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November 2, 2021 • 36 mins

Texas A&M Quarterback Kellen Mond finishes preparing for the 2021 NFL Draft, reflecting on all the pressure and expectations, along with the challenges of pursuing perfection. He talks with Texas A&M Sports Psychologist Ryan Pittsinger, while his coach, Jimbo Fisher, chimes in about Kellen's journey, his experiences during quarantine, and how Kellen's new mindset changed his life and performance on the field.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Drafted is a production of tree Fork Media, Clutch Sports Group,
and I Heart Radio. I've only missed one game, A
killings my entire life. One game. Welcome back to Drafted.
I'm Steven Johnson and this is episode five of season three. Previously,
we followed Alabama stars Davante Smith and Alex Leatherwood on

(00:24):
their journeys to the first round of the NFL Draft. Now,
in these next few episodes, we'll be continuing with a
new group of prospects, wide receiver Desmond Fitzpatrick and quarterback
Kellen Mond. Amen. About to see him a night, man,

(00:48):
tell him off man, about to see him a night
in the draft man. And now yeah, yeah, that's Kellen
Mond getting his haircut on the day of the draft.
Over the last four years, a few players have been
as closely associated with their college program as Kellen has

(01:11):
been with Texas A and m uh Texas. Now, yeah,
college stations that one year and Kellen has been the

(01:34):
face of Texas A and M football for better and
for worse since the legendary seven overtime game against l
s U his sophomore year. That's the game they're talking
about in the barbershop right now. Everyone wants to talk
about this one L s U game, which they wont
Let's just clutch sports agent Kelton Crenshaw. You know, when
you're not really on, you're not going to try to

(01:56):
throw yourself back into a game, which a lot of
times can cause necessary turnovers and you can create momentum
shifts and things that a nature. So to me, that's
a sign of maturity and that that shows that you know,
you know what you're doing out there. I mean, sometimes
you gotta you know everything's not gonna be clicking. You
gotta go out there and just kind of manage the
game and come away with the victory. Kellen received a

(02:19):
lot of criticism for doing just that. Critics say he
only managed the game despite winning seventy four to seventy
two and what became the highest scoring game ever and
throwing six touchdowns with no interceptions. Now two and a
half years later, everyone from strangers in a barbershop to
his cousin the barber, to draft analysts and NFL scouts

(02:40):
all continue to talk about that game, even mere hours
before the start of the NFL Draft. Uh seven a night, Yeah, oh,
let what I thought? It was a six? Boy? You
get me a whole not out man. Now it's at

(03:00):
six tomorrow, we're gonna get Kellen and his parents are
hosting the huge draft party tonight, even though most experts
say he could go anywhere from the first round of
Night one to the third or fourth rounds on Day
two or three, and that draft range is exactly what
his cousin asked him about between the buzz of the
clippers on his headline. It's probably like the back half

(03:23):
of the first to the top of the second, because
I usually like, if a team called me, like they're like, hey,
we're gonna select you, then it's gonna get out somewhere.
And then that's they're gonna be like, oh shoot, we
we ought to take in with He's gonna be taken
in the second, so then it's gonna be a little
easier to quarterback. Yeah, so all the quarterback said have

(03:44):
been taking him, be like, okay, well they need a
quarterback then exactly. Kellen's draft range is unusually broad because
teams see very different things when they look at his
body of work, which is extensive and features some dramatic
peaks and valleys. In fact, he's been under of the
football microscope ever since his senior year of high school,
when he transferred to IMG Academy in Florida. I AMG

(04:07):
recruits top players from all over the country and many
call it a football factory as much as an academy.
How I am going up, I think they're still good.
They totally changed, like the rules whenever I was there,
like they would have probably like recruited guys and it

(04:31):
was basically a scholarship, but they called it a financial benefit.
But now supposedly they have to have sixty to eighty
guys on the team who pay. But like obviously the
top recruster not going there and paying seventy dollars a year.
Kellen had to decide whether or not to move away
and attend IMG Academy for his senior year, and his

(04:53):
decision had little to do with leaving San Antonio. He explains,
you know, when you're at your regular high school, guys
who you play with football at times can be just
a hobby and so they're they're grind necessarily, it's in
the same ground that you have. You know, what's different
from i MG is everyone is trying to, you know,

(05:14):
one be a great college player, but also make it
to the NFL. Whenever I moved out to i MG,
which is destroy competition and just the work ethic was able.
I was able to elevate my game to a whole
another level. Kellen's desire to play tougher competition and surround
himself with hyper focused teammates occurred at least in part

(05:34):
because of his dad, who also doubled as his coach.
Inn episode two, we heard how Alex Leatherwood's life changed
when he got a new coach who saw potential in
him for the first time. This coach, Charlie Ward, encouraged
him to take football seriously and view it as a
path to a different life. Alex might not have ever
gotten to the NFL if it wasn't for that lucky

(05:56):
break with his new coach. Maybe DeVante Smith wouldn't have
become the tenth overall pick if he didn't have his
mentor Vincent Sanders in his life either. That's the difference
one person can make, and Kellen Mon's dad, Kevin, never
wanted to leave any part of Kellen's trajectory up to
fate or luck. Here's Kellen's dad and coach, Kevin. I

(06:19):
started grooming him at the early age to play quarterback.
Everything we did was football in this house. So at
the age of two, I had him doing things like
getting on his knees and throwing nerve balls and and
teaching body tork and things like that. And I'm six
ft five, so I figured if he had any thing
close to my size and high, he would probably turn
into maybe a good athlete. And Kellen took to it

(06:40):
right away. Wanted to be somebody special. And then when
all the athletic talents started taking over, I realized that
he had a chance to be somebody. Kevin was laying
the foundation for Kellen's career long before he was even born.
Kellen's mom, Leticia, explains how football became ingrained in the
family DNA from the very beginning. One of our first

(07:03):
dates was like Friday night football. Okay, I mean, that's
just the way it is. Even before we had kids,
I had been to like every single state championship game.
We traveled all throughout Texas. It was literally just part
of were part of our relationship, and then obviously it
was part of the kids, you know. Thank god. Once

(07:23):
Kellen was to Kellen started going to the football game,
so I no longer had to go to all of
the Friday night football games. But it was literally a
family affair. And you know that's how things are in Texas, right,
it is really all about football. As Kellen got older,
they enrolled him in youth leagues and camps and all
the other possible football related outlets. Like his mom, Letitia said,

(07:44):
it was all about football. And eventually this led Kellen
to the Texas State playoffs his junior year in high school.
Here's Kellen's dad, Kevin Mond. Again. He had played a
playoff game here at Reagan High. We were ranked like
eighth in the state of Texas. We were undefeated Tenno,
we lost the game opening round of the playoffs. Who
want our arrivals from off the highway about twenty minutes

(08:06):
from here. And from that point on I knew there
were some things that I saw in Kellen where he
had to get better. I wasn't the type of dad
to sit back and rest on my laurels or us
as a family to say, Okay, Kellumn is the best
player in San Antonio. That's good enough. No, it's not
about that. It's about being the best player you can be.
And a lot of this to me as as a
dad and a former coach has to do with development. Um,

(08:28):
it's not always about winning games. A lot of this
is still development. Kellen's decision to move away his senior
year of high school and attend I AMG Academy in
Florida seemed obvious against this backdrop, so he joins IMG
Academy and thrives, becoming a five star recruit. He's named
the top dual threat quarterback and the entire recruiting class,

(08:51):
and ultimately accepts a scholarship to play for coach Kevin
Sumlin at Texas A and M. Kellen describes his early
arrival on the college station campus. So, I early in road,
went through spring ball and going through fall camp, and
I actually thought that I was going to be the starter,
and a lot of people thought that I was going

(09:12):
to be the starter, at least should be the starter.
But at the time they were saying the other quarterback,
he's gonna start, but you know, you're gonna play a
little bit. So you know, I was still kind of
kind of piste off that I wasn't starting. So first
game against u C. L A, the starter ended up
breaking his foot, I think in the third quarter, and
so I ended up coming in and we're you know,
three fourth scores, and that's when, you know, Josh Rosen

(09:34):
led the Rose Bowl come back and came back and
beat us Kellen get up a thirty or four point
lead the current NFL quarterback Josh Rosen and the U
c l A Bruins. Rosen became the tenth overall pick,
and Callen quickly develops a stigma as a run first
quarterback who can't throw after he only completes three passes

(09:54):
in the game. I mean, this is my first game,
I'm eighteen, you a, and fans already can can be
pretty brutal, so just adding on to you know, me
being a quarterback and being a true freshman, it was
pretty brutal after that, and you know, I got death threats,
you know, people calling me the N word like it was.

(10:14):
It was pretty bad. And then so going into week two,
I ended up starting that game, went down, we threw
a touchdown in the first drive, and then we kind
of stalled for the rest of the game and ended
up getting benched that game. And so the backup at
the time we ended up coming in, he was an
older guy, so crowd loved him gave him kind of
like the standing ovation. So for me, it was kind

(10:35):
of like a slap in the face at the time.
And that guy who ended up playing, he ended up
getting hurt. So it was just kind of me by myself,
and so I ended up playing pretty well throughout the season.
We beat you know, South Carolina in the fourth quarter comeback.
We went played at Florida and let a fourth quarter comeback,
but ended up getting benched against Auburn whenever the true
starter Week one ended up getting back and so that

(10:57):
was pretty much my freshman year. This all began to
take a mental toll on Kellen and for his parents,
watching it unfold in the stands felt almost as upsetting
as experiencing it on the field. Here's Kevin Mond again
and what it was like for him to see Kelln
struggle his freshman year. Yeah, he was booed. Uh, that's

(11:18):
tough as a parent, you know, when you're sitting at
a game. A little over a quarter into the Auburn
game and he got benched, but during the game getting booed,
and as a parent, you know, it's tough. That is
your kid, you know, and these people when they go
to college, you know, these are eighteen year old. The
team struggles continued to be blamed on their young quarterback
throughout that season, and somehow labeled Kellen has the new

(11:38):
permanent scapegoat. I probably didn't have much respect, you know
as an eighteen year old guy, you know, first game ever,
who gave up a huge lead. So I mean since
my first game in college, it's it's been rough. So
it's always been kind of hard to gain that respect back,
even just from ain and fans um, from just even
the media too. So it's just always seemed like in

(11:58):
my career, everything that I've in, if it was you know,
if it was good, then it just wasn't good enough.
But I mean I got death threads honesty for multiple years.
But but you know, my freshman year for sure, stophomore year,
junior year, and like I've been booed in my my
own stadium multiple times. So um, yeah, it's been it's
been pretty brutal. We'll be right back. Kellen's freshman year

(12:33):
becomes a dark string of getting benched, booed, and threatened,
and the season ends with even more drama. Texas A
and M fires their head coach, The school brings in
former Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher as the new head coach,
and suddenly Kellen is starting over for the third time
in three years. Here's Kevin Mond on those challenging days

(12:55):
for his son. I always look back. I think that
made him stronger, made him want to go to work
and not make some of the mistakes he made, and
I think that has to do with his development going forward.
And nothing's ever gonna come easy. You're gonna have your
ups and down. His own life and the bounce back
plan for him was to just go to work. Okay,
I'm not as good as I need to be, I

(13:17):
gotta go to work. Kellen would be in the film
room eleven o'clock at night, go home, and be right
back at six am in the morning. And that was
on a routine, regular basis. That kid is around the
A and M campus. If not studying doing work, he's
in the film room where he's at practice almost eighteen
hours a day, go home, sleep six hours, and then
back at it. Kellen was prepared to work as hard

(13:38):
as he could, and he knew of coach Fisher's reputation
as a quarterback google. However, he was recruited by and
signed with the coach who was let go coach someone.
So this change wasn't exactly what he signed up for,
going from coach someone who was more of a laid

(13:59):
back person um to where coach Fisher was, you know,
super hands on with these quarterbacks. You know a lot
of people know about all the yelling that he does,
you know, in practice and with the quarterbacks and in
the game. So it was a total one eight for me.
Here's coach Jimbo Fisher on what he saw when he
first met and began working with the raw sophomore quarterback.

(14:22):
I said, you know, I don't care what's happened in
the past, your slatest straight with me, and you trust me.
I'm gonna put you in a position to have success.
I'm gonna let me figure you out. I'm not thinking
that's one of the things. I don't ever judge somebody
that way, because you know how guy has been coached,
or what he's been told, or what's going on with
the guy. It's very hard to ever judge. And I said,

(14:43):
but the big thing you gotta do is be consistent
and give me everything you got. And I'm gonna tell
you what it was like he started a coach, I'm
gonna do this every day and if I told him something,
he did it. But he was I work a holic
every day and he bought into everything. And I also
give him a lot of input on I said, where
do you feel here? What do you feel? How do
you do? How do you like this play? How do
you like what we're doing here? And if we worked

(15:03):
and tweaked and it we just and actually he did
it from day one. He did it from day one.
The new coach and the sophomore quarterback did a dance.
During these first weeks of practice, Coach Fisher would get
on killing about mistakes and Kellen would try to adjust
and improve, and Coach Fisher would yell a lot. Kellen's dad, Kevin,

(15:24):
watched as this all took place. He recalls one specific
afternoon when Kellen walked off looking flustered during one of
the first practices when Coach Fisher got to Texas a
and l he came over to me after practice said, man,
Coach Fisher is hard. He's always yelling at cursing at
me and staff and was one of the first few
practices and I said, son, remember when you used to

(15:45):
tell me when you were young, Dad, why are you
so hard on me? And Kellen said yes, I said, Callen,
I was just trying to prepare you for the real world.
I said, remember, Jim Ball can yell at you, but
he'll never be as hard as your dad is. And
from that moment on he laughed and the reality kicked in.
That's right. My dad was always harder than anybody, So

(16:05):
anything that anybody else dishes out, I can take it.
In some ways, Kellen did spend his childhood playing for
coach Kevin on and off the field. He was super
strict and sometimes I think sometimes or people would kind
of label it overprotective. But you know now that I'm
at an older age and you kind of look back
and you realize that my dad's thinks. Whatever he was

(16:26):
teaching me and the way he was acting, it wasn't
too crazy. But you know, sometimes as a young kid,
you just want to be free and outlandish and um.
But you know, I've known a person who had never
done drugs or never did anything because I was scared
of what my dad would do. Kellen wasn't only shaped
by kevin strict parenting and disciplined life. The mons have
a long storied military tradition in the family on both sides,

(16:50):
and beyond that, everyone in the Mond family is always
playing to win. Here's Kellen's mom, Leticia, with her husband
again Kellyn. Yes, he lives and breathes football, but all
of us we cannot stand. We are the worst losers

(17:10):
as a family. And so sitting around and playing like
a game of backgammon or whatever, checkers, whatever it is,
that stuff does not happen in our household because only
one person can win, you know, and that's just not
going to happen in our house. So, yeah, that's not
such a good thing. But it's true. I played chess

(17:31):
every night, like twelve midnight, one o'clock in the morning
on the computer, and I don't go to bed until
I win a game. If the computer beats me two
times in a role, I play until I beat the computer.
True story, true story. I go to bed one o'clock,
two o'clock in the morning until I beat the computer.
I don't go to bed. And when it comes to
laying their son or daughters win at anything at a
young age, never ever, ever, that would be cheating the system.

(17:57):
Never ever. I think I actually probably did because I
didn't want to have to deal with any of our kids,
you know, falling out. So I think I would have
I would have been the ones to say, it's okay,
let's let him win. Ever, that's how you developed tough skin,
and we didn't allow it to happen, whether we played

(18:18):
basketball in the backyard or whatever it was. You know,
that's how you get them tough, and it gets them
to learn how to compete at a high level and
what it takes. What it takes is grit and thick
skin and toughness. Unfortunately for Kellen, Kevin and latitious parenting
equipped him with these skills, the exact tools he need

(18:39):
to handle adversity on the field, harsh criticism off the field,
and even with a new head coach who liked to yell.
Earlier in my career, there was such a stigma of
me not being able to win big games and me
being inaccurate and inconsistem which is a true stigma of
a freshman Kellen Mond. But you know me three years later,

(19:01):
it's been so hard for people, just because people naturally
listen to media experts instead of actually doing their own research.
Sometimes when those things stick to somebody's head. Then it's
it's kind of hard to reverse. H Kellen makes huge
strides under coach Fisher during his sophomore year, including winning
that epic seven overtime game against a supremely talented L

(19:24):
s U team. It appears the long hours and tough
criticism and new hands on coaching is working. Then his
junior year he doesn't make the jump to the next
level that everyone was expecting. So after my sophomore year,
I just had certain goals of myself from my team,
and you know, going into a brutal schedule, we ended

(19:45):
up playing three number one so Alabama when we played
that much number one at the time, Clemson went to
top team L s U and Joe Burrow. So all games,
you know, going into where I thought that we would
have a chance and we would go in and win
that we end up losing all those obviously of phenomenal teams.
Kellen was battling some of the best teams in the
country on a weekly basis, and he was also fighting

(20:09):
against the fans who couldn't let go of the struggling
underclassman Kellyn used to be, and he was competing against
his own idea of himself some theoretical version of who
Kellen Mond was supposed to become. Here's coach Fisher, who
saw this all unfold. Throughout Kellen's junior season. We had

(20:29):
a very tough schedule. We had some tough breaks in
some situations didn't go our way. But I think he
puts some pressure on himself. I think we didn't play
as well around him as we should have. I think
we had a lot of drop balls and some big
games and some big situations, and he missed him throw.
He made some mistakes, and I thought, dealing with expectations,
they never had to do it. Here, he never had
to do it, you know what I mean? Dealing with

(20:50):
all right, we're supposed to be good. That's a different level.
And it wasn't from not want to. It's from sometimes
you put too much pressure on yourself to be perfect.
You can't play this game per thing. You just gotta
play the best you can and trust your instincts and play.
The tough losses from his junior year, along with the
ever increasing pressure and expectations, finally got to Kellen. And

(21:14):
so after my junior year, I was trying to overcome
certain expectations of myself, um, and you know we're just
never able to overcome them, and so um, you know,
after all of that, and so me just going through
that mental strain it wants to be perfect and practice
and sometimes even see guys not take practice as serious
as me and then go to the games and don't

(21:35):
see that certain things translate. By times, it was hard
for me, and you know, like people necessarily don't understand,
especially playing for coach Fisher, what type of mental strain
that it takes to be a phenomenal player and to
go out and have success. On Saturdays, Latitia watched her
son's struggle and it became difficult for her personally. She
especially felt the weight of Kellen's inner conflict. Kellen had

(21:58):
been like say, after you know that games, when allously
the fans were on and whatever, I think that I'm
I am similar in that I am also very hard
on myself. So I'm gonna going to be more you know,
reflective and try to you you're always trying to fix
the issues instead of leaning on others to allow them

(22:19):
to help you fix some of those issues. So I
can see why he did it, but I do feel
like he he took on way too much. Um that
he probably should have it. And sometimes you do wish
that your kids were more you know, you see other
other kids who they're like they're already off to thinking

(22:41):
about the next party or thinking about something else, and
Kelln has never been like that. He's always considering like, Okay, now,
how am I going to make this better? How am
I going to make this better? You know? I I
messed up. I messed up. I'm going to figure out
how to improve. So, UM, I think it's actually it
probably is a good trait, but it really is a
lot of pressure. If it's a lot for um, for

(23:05):
you know, a kid basically to have to deal with.
We'll be right back. Kellen finishes his haircut at the
barbershop with his cousin and starts driving back to his
parents house when he gets a call on his cell phone. Hello,

(23:29):
you know what up? Ryan? This is Texas A and
M sports psychologist Ryan pitt Singer, someone Kellen obviously leaned
on throughout the ups and downs of the last four years.
How are you doing good? Just driving around right now?
Um in Santatino? Are just trying to keep clear? Now

(23:50):
I'm driving home from how to get a haircut, So
I'm just driving back to my house now, so no,
I just I just want to check in on you
and just kind of see how you're doing. Yeah, I'm honestly,
I've been been chilling lately. Even my dad was asking me,
He's like, you know, what's going through your mind? I'm like, honestly,
it's just a normal day. I just got a haircut today,
I had to go to like the jewelry store and

(24:12):
get like a couple of watches fixed. So it's really
just like a normal day for me. That's so awesome, dude. Thankfully,
modern day athletes get support for their minds the same
way they have trainers and strength coaches for their bodies,
top programs across the country, all for the help of
experts like Ryan. To these young players facing such intense

(24:32):
pressure every week, you already kind of know how it's
gonna play out, or you just like, yeah, I've done
everything I can. Yeah, exactly, that's pretty much my mindset.
I know, like throughout this whole entire training and you know,
pretty much the past years, like I've done everything that
I can. So I was like, literally, you just wait
till a team dast you and I'm just watching the

(24:53):
draft as a fan and by just happened to be
a person who's gonna get called at some point. So
that's pretty much my presset. That's awesome. Man, Is there
like alternative stuff going on in your house? Like do
you have like like media there and stuff or now
there will be later they'll be like photographers there. But
we're supposed to have a lot of like family and
friends like all like at my house and so good

(25:15):
thing and in Texas, I know a good thing in Texas,
Like there's no restrictions anymore. So I'm able to I'm
able to have you know, as many family, friends and
everybody around. Yeah, there we go, man, I'm so happy
for you, so excited. Yeah now you you you've burned

(25:36):
it all, that's for sure. Man. Now it's just time
to relax and enjoy the process, no doubt. Well, hey,
I know that I'm rooting for you, and uh, you know,
you know anything at all sounds good. Yes, I appreciate it.
I let it. But that was the Texas A and
M sports psychologist Ryan pitt Singer man with me since

(26:02):
two thousand seventeen at Texas A and M been a
huge advocate, also a huge fan for me, been a
huge helper mentor. It's kind of the fly on the
wall top of guy. You know, you never see him,
you know, whenever you do certain things on the field
or around the building, and then he'll just randomly come

(26:23):
up to you and talk to you about, you know,
certain things that you did, and you just like you
don't know how you saw it. Um. Yeah, I've been
with me since two thousand and seventeen, seeing me through
all my adversity, seeing me through pretty much everything that
data ups and downs. Ryan has been there for Kellen's
whole collegiate journey. He was especially involved after Kellyn's junior

(26:47):
season when the mental health struggles, pressure, and stress became overwhelming.
Kellen leaned on Ryan as much as he could at
that time. When suddenly COVID arrived on you as Shores
and like almost every college student, Kellen had to leave
campus and go home. I always tell people quarantine changed

(27:08):
my life, and so I think just being able to
go home for two months just be around family and
not necessarily get away from football, but just get away
from college station. Um, get away from your facility and
just do things on your own and create your own schedule.
I think that's what was amazing for me. So I
know so many other college football players who UM go

(27:29):
through mental trauma and at times, if it wasn't for quarantine,
like me, UM, certain guys they will never know that
they're actually going through certain trauma just because they never
got away from it. In some ways, the quarantine changed
the whole family's perspective. Latitia shares her experience when Kellen
came home. When we're all going through COVID and Kellen

(27:53):
was home, and everyone, I think had an opportunity to
kind of really look inside of themselves and see themselves
in different light because there everyone's environment changed. And I
think that that really gave Kellen an accelerant, essentially to
all of a sudden, he started looking inside a bit closer,
He started reading a lot more. Um. There are just

(28:17):
a lot of ways that he was able to try
to look at himself a little bit differently and to
try to really look at where he was vulnerable and
look at where his imperfections were and really try to
focus on those and think about how to make himself
a better person overall, not just football, just a better person.
After five years of high pressure, high stakes football, Kellen

(28:40):
finally had the time to step back and do some
serious introspection. I think, you know, that fear of failure
and that perfection and just certain things that I was doing.
It became a habit. So me getting away from the
habit where I wasn't doing it every day. So times

(29:00):
always talk about just even at quarterbacks, if you're trying
to break a habit, you know, a throwing motion, sometimes
you have to not do it for so long. So
what you're basically got to read teach yourself. So I
was able to kind of get away from that and
I started to focus a lot more on recovery. I
started to do yoga and just really just really work
on my mental I started to read, you know, a

(29:21):
lot of books on just like holistic health and stuff
like that. Fear of failure, struggles with perfection, intense pressure
from fans. These have been forbidden or taboo topics for
star athletes in the past, but that's all changing. This summer,
U S gymnastics superstar Simone Biles dropped out of the

(29:44):
Olympics due to mental strain. Three time NFL MVP Aaron
Rodgers immediately came out publicly to support her and said
he also has needed to work on his mental struggles
this past off season. And so despite all the suffering
from the pandemic, maybe some positives came out of the

(30:06):
quarantine and distancing. It gave athletes like Kellen a chance
to gain a new perspective on their own lives and
to take stock of their health and what's truly important.
Here's coach Fisher on how he saw the quarantine impact
killing and his entire team. I think the quarantine made

(30:29):
us all take a step back and really look at
the things with how you know when you take things
away that you really love it, but you took them
for granted, and how lucky you were to have them
and be able to do the things you do. And
we talked about as a team, we talked individually, we
talked and everything and how where this and almost you
know it wasn't a good thing because people lost their

(30:49):
lives and things, But from a perspective of making you
reboot like you say you would on a computer to
get back to your values and and and you so
many great things you had in your life, and you
realize because he puts so much pressure on yourself sometimes
you don't realize how good you really got it, what
you're able to do. I think that allowed that to
happen for him. He learned to control what he could control,

(31:10):
you know what I mean, and learn not to listen.
I understand there's going to be a mistake, but minimize
that mistake, maximize the other things and what you do well.
And I think he learned to take advantage of that,
and I think it give him a relaxation that and
he hit that conpoint in his life and he took off.
After the quarantine, Kellen comes back to campus for a
senior year. Suddenly he plays with a newfound sense of

(31:32):
football's zen. He leads his team to nine wins and
only one loss, finishing fourth in the country while throwing
for nineteen touchdowns with a QB rating of one hundred
and forty six, all without his top receivers who opted
out for the season. He leaves Texas A and M

(31:53):
as one of only three SEC quarterbacks to ever surpass
nine thousand yards passing and yards rushing. The other two
players on that list Dallas Cowboys Pro Bowl quarterback Dak
Prescott and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow. It's hallowed company
for a publicly maligned quarterback bowed in his own stadium

(32:14):
only two seasons prior, and it's an entirely different Kellent,
one who harnessed the challenges from the past four years
and grew into an unquestionably better person and player, at
least according to his parents. No matter whether it's football,
no matter whether it's friendships, no matter whether it's work,

(32:36):
you always deal with adversity route and you have to
figure out and it helps you grow as a person.
That kid has had to deal with so much adversity,
like she just mentioned, sometimes fairly and a lot of
times unfairly, and he overcame it all. Coach Fisher also
saw the transformation firsthand, the saying that most amazes me

(32:56):
about one of the things I respect the most. No
matter whether he got booed with she did with that,
but or whether he had success or he had failure,
he's the same guy every day he came back to work,
and I think he's had to grind for what he's
had to do. He's had to put a chip on
his shoulder. He had to say, well, you're not the
prototypical of this. You're not the prototypical of that, and
he learned to be the best Kellen Mond he can be,
which is one heck of a football player, one heck

(33:17):
of a human being. And I think that's why it's
going to translate, and I think that's why he translated
into his last year. Over the past four years, Kellen
completely remade himself and helped rebuild the Texas A and
M football program along the way. That's why it's a
shock to many people that he's only the seventh third

(33:39):
highest drank quarterback prospect in the draft, And with the
draft about to start in a few short hours, one
has to wonder do NFL teams still have that perception
of the eighteen year old kid who struggled and gave
up the big leads. Have pro scouts erased the image
of the sophomore QB holding on for dear life and

(34:00):
the legendary seven overtime win against L s U Or
can team executives look at Kellen's whole journey and transformation
from a freshman getting benched to a senior leading the
fourth ranked team in the country without his starting receivers
and see the player, person, and leader he's become. I'm

(34:26):
gonna tell you be honest with you, he's one of
the guys he probably jumped as much as anybody. He
really has and his understanding of how to be successful
and really learning how to be successful because some of
the other guys I had we were at very successful programs,
so it was a lot easier. It's a lot more
people around him who knew and then where they could
just do their job and invent. But Kellen had to
be figure it out, then be the leader, and then

(34:46):
to teach everybody else. So that was a very challenging thing,
and to me, it's one of the most remarkable things
I've been a part of. Next Undrafted. My dad always
talks about he had me thrown the ball at the
age of two. Don't get lazy on me. Work, work
those carbs, give me something. Hand and shoulders. Hand shoulder

(35:08):
was coming down to you know, a couple of days,
you know, when he's a baby, because Mama have him
in a car seat and I have a football in
his hand. Everybody wants to go first round, but ultimately
that first contract is not even close to what that
second deal is gonna be. He's got a shot of
making it because he's twice the athlete I ever could
have done. He knew that there was a slim and
no possible to him going in the first round. Things

(35:29):
just didn't go well, you know, and it was just
a downward spiral. You love football this month, and you
love money that much, and you got a chance to
play a lot of football and make a lot of money.
This is a once in a lifetime Like literally, this
is never ever gonna happen again. Drafted is a production

(35:51):
of tree Ford Media, Clutch Sports Group, and I Heart Radio.
The executive producers are Kelly Gardner, Lisa Amerman, Eric's a Lot,
Eric Winer, and Shawn to Tone. The series is produced
and written by Eric Winer. Garme Mamalu is our coordinating producer.
Coral Silverberg is our associate producer. Tom Monahan is our
senior audio engineer. The show is mixed, edited and hosted

(36:14):
by Me Stephen Johnson. Additional production held from Tim Shower
and Hailey Mandelberg. For transcripts of the show and more
information Undrafted, go to tree for dot fm and for
more podcasts. For my Heart, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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