By Wendell Barnhouse
Big 12 Digital Correspondent
If you're a quarterback on scholarship at an FBS school, let's just assume that you have the talent to belong. You have the arm strength, the size, the speed, the ability to ingest a game plan and read opposing defenses.
You might not have the "it" factor.
What's that? Who knows? The "it" is the secret sauce that can be the difference between hundreds of quarterbacks who all are gifted physically and mentally. "It" is hard to define or quantify. But most of the time, you'll know "it" when you see "it."
And quarterbacks with the "it" factor can be difference makers in games, in practices and in locker rooms.
Three Big 12 quarterbacks have demonstrated they have "it." Others in the conference also have "it" but these three have thus far turned "it" into "IT" – Oklahoma's Baker Mayfield, Texas Tech's Patrick Mahomes and Jerrod Heard at Texas.
In Saturday's 45-44 loss to Cal, Heard led a 20-point rally that was snuffed by a missed extra point that prevented overtime. The 40 Acres hasn't seen a QB performance like Heard since … never. Heard set a UT single-game total offense mark with 527 yards (364 pass/163 rush). This performance topped the previous mark of 506 (239 pass/267 rush) by Vince Young at Oklahoma State in 2005.
"It's definitely changed," Texas wide receiver/returner Daje Johnson said of the team's attitude now that the offense is showing explosiveness. "We're actually a good offense. We're explosive and everything. The last few years, we were trying to find ourselves. Now, it feels like we're pretty much there."
Heard was making his second start. Mahomes started four games last season for the Red Raiders as a freshman and was outstanding. He won a tough battle against junior Davis Webb to be the starter this season and has led Texas Tech to a 3-0 start heading into Saturday's showdown game with second-ranked TCU.
In Saturday's 35-24 victory at Arkansas, Mahomes was cool and calculated directing the offense. He threw for two touchdowns and ran for two more. His lead block on an option play early in the game lit the fuse for a team anxious to make up for last season's 4-8 record.
"When you're unflappable, you have that confidence, your teammates can look to you," Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury said. "(Patrick) plays with a certain spirit and his teammates think that with him out there, anything's possible. He has a style of play that our players enjoy and it's something that can make a difference for a team."
Mayfield, who also triumphed in a preseason QB competition after transferring from Texas Tech, has sparked the Sooners to a 3-0 record. Even though he walked on at both Lubbock and Norman, he's now planted himself in the Heisman Trophy discussion.
Like Heard, Mayfield posted a school-record Saturday. He piled up 572 yards in total offense as OU outgunned Tulsa, 52-38. According to ESPN Stats & Info, Mayfield is the first player since at least 2000 with three passing touchdowns and at least one more rushing touchdowns in each of his team's first three games of the season.
Whether throwing a sideline pass to a barely open receiver, hitting a deep route, running 39 yards for a touchdown when a pass play breaks down or avoiding a sack and moving to throw a TD pass, Mayfield's magic has the Sooners confident they can wind a grinder (at Tennessee) or a shootout (Tulsa).
"It adds a lot," Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said of Mayfield's mobility. "He has the ability to escape. There were a couple of times the other day when we had nice route combinations, but they (Tulsa) squeezed them and did a good job covering. But the way it all happened, they were all wide, and the middle of the field opened up, and he (Mayfield) took off. He's quicker than his 40 time. He just has a knack for it."
Oklahoma State In Mourning
There are hundreds of behind-the-scenes folks in college football who grind away. During the season, the work load might approach 70, 80, 90 hours.
Unless you're an Oklahoma State fan, you've never heard of Jeff "Pitt" Naple. But he was one of those support folks who loved his job and worked until the work was done. Naple, 54, passed away Sunday due to pancreatic cancer. He continued to do his job until he physically could not. After the team returned from its season opener at Central Michigan, he came to work and was on duty until 4:30 a.m.
"His wife rolled him in a rolling chair up and down the hallway because he was too weak to walk," Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said Monday. "Because he wanted to get to the offices and make sure the coaches had everything they needed for the next game."
Gundy, an Oklahoma State "lifer," has known Naple since Gundy was the team's quarterback in the mid-1980s. Seeing a friend and colleague worn down and wasting away battling cancer was difficult.
"I've been emotional for six weeks over him," Gundy said. "He had been battling cancer since he was diagnosed in July, but it wasn't until about a week ago that I saw him shed a tear. It wasn't because he was afraid of what was to come, it was because he wasn't going to be able to serve Oklahoma State anymore. That's how loyal he was."
Recent Reads
West Virginia quarterback Skyler Howard has won over his teammates with his dedication and work ethic.
Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt, in his first year as a member of the College Football Playoff committee, has a unique friendship with CFP chair and Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long.
Oklahoma linebacker Devante Bond's journey to Norman had several twists and turns.
David Ubben of Sports On Earth writes that Texas interim athletic director Mike Perrin is trying to bring a personal touch to the job.
Short Yardage
Just how depleted is TCU's defense? Of the 11 starters listed for the team's Peach Bowl victory over Ole Miss, only one – defensive back Derrick Kindred - is listed as a starter for the Horned Frogs' game at Texas Tech Saturday.
Fast starts have been important to Texas Tech opening the season 3-0. In all three games, the Red Raiders haven't committed a penalty or had a play for negative yardage on their first drive – all three of which have led to touchdowns. Those three opening drives have had just three third-down plays and Texas Tech has converted all of them.
Saturday will be only the third time in the last 18 meetings between Oklahoma State and Texas that the Longhorns enter the game unranked.
In Oklahoma's victories over Akron and Tennessee, the Sooners gave up a combined 480 yards. Tulsa managed 603 yards, with 427 coming through the air and 176 on the ground. "If we're going to have the type of season we want, we need to get better," OU defensive coordinator Mike Stoops said. "(Tulsa) exposed some weaknesses. We've got to take them personally and challenge them. We need to get better."
Texas has allowed 111 points in three games. In 2013, Charlie Strong's last Louisville team allowed 108 in its first 10 games.
Despite having the Big 12's leading rusher in Ke'aun Kinner and ranking in the top 20 in first downs per game, Kansas goes to Rutgers Saturday still seeking its first big pass play of the season. The Jayhawks are one of only 17 teams nationally without a pass play of 40 or more yards.
Audibles
Oklahoma State's J.W. Walsh, who preceded Texas quarterback Jerrod Heard as the starting quarterback at Denton (Texas) Guyer high school where Walsh's dad John is the coach:
"He's a baller. He's one of those guys that gets in a game, he makes plays. I remember watching him in high school, and you're just in awe of some of the stuff he does."
West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen when asked about his team picking up the pace on offense:
"It works if you get first downs. Don't hurry up and screw it up."
Baylor coach Art Briles, whose fourth-ranked team faces Rice Saturday in its final nonconference game, on what he says has been missing:
"I think I've lost my edge a little bit, quite honestly. It's something I don't want to happen. I'm not standing here because I was edgeless. I'm standing here because I had an edge about me for a long time as a person and a coach, and I don't want to lose that and I'm not going to let someone take that away from me."