AMES, Iowa — Taylor Mouser leaned forward in his office inside Iowa State’s football facility, digging through his computer’s files. The Cyclones’ offensive coordinator was looking for the practice tape of the play that started it all.
Brock Purdy is now the star quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, fresh off a season in which he led the NFL across the efficiency spectrum and finished as an MVP finalist. Just months from now, he’ll be eligible for what might end up being the NFL’s largest contract.
At this time six years ago, Purdy was a third-string true freshman grinding through his first college training camp. Mouser was reminiscing on Purdy’s meteoric 2018 ascent at Iowa State when he struck gold.
“Here it is,” Mouser interrupted himself. “I found it.”
He rolled tape of a goal-line rep from training camp. The Cyclones ran an option play they call “Bengal.” If the strong-side defensive end doesn’t crash inside, the quarterback typically flips the ball to a running back on an inside pitch. But there was nothing typical about Purdy.
The freshman wearing No. 15 stared down defensive end JaQuan Bailey, who’d earn All-Big 12 honors that year. Bailey didn’t crash, but Purdy didn’t care. He faked the pitch inside. Bailey bought it and lunged that way. Purdy exploded in the other direction. In a blink, there was space. He dove across the goal line.
Those on the practice field, including Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell, stood stunned.
“It was a ‘wow’ moment,” Campbell said, sitting on the couch in his office this past May. “It was our (No.) 3 offense and they’re going against our (No.) 1 defense. Brock just has this elite way to maneuver his body, to set up the precise angle against the defensive end. You could almost feel the entire place erupt on that play.”
That play confirmed to Campbell and his staff that Purdy packed the moxie to succeed at the college level. Weeks later, an injury would open the door for Purdy to grab the starting job, a role he wouldn’t relinquish until he graduated following the 2021 season — 30 wins and a Fiesta Bowl championship later.
“Brock totally transcended our football program,” Campbell said. “We were climbing when Brock got here, but this was a place that had not consistently won, ever. I think what Brock did is he turned simply believing into showing what it takes to win here every day, instead of being a flash in the pan.
“Can we consistently win and compete for championships here at Iowa State? He did all those things and more.”
Purdy’s ascent with the 49ers four years later started with him turning heads as the scout team QB before grabbing the reins for good following an injury to starter Jimmy Garoppolo. So it’s easy to understand why folks in Ames weren’t necessarily surprised.
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A trip around the college town with a population of about 70,000 offers just a few reminders of Purdy’s time there. There’s a signed 49ers jersey that’s mounted next to Joe Montana’s No. 16 San Francisco jersey at Wallaby’s Bar and Grille on the north side, but it’s hard to find Purdy’s college No. 15 anywhere else outside Iowa State’s football facility.
Wallaby’s Bar and Grille in Ames was able to add a signed Brock Purdy 49ers jersey to its collection, which already featured a famous red No. 16. (David Lombardi / The Athletic)
Even in those hallways, there’s no glitzy shrine to the greatest quarterback in program history who ended his college career owning 32 school records. The facility, simultaneously sleek and modest, embodies the down-to-earth vibe Campbell has striven to establish since he took the head coaching job in 2016. This aura happened to mesh perfectly with Purdy’s.
“Ames, Iowa, is such a unique spot in the country,” said Kyle Kempt, an offensive assistant for the Cyclones who started at quarterback in 2017 and the beginning of the 2018 season. “There’s nothing really around here. You’re coming here for football and the people in the locker room, the people in the building. So it started with the vision coach Campbell had for this place. When we were recruiting Brock — that was the kind of kid we needed in the program to have success.
“We figured out we’re not going to be the most talented team in the league. We’re playing Oklahoma and Texas every year, but our edge is going to be the culture in the locker room.”
Though Purdy enjoyed considerable success at Perry High School in the Phoenix area, his recruitment escaped fanfare until after his junior season thanks to a debilitating bout with mononucleosis and — in a twist on brand for the Arizona native — a hand injury caused by a cactus.
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But Iowa State was unusually late on the QB market in the fall of 2017, Purdy’s senior year in high school. The Cyclones weren’t sure if Kempt — who orchestrated one of the greatest wins in school history that year in a 38-31 triumph over Oklahoma — would be granted eligibility to return for a sixth year. So Campbell had simple marching orders for Mouser, the program’s assistant scouting director at the time: Make a list of the 10 best uncommitted quarterbacks in the country.
“He brought me Brock’s tape,” Campbell remembered. “We sat there for 45 minutes, watching it three times. Then I made everybody get Baker Mayfield’s senior year of high school.”
That conversation happened in the midst of Mayfield’s 2017 season at Oklahoma, which featured spectacular improvisational play and finished with Mayfield winning the Heisman Trophy. Campbell saw a resemblance in Purdy.
Matt Campbell saw glimpses of Heisman Trophy-winning Baker Mayfield when he watched Brock Purdy’s high school tape. (David Purdy / Getty Images)
Campbell immediately called Preston Jones, Purdy’s coach at Perry High, and learned about the hardships that had left Purdy without a scholarship offer. Campbell was convinced he’d unearthed sensational value. His next phone call was to a 17-year-old Purdy.
“We talked for almost an hour and a half,” Campbell said. “We had a conversation of two grown men. It was the most incredible conversation. When I got off the phone, I said, ‘This kid’s really special and we’re going to do everything in our power to get him. He’s one of the most impressive humans I’ve ever talked to.’
“There was maturity, eloquence in describing his recruiting journey, raving about his parents, who they are, what they’ve meant to him, talking about his brother and his sister. … I didn’t want to get off the phone because I was so enamored by the maturity and the eloquence of this young man who knew who he was and knew what he stood for. I remember telling him, ‘Listen, I feel like this is a place you’re called to be at. This can be an incredible journey together.’”
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Campbell, Mouser and then-offensive coordinator Tom Manning flew to Arizona for an in-home visit. They played pingpong with Brock and his younger brother, Chubba, now a QB at the University of Nevada. The boys’ mom, Carrie, baked cookies for the visitors. Their dad, Shawn, shared his experience of playing minor-league baseball.
“When we walked out of that home visit, we felt like a million bucks,” Mouser said. “But as we were driving to the hotel, Brock got an offer from Alabama and we said, ‘This thing is going to get interesting fast.’”
Purdy took his official visit to Ames, but the secret was out. Both Alabama and Texas A&M ended up offering Purdy scholarships. The young quarterback assured Campbell’s staff that Iowa State was where he wanted to be and that he simply owed visits to the two powerhouses as a courtesy to his parents, but the Cyclones staff braced for a white-knuckle ride to the finish line.
Brock Purdy took visits to Alabama and Texas A&M, but Iowa State and Matt Campbell were always the right fit. (Courtesy of Shawn Purdy)
It was Iowa State’s culture that ended up pulling through. The simple sense of separation that Ames offered, away from traditional football factory fanfare, appealed to Purdy.
There was a homeyness about the program that a juggernaut like Alabama couldn’t offer. Purdy could fish frequently at local ponds around the small town, where player hangouts at Campbell’s house were the most popular form of entertainment.
“You don’t have to schedule a meeting with the secretary to come talk to (Campbell),” Mouser said. “We play golf all the time. We eat dinner together all the time. There’s just not a ton to do in Ames, Iowa, other than hang out with your group. It’s a brotherhood.”
Purdy committed to the Cyclones and never wavered.
“Texas A&M, Alabama, us — 99 times out of 100, a quarterback is going to one of those (first) two schools — but he knew Iowa State was the right fit for him,” Campbell said. “He always knew who he was. … Brock was always this man on a mission to do something. He knew what he stood for. He was never trying to be anybody else. He was never trying to fit in. He was just trying to be the best version of Brock.”
Mark Coberley, the head of Iowa State’s sports medicine and performance crew, walked downstairs into the bowels of the athletics facility. He strode into a room used to store a defunct Dynavision D2, a clunky-looking apparatus featuring dozens of lights that’s been replaced by a niftier machine in the nearby training room.
Purdy’s quickness, both in processing and movement, stands out in the NFL. The old Dynavision machine, which tasks users with rapidly contacting randomly illuminating lights, is where he perfected those reflexes. There were spirited contests with tight end Charlie Kolar, who’s now with the Baltimore Ravens.
“It became a daily game: 60 seconds, how many dots can you hit, which quadrant is the quickest, which is slowest,” Coberley said. “They had some stiff competitions. When it comes to quickness, Brock has such innate ability. I don’t think this created that ability for him, but it certainly let him practice it.”
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Purdy became one of six quarterbacks in Big 12 history to pass for over 10,000 yards and rush for over 1,000 yards in his career. His ticket to those gaudy numbers came through anticipatory play that would regularly flummox opposing defenses who thought they’d corralled him.
“He wasn’t this unbelievable runner at the QB spot, but he had this ability to extend plays,” Campbell said. “He had the ability in critical situations to scramble, no different than you saw against Detroit in the second half of the NFC Championship Game. If you look back to some of our biggest wins, he’s making those same plays and he’s getting himself out of Dodge against some elite defensive linemen.
“He has two elite qualities: one is his short-area burst, and then he’s the pump-fake king. He could pump-fake and get himself out of trouble with subtle variations as good as anybody.”
Brock Purdy keeps on doing damage with his legs!
📺: #DETvsSF on FOX
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/lPi4pqPzJT— NFL (@NFL) January 29, 2024
The practice play on which Purdy announced his arrival at Iowa State — the option run for a touchdown — came on a fake. Even as an 18-year-old freshman, Purdy showed command of the position’s subtleties.
Kempt was the Cyclones’ starter to open the 2018 season but hurt his knee in the second game. Iowa State turned to backup QB Zeb Noland but dropped to 1-3 with a gut-wrenching 17-14 loss to TCU at the end of September. At practice the following Wednesday, Purdy — who’d been elevated to the second-string offense — led an authoritative touchdown drive against the first-team defense in a two-minute drill, even punching in the two-point conversion without issue.
“And now the buzz was, ‘Holy cow, we’ve got to play this guy,’” Campbell said.
Kempt, who was slated for a midseason return from his knee injury, went into the coach’s office. He also sensed Purdy was ready. Campbell told Kempt that he’d start Noland in the next game against Oklahoma State but was planning to work Purdy into the mix.
“If we were going to go with Brock, it was probably going to put Kyle’s career on the shelf,” Campbell said. “He was a sixth-year senior, and we had this emerging quarterback we really believed in. Credit to Kyle. That took a lot of courage to come in. His response: ‘I think that’s a great idea. I’ll get him ready to go’ — which was one of the all-time selfless acts I’ve ever seen in a football program.”
“I wasn’t going to put myself above the team,” Kempt said. “This wasn’t about me.”
Brock Purdy, left, celebrates an Iowa State win with Kyle Kempt, middle, and linebacker Mike Rose. (David Purdy / Getty Images)
Just like he would in 2022 after Garoppolo suffered an injury against the Miami Dolphins, Purdy entered on the second series and didn’t relinquish the QB job. He finished Iowa State’s 48-42 road victory over Oklahoma State with 318 passing yards, 84 rushing yards and five total touchdowns — including one on a zone-read run set up by a fake pitch.
“You could just feel the first time Brock went in,” Campbell said. “Everybody believed we could win when he was in the football game and touched the ball. You could feel it on the sideline — immediately.”
The Cyclones ripped off five straight wins to salvage their season. By 2020, they broke through, finishing 9-3 with a 34-17 victory over Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl back in Purdy’s home state of Arizona.
Mouser, also originally from Arizona, savored that win. And so did Kempt, who’d moved on to Iowa State’s coaching staff by that point. As a successful Cyclones starter and one of Purdy’s predecessors — and then his first key mentor in the QB room — Kempt had a unique seat to watch the future NFL star’s rise.
Kempt maintains that Purdy’s huge reserve of experience prepared him for the NFL level. That’s something the 49ers also say that they valued, although it wasn’t as obvious in 2022 when they waited until pick No. 262 to draft him.
“Reps are so important,” Kempt said. “You keep seeing that with the NFL Draft. They add up over time. To see as many snaps as Brock did and be in that many crunch-time situations — I can’t tell you how many of those he’s been in, that’s just how we are: every game is close. It’s in his DNA to be a part of those things.
“He had a lot of reps here. He got to see every high and every low. He had a lot of times where he did really well and he had times where he probably tried to make too much out of something and he made a poor decision or bad throw. But he took all those experiences and used them to become even more even-keeled, and that over four years is what truly prepared him for the NFL.”
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From 2010 to 2018, Iowa State did not enjoy a single season with one quarterback starting every game. After taking over the position, Purdy started every game until he graduated. His college career straddled two offensive styles — Iowa State went from running a spread attack over his first two seasons to a pro-style, play-action-based system after that — and he operated both successfully.
“If you don’t know who you are or what you’re about, then when the chaos hits, the emotions take over. You’re either so high or so low that you can’t conduct through the chaos,” Campbell said. “But this young man was built from a young age to handle all of those emotions, through his faith, through his family, through knowing who he is and what he stands for.”
And that, according to Campbell, is where the key to understanding Purdy’s ascent lies.
“Obviously, you have to have enough talent to be able to throw the ball where it needs to be, but it always comes back to mental control,” Campbell said. “Do you know who you are? Do you know what you stand for? Do you know what you’re about? Because if you do, it brings a sense of calm to everybody around you — and that’s a game changer.”
For Iowa State, Purdy’s presence was a program changer. And history reverberates. A trip to Ames puts Purdy’s NFL surge, which the 49ers are currently enjoying, into a familiar context. It all started with a phone call that Campbell will never forget — and with a leap from third string to stardom that few saw coming.
“We had a profound impact on Brock,” Campbell said. “And I think Brock had a profound impact on all of us.”
(Top illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photo: John Locher / Associated Press)
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