very day he was named the Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year.

The measuring stick

Mayfield was officially listed at 6-foot-1 on the Sooners roster, but many were skeptical. Scouts don't get to take their own measurements of OU prospects until pro day, but his first verified size at the Senior Bowl in January came in at 6-feet and 3/8 of an inch.

Fractions of inches matter to NFL clubs when it comes to quarterback prospects. The shorter the quarterback, the more evaluators will doubt.

An NFC scout wasn't especially concerned about how tall Mayfield measured because of the weight he carries (216 pounds) and how it's distributed.

"He's put together. He's not going to be frail," the scout said. "He's got a similar build as Russell Wilson. He carries good weight in his lower half."

Mayfield's been hearing he's too small for a long time, so his decision to walk on at Texas Tech wasn't exactly the genesis of what Carter calls his "dare-you-to-doubt-me" mentality. But it certainly strengthened Mayfield's resolve.

When he entered the ninth grade at Lake Travis, he was already showing a lot of the charisma and intangible qualities that made him the frontrunner to win the 2017 Heisman Trophy.

One problem: He was only 5-foot-5.

It took him two years to become the varsity starter, and despite a wildly successful run as the caretaker of the Cavaliers' offense -- he was 25-2 as a starter with a state title as a junior -- his scholarship offers weren't at all to his liking.

Carter remembers a winner, but one who had some growing to do.

"He was a late bloomer, physically," Carter said. "Other players made the physical change from boy to young man a couple years before him. He's got the biggest baby face you've ever seen on the state championship picture on our wall in here. He wasn't doing any shaving in high school; he's probably got to shave every 10 minutes now. So he had to figure out a way to succeed athletically not being very strong or fast, or very big. But he could always throw it. Once his body caught up, he'd already developed a lot of skill."

"I was the undersized underdog who people never gave a chance," Mayfield added. "From that, the motivation to prove people wrong just grew and grew. ... Looking back now, I'm glad I didn't hit puberty until later."

The Chimy's affair

Chimy's Cerveceria, a popular local restaurant, sits on the east side of the Texas Tech campus. At another of its four Texas locations, in College Station, Manziel's 2014 first-round selection by the Browns was celebrated with customers getting a beer and a shot of Fireball on the house, paid for by Manziel.

Later that year, the Lubbock location found its way into the Mayfield narrative.

The quarterback was enduring a sit-out season at OU under NCAA transfer rules but was back in Lubbock in November, as the Sooners faced the Red Raiders the following day. He was asked to leave for no reason other than being Baker Mayfield, and left without causing a disturbance, according to the account he gave of the incident more than a year later. He was speaking to former TTU teammate Jace Amaro when management requested he leave, and said he was booed by customers as he did so.

Amaro did not return messages for this story, nor did Chimy's management, and per a 2016 Tulsa World report, Chimy's employees hinted that Mayfield's account is missing something, but did not reveal exactly what.

If the story does swerve off Mayfield's version, it will only be a matter of time before NFL clubs have the rest of it. But the quarterback's character isn't regarded by scouts as being anything close to the risk that Manziel's was.

"As long as it doesn't have an effect on what's happening between the whistles, I think any problems he's had will fade with maturity," an NFC scout said.

The Knoxville shocker

Over a four-year career at two schools, Mayfield has thrown for at least 250 yards 35 times, 300-plus yards in 25 games, and has surpassed the 400-yard barrier five times. Prolific performances have been, for the most part, a weekly occurrence.

But to find one of Mayfield's finest moments, you've got to dig two years deep into his catalog, in a road game in Knoxville, Tenn., where nothing came easy.

After three quarters, Mayfield had completed just 8 of 25 passes with two interceptions, had moved the Sooners offense across the 50-yard line just twice all night, and Tennessee led 17-3. In only his second start at OU and his first in a high-profile game, he'd not yet won the hearts of Sooners fans, and at the time, UT coach Butch Jones hadn't yet lost the hearts of his.

Then, the playmaker got to work.

"That game was a moment to see what I was made of," Mayfield says, looking back on that September 2015 game. "We weren't playing well at all. We played like crap for three and a half quarters. (Then-offensive coordinator) Lincoln Riley and I had a conversation to just focus on the job. He said, 'You're capable, that's why you're starting.' "

With two touchdown passes and a touchdown run in the final quarter, Mayfield knotted the Volunteers 24-24, forcing an overtime in which his third TD pass stole a 31-24 win. Then-coach Bob Stoops called it perhaps his favorite win in 17 years at Oklahoma.

"That's when it clicked for me. Let's let it all loose and go play ball," Mayfield said, three days before the Heisman Trophy ceremony. "That's when I settled in, we started playing well and won in a very hostile environment."

And he reveled in every minute of it.

The arrest

Around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 25, 2017, Mayfield made an error in judgment that will draw perhaps the most scrutiny from NFL clubs as the 2018 draft approaches.

Fayetteville, Ark., police had been flagged down to investigate a claim of assault and battery by a man who was yelling at Mayfield, and after being asked to stay at the scene to give a statement, the Sooners quarterback instead tried to run. He was caught by police and charged with public intoxication, disorderly conduct, fleeing and refusal to submit to arrest. Video from the police car's dashboard camera was later released, showing Mayfield barely got a few steps before being tackled into a retaining wall.

That Mayfield was intoxicated isn't anything abnormal for a college kid, and he was of legal drinking age at the time (21). But for someone aspiring to be a pro quarterback, the repercussions for him are much greater. NFL clubs don't need the face of their franchise caught up in drunken misdemeanors.

Mayfield apologized following the incident, and last June, just a week after Stoops announced his retirement, Riley announced that his starting quarterback would be required to complete an alcohol education program and perform 35 hours of community service.

A few days later, Mayfield reached a plea deal that resulted in fines and restitution payments of just under $1,000. One of the charges, for resisting arrest, was dropped.

Opposing fans, of course, haven't dropped it at all.

In Decemeber, after Oklahoma and Georgia were paired for a College Football Playoff semifinal, Bulldogs fans managed to procure Mayfield's cell phone number. In the space of a few hours, he was bombarded with nearly 300 text messages and phone calls, until Mayfield got AT&T to change his number.

Asked which message was the most creative, the ever-honest Mayfield didn't hesitate with his reply: "One said they were going to hit me harder than an Arkansas cop."

The system

The Air Raid offense has taken its lumps, reputationally speaking, where the NFL draft is concerned. And the offense Mayfield runs is a strain of it.

Riley, who replaced Stoops as Oklahoma's head coach last June, apprenticed under Mike Leach -- the Air Raid's active Godfather -- at Texas Tech. At East Carolina, and later at OU, Riley jiggled the scheme a bit and his stamp has made the Sooners' offense more of an Air Raid cousin.

Mayfield, in turn, will be scrutinized by NFL evaluators based on his ability to adjust to the scheme differences that await him in the pros.

The list is long of Air Raid college quarterbacks who have failed in the NFL. Manziel, Tim Couch, Brandon Weeden, Kevin Kolb, Geno Smith, and Nick Foles are some of the more notable names who operated the prolific offense in college but came up short in the pros.

Rams QB Jared Goff ran an Air Raid cousin at Cal known as the "Bear Raid," and his successful second NFL season can't do anything but strengthen Mayfield's case.

Some Air Raid quarterbacks have little control at the line of scrimmage and receive a sideline signal for the play, a common criticism of NFL evaluators. Mayfield, however, has plenty of control.

"(Riley) cut back a little on the quarterback freedom (as coach at East Carolina), but Mayfield has taken a lot of it back," said Chris B. Brown, author of "Smart Football" and a respected football scholar. "Recognizing things up front might be more of an adjustment for him than reading coverage, but I think he'll come in with a better grounding than some of those other guys."

The flag plant

Amid the revelry of Oklahoma's 31-16 road win over Ohio State last September, which avenged a Buckeyes' victory at OU the previous year, Mayfield took a massive Sooners flag and stuck the pole on the Ohio State logo at midfield.

To Buckeye fans, it was a show of disrespect. To Sooners fans, it was just a kid having fun.

Siri, the voice of Apple artificial intelligence, took the latter position. In the days following the game, when asked who owned Ohio Stadium, Siri responded: "It's Baker Mayfield."

Others, like former Buckeyes tackle Taylor Decker, didn't take it in such a playful manner. "Baker Mayfielf (sic) can drink bleach doing that," Decker tweeted.

Whatever label anyone wants to put on it, this much is certain: It was Mayfield being Mayfield.

After all, this is a guy who's got rabbit ears for criticism, engaging in trash talk with opposing fans and/or players against Baylor, OSU, Kansas, and surely more exchanges that have gone unreported. Heck, he was even voted the Big 12's "Biggest Trash Talker" last August in a vote of players attending Big 12 Media Days.

It can't be said that planting a flag on an opposing team's logo was out of character for Mayfield. He subsequently apologized, noting that he would have been angered had OSU players done the same after a win in Norman.

But he's not one to apologize for being himself.

"I think people see what they want to see," he says. "You can focus on the few things that give people a negative image about me, or you can see the other things I've done, or talk to people in my inner-circle who know more about who I really am. I've learned I can't change every opinion or have everyone's approval. If I get caught up in that, I'm worried about the wrong things. … I'm not ashamed to speak my mind. What you see is what you get. You're not going to get a two-faced person who is going to say one thing and mean another."

The Kansas crotch grab

Kansas started it, Mayfield finished it. If only the ugly subplot to Oklahoma's 41-3 win in November was that simple.

Instead, a game that should have been a forgotten stretch on Mayfield's road to the Heisman Trophy has become fodder for critics, talk-show gold, and an unpleasant subject that the Sooners star will have to address 32 different times during pre-draft interviews with clubs.

It began when Kansas' game captains refused to shake Mayfield's hand before the coin toss. Mayfield had a close-up, helmet-to-helmet exchange with a KU player immediately after that, and the stage was set. Mayfield told some heckling fans the school should "stick to basketball," and it only went downhill from there.

When Jayhawks CB Hasan Defense delivered a blatant cheap shot to Mayfield's throwing shoulder late in the first half, the quarterback simply lost it. Following his third TD pass of the day, he shouted expletives across the field and gestured toward the Kansas sideline by grabbing his crotch. In the post-game news conference, he apologized, and followed with a lengthier Twitter apology.

Too late.

That a 1-9 Kansas team baited him will, in time, be easily forgotten; that the Heisman Trophy frontrunner bit the hook won't be.

Then-ESPN analyst Chip Kelly, who has since been named the new coach at UCLA, summed up the scene immediately following the game this way: "You have to learn how to play with emotion, not let emotion play with you."

According to an NFC scout, Mayfield's actions at KU will not ultimately cost him standing in the draft, but nevertheless, they were "uncalled for and part of why his makeup can be a double-edged sword."

In the aftermath, Mayfield insisted the incident "isn't who I am," while acknowledging some might not completely buy that. Later in the week, after Riley announced his quarterback would not start on Senior Day against West Virginia and would be stripped of his captaincy, Mayfield shed tears in a news conference. Many questioned the authenticity of the emotional display.

If Mayfield's tears can't be trusted, perhaps Riley's can. The first-year head coach also got choked up in announcing the punishment, pausing 35 seconds to collect himself before mustering this endorsement: "We've been through a lot together. He's a tremendous teammate, the best football player in America, and he's got a great heart that a lot of people don't get the chance to see like I do. I'm proud as hell to be his coach."

The road warrior

Mayfield has always relished playing the villain role in enemy territory. In elementary and middle school, he was known to show up in Oklahoma gear -- a bold move for someone born and raised in Austin.

He feeds off doubters and haters as motivational nourishment. But to truly carry the weight of being the man fans love to hate, those fans can't just show up mad; they have to walk away bitter, too, and there is no bitter taste like a home loss.

Mayfield went 14-0 in road games over three seasons at OU, beginning with that shocking comeback at Tennessee in early 2015. He dropped a couple games at neutral sites, but every time he walked into his opponent's stadium, he walked out with a victory. It's a remarkable footnote to his highly successful career; half of those opponents were ranked, and the victims include schools from three different Power Five conferences.

The last team with a shot to beat a visiting Mayfield?

Kansas, of course, where the villain role reached a different level.