What its like to be overlooked in the early signing period and the best player remaining afterwar

GILBERT, Ariz. — Shawn and Carrie Purdy worried more with each day that passed without a scholarship offer. It wasn’t as if the Purdys thought their middle child was Tom Brady. But they knew Brock Purdy had just set Arizona Class 6A single-season records for passing yards (4,405) and touchdown passes (57) while leading Perry High to the state title game. Certainly some FBS team had a need for a quarterback who could do that.

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Quarterbacks who had done far less were about to sign scholarship paperwork when the new early signing period opened on Dec. 20, 2017. No one knew exactly how recruits and coaches would handle the earlier signing date, but conventional wisdom suggested most would treat it just like the traditional February signing date. That meant scholarships might be scarce afterward. As Shawn and Carrie’s frustration mounted, Brock stayed exactly the same. “He used to tell us, ‘You need to chill,’ ” Carrie says. “I can’t chill.” And all Brock would say was, “Don’t worry. God’s got me.”

Brock stayed so serene that Carrie and Shawn eventually stopped talking about the situation around him. “BEDROOM,” Carrie would say. “NOW.” And she and Shawn would retire to fret out of earshot of their way-too-calm progeny.

But what the Purdys didn’t know about the early signing period — what no one really knew at that point — was that once it ended and those scholarship papers stopped flying, there would still be programs in need of players at certain positions. And the demand for the best players who remained would skyrocket. That’s how Brock Purdy, ignored for most of the Class of 2018 recruiting cycle because of a confluence of circumstances he can only laugh about now, became the first of a new type of recruit. He was the best of what remained, and that suddenly made him very valuable.

We know what happened come that February. Brock chose Iowa State, wound up winning the starting job and is about to finish his sophomore season as one of the nation’s best college quarterbacks. But how he got to Ames should give hope to any player who opted not to sign last week because he felt he was better than his offers and to any fan whose team may have missed out on a recruiting target and wound up with a leftover scholarship.

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Before Brock Purdy toured Texas A&M’s Kyle Field or Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium or walked the blue carpet as a Boise State recruit, he experienced a series of unfortunate events that caused those schools to stay away for much of the time he should have been recruited.

Iowa State generously lists Purdy at 6-foot-1, but his height was an issue during his recruitment. He already was considered undersized vertically, and matters got worse when he contracted mononucleosis as a high school junior. The disease caused him to miss a few games, but worse, it caused him to drop nearly 20 pounds. When he came back to action, he could still play well, but the lingering weakness from the mono sapped the oomph from his throws. So when college coaches clicked on Purdy’s junior video, they saw a scrawny quarterback who appeared to lack arm strength.

Still, Purdy would have a chance disabuse those coaches of that notion during spring practice a few months later. College coaches descend on sun belt schools during spring practice to see prospects in person, meaning Purdy would be back at his normal weight with his normal arm strength by the time the college coaches visited the Valley of the Sun.

Unless something else happened.

That something else was perhaps the most Arizona injury of all time. Before spring practice began, Purdy went paintballing with his Perry High teammates as part of a team-building exercise. The paintball field was covered in Saguaro cactuses. “I was trying to shoot some guy around a cactus,” Purdy says. “My hand got stuck in the cactus. The needles went in so far that I couldn’t get them out. I had surgery that night.”

Fortunately, the spines had embedded in Purdy’s non-throwing hand. Unfortunately, he had a cast on his left hand, and it would stay there through spring practice. So some college coaches didn’t get to see Purdy throw at all, and those who came later in spring practice watched him try to throw with a cast on his left hand. Just as in the fall, no one got to see exactly what a healthy Purdy could do.

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Though he was at the height of his powers throughout the 2017 season, most quarterback recruiting decisions had been made. Hamilton High’s Tyler Shough, the top-rated QB in Arizona, had committed to North Carolina in June 2017. Shough then decommitted from the Tar Heels and committed to Oregon that October. That was late in the process, but Purdy still didn’t have an FBS offer. Trevor Lawrence, the top-rated QB in the class, had committed to Clemson in December 2016. The majority of the quarterbacks committing late — such as Justin Fields, who committed to Georgia in October — had been committed elsewhere already. Purdy was playing great, but by the time anyone noticed, most programs had a QB committed.

“I was set to just walk on somewhere probably,” Purdy says. “I told my parents it was probably going to be U of A (Arizona).”

One program that didn’t have a quarterback in its 2018 class? Boise State.

Purdy almost didn’t become the hottest quarterback recruit in the country because he nearly jumped on the offer that did come before the early signing period. Two days before players could sign, Broncos coaches called and offered Purdy a scholarship. He’d never set foot in Idaho, and he didn’t relish the idea of signing with a school sight unseen. But the recruiting process had been so mystifying to that point that he wondered if he shouldn’t just take the offer. Boise State coaches didn’t push him to do that, though. They wanted to make sure he was comfortable. So they told him to wait out the early signing period and then come on an official visit. The offer would remain good. It was an act of recruiting kindness that probably wound up costing Boise State a transcendent quarterback.

Purdy scheduled a Boise State visit for early January, just after the end of the NCAA-mandated dead period. About that same time, Iowa State coach Matt Campbell wondered what he should do about his quarterback room. Kyle Kempt had emerged as the Cyclones’ best QB at the end of the 2017 season, but there was a problem. Kempt finished high school in 2013. He’d redshirted his first season at Oregon State. Unless the NCAA granted Kempt’s request for a sixth year of eligibility — he claimed he was “run off” at Oregon State, to use NCAA parlance — Iowa State was going to have to find a new starter. And Campbell wanted another option in case the NCAA denied Kempt’s request. “There still hadn’t been much feedback from the NCAA one way or the other on what was going to happen with Kyle,” Campbell says. “You could have gone the grad transfer route. You could have gone the junior college route. But I said, ‘Show me the best high school quarterback in the country who isn’t committed to anybody.’ ”

At the time, current offensive quality control assistant Taylor Mouser served as Iowa State’s assistant director of scouting. Mouser, from the Phoenix suburb of Chandler, Ariz., knew all about the quarterback who had torn up the big-school division in Arizona. The first video Mouser showed Campbell was Purdy’s. After Campbell watched it, he ordered his staff to show him high school footage of Baker Mayfield, the Oklahoma QB the Cyclones had faced the previous October. Campbell saw some of the raw materials in Purdy that he’d seen finished in Mayfield, who had won the Heisman Trophy in 2017.

Next, he called Perry High coach Preston Jones. Jones raved about Purdy and expressed the same frustration as Purdy’s parents that more college coaches hadn’t grasped how special he was. Campbell asked if he could give Purdy a call and got the number. He dialed, and an hour later Campbell was convinced he’d found Iowa State’s quarterback of the future. “If you know me, I don’t really like talking on the phone that long,” Campbell says. “But I was so fascinated by him.”

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That attitude that simultaneously reassured and drove Purdy’s parents crazy came through on the phone. “That’s what makes Brock really special,” Campbell says. “He’s got this incredible foundation of faith and an incredible foundation of humility.”

But Campbell was going to have to fight, because other schools had caught the scent.

Kansas had offered. So had Colorado State. Alabama had initially offered a preferred walk-on spot, but after a visit from an assistant, that turned into a scholarship offer. UCF offered. So did Texas A&M. Suddenly, the guy with no offers had a full dance card. “I had four weekends to take official visits,” Purdy says. “And I had five schools.”

The first visit was to Boise State. Initially, staffers greeted Purdy’s younger brother Chubba thinking he was Brock. Chubba, two years Brock’s junior, is the taller of the Purdy brothers, so everyone assumed he was the older brother. (Those Boise State folks do have a good eye. Chubba took over the starting job at Perry from Brock and had stellar high school career before signing last week with Florida State.) Once the identities were straightened out, Broncos coaches made clear they wanted Brock badly.

HUGE thanks to the Boise State family for making my official trip amazing! Love the culture and program!!🏈 #BleedBlue pic.twitter.com/2VHaqQuJ5z

— Brock Purdy (@brockpurdy13) January 15, 2018

But a few days earlier had been that phone conversation between Purdy and Campbell. The other coaches recruiting Purdy didn’t know it, but that had put Iowa State in the lead before the cavalcade of official visits. “I’ve always been an underdog,” Purdy says. “People tell me I’m undersized, and I love being an underdog. When Coach Campbell called me, he was telling me ‘You know, we could do something for the first time — that this place has never seen or done before.’ When he said that, I was like, ‘I like the sound of that a lot.’ ”

Next came the trip to Iowa State, and that only lengthened the Cyclones’ advantage. Campbell and Purdy bonded in person, and the laid-back Purdy loved the thought of living in an out-of-the-way college town. “Ames, Iowa was built for Brock Purdy,” Carrie Purdy says.

Thank you Iowa State for making my family and I feel at home! Amazing weekend!🏈 #cyclONEnation pic.twitter.com/jxBmD8wCiv

— Brock Purdy (@brockpurdy13) January 21, 2018

Illinois jumped in with an offer after Purdy returned home from Ames, but the field had already been narrowed. Purdy flew east on a weekday to check out UCF. Then he stayed on that side of the country to visit Alabama.

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After four visits, it seemed clear Purdy was leaning toward Iowa State. And Iowa State coaches were hoping he’d simply declare his recruitment over and commit. But Shawn and Carrie reminded their son that he’d only get one chance to do this, and he waited so long for these offers. He should at least examine all his options. So on the final weekend before the February signing day, Purdy went to College Station to see Texas A&M and new coach Jimbo Fisher.

Purdy on his official visit to Texas A & M pic.twitter.com/kB7mwNCa52

— Perry High Football (@perrypumas) February 4, 2018

When he returned home, he made his decision. That Monday night, he told Campbell he was coming to Ames. But Purdy still had to take part in a time-honored recruiting tradition — the hat dance. On the first Wednesday in February, Purdy sat at a table that held a Texas A&M hat and an Iowa State hat. He picked up the Iowa State hat as father Shawn burst into applause.

Arizona QB @brockpurdy13 picking Iowa State. pic.twitter.com/yUX5m3CZdl

— Alex Halsted (@AlexHalsted) February 7, 2018

Two years later, Purdy hopes the other players who know they’ve been under-recruited will understand that their options may expand as coaches search through the players who didn’t sign last week. The demand now outstrips the supply, and there will be at least a few players who — after a frustrating past year — will find themselves hot commodities over the next month.

Purdy always had faith it would happen for him. “Everything that’s happening right now is for a reason,” he kept telling his parents when they worried. “Wherever I do end up, I’ll make the most of it. So I’m really not worried about it at all. I understand that God’s got me.”

“That’s really what I trusted and believed in,” Purdy says today. “And here we are.”

(Top photo: David K. Purdy / Getty Images)

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