Big 12 quarterbacks in the NFL semi-finals
There's a 100% chance of a former Big 12 quarterback playing in the Super Bowl and a good chance both quarterbacks competing are from the "flyover" league. How did this happen?
One of the interesting tidbits about the upcoming NFL playoff semifinals has been the fact three out of the four starting quarterbacks were drafted out of the Big 12 football conference.
Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, drafted in 2017 from the Texas Tech Red Raiders.
Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts, drafted in 2020 from the Oklahoma Sooners.
San Francisco’s Brock Purdy, drafted in 2022 from the Iowa State Cyclones.
The fourth is Joe Burrow of the Bengals, who was drafted in 2020 from the LSU Tigers. Two of the four quarterbacks were actually transfers, Jalen Hurts and Joe Burrow got started at Alabama and Ohio State respectively before transferring to Oklahoma and LSU.
Patrick Mahomes and Brock “pump fake” Purdy on the other hand, those two were largely overlooked 3-stars who ended up at smaller Big 12 programs where they dominated over long starting careers. I’ve told some of the story of pump fake Purdy on here already, but I thought it’d be interesting to tell each story, even Burrow, and how their backgrounds correlate to how they’ve been used at their respective NFL franchises.
Is there a reason the Big 12 is so well represented in these playoffs?
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