ESPN's Alden Gonzalez also traveled down memory lane with McVay as he prepares to take on the Patriots in Super Bowl LIII. On Wednesday, Gonzalez revisited a few of McVay's greatest moments at Marist School in Atlanta, including an instance when the former high school quarterback called his own number needing a score down late, and McVay's message to his team to start the drive.

Marist had just given up the go-ahead score and needed to put together an 82-yard drive to win the game, so McVay -- 17, his voice squeaky and his hair shaggy -- addressed his teammates on the field.

"He looks everybody in the eye and he's got this, 'We're going to do this, get on my freaking back, let's go' look in his eye," Ashkouti remembered. "He was just so calm. When you had him on the team, you just knew, a hundred percent, that you were going to win with this guy. Of course, him calling the play was huge. But it was his ability to make you believe. And it was all the time."