When I think about the greatest pure athlete ever to come out of Western Pennsylvania, Terrelle Pryor might be No. 1.
Not just football player. Athlete.
What Pryor did at Jeannette High School was ridiculous because he wasn’t simply a great quarterback who happened to play basketball. He was legitimately one of the best high school prospects in America in two major sports. At 6-foot-4 with elite speed, Pryor looked like somebody created in a video game.
As a freshman, he was reportedly already running a 4.4-second 40-yard dash. By the time his high school career was finished, he had become the first player in Pennsylvania history to surpass both 4,000 career rushing yards and 4,000 passing yards.
He led Jeannette to a WPIAL football championship and eventually the program’s first PIAA football championship. The 2007 Jayhawks scored a then-state-record 860 points.
Then he’d leave the football field, walk into a gym and dominate there too. Pryor helped lead Jeannette to a WPIAL basketball championship and, as a senior, a PIAA basketball state championship.
He was a Parade National Player of the Year in football and a Parade All-American in basketball.
Think about that.
There are great football players. There are great basketball players. Terrelle Pryor was nationally recognized in both.
His football recruitment became one of the biggest recruiting stories in the country before he eventually chose Ohio State.
And this is where the “What If?” begins.
He Was Becoming a Star at Ohio State
Pryor didn’t go to Ohio State and become a disappointment. He got better every year.
As a freshman in 2008, he threw for 1,311 yards and 12 touchdowns while rushing for another 631 yards and six scores. By his junior season in 2010, he had developed considerably as a passer.
Pryor completed 65 percent of his passes for 2,772 yards and 27 touchdowns while adding 754 rushing yards. Ohio State finished 12-1, won the Sugar Bowl over Arkansas and ended the season ranked No. 5 in the AP poll.
Pryor wasn’t some raw athlete surviving at quarterback anymore. He was becoming a legitimate big-time college quarterback.
He had already won Rose Bowl MVP after the 2009 season. By the end of his junior year, you could see where his career was headed.
And then everything changed.
The Tattoo Scandal
Pryor and several Ohio State teammates were suspended for five games after an NCAA investigation involving players receiving improper benefits in exchange for memorabilia.
Eventually, Jim Tressel resigned, Pryor left Ohio State, and instead of returning for his senior season, he entered the 2011 NFL Supplemental Draft.
The Oakland Raiders selected him in the third round.
That matters when discussing his career because Pryor didn’t get the normal NFL entry process.
No senior season. No normal NFL Draft buildup. No full combine process. No opportunity to spend another year developing as a quarterback in college.
He entered the supplemental draft in late August, missed almost all of NFL training camp and then had to serve a five-game NFL suspension connected to the NCAA violations.
For a young quarterback who still needed development, that’s about as difficult an introduction to the NFL as you could imagine.
What If Pryor Plays His Senior Year?
This is the part that has always fascinated me.
What happens if none of that occurs and Terrelle Pryor returns to Ohio State for his senior season?
Look at the progression.
2008: 1,311 passing yards, 12 TDs. 2009: 2,094 passing yards, 18 TDs. 2010: 2,772 passing yards, 27 TDs.
He was clearly improving.
Now give that player another offseason and another full year as Ohio State’s starting quarterback.
Does he become a serious Heisman Trophy candidate? Does Ohio State contend for a national championship? Does Pryor continue developing enough as a passer to change how NFL scouts viewed him? And instead of becoming a third-round supplemental pick, how high could he have gone in the regular NFL Draft?
We’ll never know.
But those aren’t crazy questions considering what he had already accomplished.
The Part That Looks Completely Different Today
This is what makes Pryor’s story even more interesting when you look back at it through the NIL era.
At the center of the scandal were college athletes receiving benefits connected to memorabilia.
Today, college athletics operates in a completely different world. Athletes can make money from commercial uses of their name, image and likeness, although NIL still operates under rules and restrictions.
That’s why Pryor’s situation hits differently all these years later.
The university and college football could generate enormous attention and revenue around players like Pryor, while the rules of that era severely restricted what those players themselves could receive.
You don’t have to excuse every decision made during the Ohio State scandal to recognize how dramatically the system has changed.
And that’s the real tragedy of Pryor’s football “What If?”
His Career Still Proved How Freakishly Talented He Was
Pryor still made it to the NFL.
He even reinvented himself. After entering the league as a quarterback, he eventually transitioned to wide receiver and produced a 1,000-yard receiving season.
Think about how absurd that is.
A quarterback who became one of the most highly recruited players in high school football history eventually changed positions at the highest level of football and became a 1,000-yard NFL receiver. That alone tells you what type of athlete we’re talking about.
But I’ll always wonder what happens if 2011 plays out differently.
What if Pryor gets his senior year? What if he puts together a Heisman-caliber season? What if Ohio State makes a championship run? What if he enters the regular NFL Draft after another year of quarterback development instead of arriving in Oakland in late August through the supplemental draft?
Maybe his NFL career looks completely different.
Maybe it doesn’t.
That’s why it’s a “What If?”
But when we’re talking about Pittsburgh athletes whose careers could have taken an entirely different direction because of one turning point, Terrelle Pryor belongs near the top of the list.
And when you look at today’s NIL era, his story becomes even more fascinating.
A player once had his college career altered in a scandal centered partly around receiving value for memorabilia connected to his own accomplishments.
Fifteen years later, college athletes operate in a world where earning money from their own name, image and likeness has become an established part of the sport.
Terrelle Pryor was born in a different era.
And Pittsburgh sports history will always be left wondering what might have happened if he’d gotten that final year at Ohio State.
This is Part 1 of DrewSchifino.com’s series, “Pittsburgh’s Greatest ‘What If?’ Athletes,” remembering Western Pennsylvania athletes whose talent deserves to be talked about long after the final whistle.