LUBBOCK – The throw, a heave that quickly echoed throughout the college football social media sphere, came in a situation you’d never find in a game.

Texas Tech junior quarterback Patrick Mahomes sat on his knees, ready to display an arm talent that can only be described as prodigious. He twisted right, torso coiling before unleashing the full force of his weight in front of him.

The ball traveled 65 yards.

Mahomes’ arm, which throws a fastball with the vigor of a major league pitcher, is one of many traits Red Raiders head coach Kliff Kingsbury, a former NFL quarterback, is envious of.

“He has a cannon. I also wish I could run around and extend plays like he does,” Kingsbury said to 247Sports. “I couldn’t do any of that stuff.”

Mahomes’ toss might seem a silly grab for retweets, but it’s important all the same. The effort took place June 3, in the middle of Texas Tech baseball’s postseason run to the College World Series. But instead of being on the diamond helping the Red Raiders, as he did as a freshman, Mahomes spent the day working on his throws.

Texas Tech’s starting quarterback, the nation’s top underclassman passer in 2015, is dedicated singularly to football for the first time in his life. He devoted the offseason to transforming his body and quarterbacking tendencies.

Dylan Cantrell, a junior wide receiver from Mahomes’ hometown of Whitehouse, Texas, said the additional time with his team also elevated Mahomes’ standing in the locker room exponentially.

“Having that distraction of baseball, I don’t want to call it a distraction, took him away from us last year,” Cantrell said. “Being here in the spring gaining that leadership role, it’s his team now.”

The son of a Major League Baseball player, Mahomes is forging his own path to stardom. There will be murmurs his success is a product of Tech’s high-flying Air Raid attack, but the dark horse Heisman hype is hard to ignore on a team in search of its first Big 12 title.

Mahomes hopes to refine his natural gifts into a package that places him among the nation’s elite. It’s a twisting life turn, especially considering a time not too long ago it appeared Mahomes might never play quarterback at all.

***

Already a dominant high school baseball player for Whitehouse, a small town in East Texas, as a junior, scouts indicated to Mahomes he would be a third- or fourth-round pick in the 2013 MLB First-Year Player Draft. A 6-foot-3, 180-pound right-hander with a 93-95 mph heater, Mahomes had the natural ability and bloodlines – the son of former MLB pitcher Pat Mahomes – scouts salivated over.

Dad played 11 seasons in the pros; son absorbed the game while catching pop flies in MLB parks and challenging pros to batting practice contests as six years old.

Mahomes melded with the game, his place on the pitcher’s mound as natural as his free rein of pro clubhouses scattered across the country.

Football, though, proved to be a slower adoption.

A quarterback in junior high, Mahomes arrived on the varsity at safety as a sophomore. Though, his former high school coach, Randy McFarlin, hesitates to label Mahomes a quality defensive back.

“He was not the best safety,” McFarlin said. “At that point, I was just trying to keep him interested.”

A decision faced Mahomes entering his junior year. Mahomes wanted to play quarterback, the demands and responsibility just as alluring as a place on an elevated mound, but there would be no assurances. Fall baseball beckoned as an alternative – a way to get additional exposure in front of scouts.

McFarlin thought he might lose Mahomes, but ultimately Mahomes decided he’d continue to play football. The responsibilities of quarterback – making calls, checks at the line and reads – were too tantalizing to not at least try.

“I just like how hard it is,” Mahomes said.

It took a few games, but ultimately Mahomes secured the job and thrived. Mahomes threw for 3,839 yards, 46 touchdowns and only nine interceptions as a junior, launching him onto the national radar as a football recruit.

Football had set its hook.

“I’ve always liked to be the guy with the ball in his hands,” Mahomes said. “You have the ball and get to go make big plays. … When I started to play quarterback and started to succeed I started to love the game.

“Then I just knew I’d play football in college, at least.”

***

McFarlin bellowed at his junior quarterback, “Throw it away. Just throw it away!”

The demand went unheeded.

Instead, Mahomes scrambled around the backfield during a playoff game against Wylie East: Back 10 yards, right another five to avoid a defender, a spin back to leave him whirling and then a sprint to the opposite hash mark to ultimately plant at the 35-yard-line – eight yards behind the original line of scrimmage and on the opposite hash mark – and launched a 52-yard pass to Cantrell. The catch was made and a lateral later, a touchdown scored. (See the full play above starting at 3:25)

After an extended celebration Mahomes trotted back to the sideline and smiled at McFarlin.

“We went on,” McFarlin said with a laugh.

Not all of Mahomes' free-wheeling maneuvers are quite so dramatic, but it’s his template. Blessed with a sixth-sense to avoid and spin out of contact, Mahomes is a gunslinger made for a classic Western episodic — an East Texas bandit stealing first downs each week.

It started early in his quarterbacking career, and it’s continued in Lubbock. Pull up a Mahomes highlight tape and it’s sprinkled with jailbreak plays, the kind that made Johnny Manziel a star at Texas A&M in 2012 under then-OC Kingsbury. Mahomes will roll left or right, make a defender of two miss and then launch into a seemingly improbable throw.

“There’s never a dead play with him,” said Texas Tech junior defensive back Justis Nelson.

RELATED: Kliff Kingsbury has the magic touch for QBs

Mahomes’ ability to extend plays is so random and flippant his offensive linemen often lose track of the player they’re supposed to protect.

“He’s just a dynamic player,” said Texas Tech senior offensive tackle Baylen Brown. “You don’t see many quarterbacks who could do what he’s done since Johnny. He’s always making plays.”

Mahomes arrived at Texas Tech as a three-star recruit, ranked as the No. 21 pro-style quarterback in the 247Sports Composite, and grabbed the starting job at little past the midway point of his freshman season. A year later, Mahomes beat out Davis Webb – now California’s starting quarterback – and threw for 4,653 yards, good for fourth in the nation, and 36 touchdowns.

The player who nearly quit football a few years prior had arrived.

***

Ping pong games are at the forefront of the locker culture in Lubbock, and it should be no surprise Mahomes is at the epicenter of that. Mahomes, always ready to run or dive after loose balls, gets so into the games, his Red Raider opponents said the team should put mattress around the table for padding.

Assured of a MLB contract or a college scholarship in high school, Mahomes could have focused on one sport and took it easy. Instead, he lettered in baseball (the Detroit Tigers drafted him out of high school anyway), football (AP Texas Player of the Year as a senior) and basketball (All-East Texas Most Valuable Player).

“He’s one of those guys who’s good at everything,” Brown said.

With a future seemingly guaranteed on the gridiron – early projections have Mahomes, if he chooses to leave, as a mid-round pick in the 2017 NFL Draft – Mahomes felt this past offseason was time to transform himself as a quarterback.

An abstract artist in a quarterback system built for contemporaries, Mahomes’ offseason goal was to temper his off-schedule tendencies. Mahomes throws from multiple arm slots while on the run and often passes up simple completions in favor of highlight plays. Mahomes' gunslinging habits draw eyes, but it’s also the reason why he threw 15 interceptions in 2015, the third-most in the FBS.

That total, which he hopes to cut in half in 2016, is a reason why Mahomes will attempt to alter his style, even if it’s just slightly.

“It’s hard to tell where the line is,” Mahomes said. “But if you cut down on interceptions and stuff like that nobody will tell you where the line should be.”

Repetition and film study proved an ally in the offseason as Mahomes focused on “making the ordinary plays better.” If he saw an open five-yard hitch for a first down, Mahomes’ aim was to take it. Kingsbury’s Air Raid offense is predicated on short, quick passes – papercuts for an opposing defense. Mahomes, at least in the past, attempted to draw too much blood at once. Now, the simple play is his emphasis.

If Mahomes missed or opted to skip over an open wide receiver in spring practice or summer workouts, the play would be stopped and run again. Footwork, three-step drops and stepping up in the pocket against pressure were areas that enveloped his attention. Instead of rolling out at the first sign of pressure, Mahomes is attempting to react more like a traditional signal caller.

Arm slots, too, are a point of consideration. Switching between baseball and football often altered Mahomes’ passing mechanics, and though his arm strength helped cover the deficiencies, the changes would force errant passes. Now, Mahomes said his mechanics “feel perfectly set.”

If Mahomes had any doubt about his decision to step away from baseball, his time at the Manning Passing Academy this summer quelled those thoughts. Mahomes watched film with Peyton Manning and observed the amount of detail that went into each session and had a realization.

“To be on Peyton Manning’s level, you have to live (football) at all times,” Mahomes said. “It’s something I’ll strive to be.”

***

There were times last offseason Mahomes’ teammates wondered where their starting quarterback disappeared to.

This year, there’s no doubt.

Under the guide of a new strength and conditioning coach, Mahomes helped foster a culture change in the Texas Tech locker room. He altered his body, too, adding 11 pounds of muscle to a frame now exclusive to football.

“I turned into a bit of a meathead,” Mahomes said.

Lubbock is completely Mahomes’ domain. He’s no longer the unheralded freshman quarterback behind Webb or Baker Mayfield, nor is he a part-time football player ready to dash off to baseball.

“He’s the unquestioned leader now,” Kingsbury said. “His presence in all the offseason workouts changed things. Overall, he’s a much better quarterback, a much better leader and a much better teammate.”

The highlight plays will likely remain a staple for Mahomes – he debuted no-look passes in fall camp – but his dedication to cutting down on interceptions could place Mahomes among the nation’s elite pure passers this season.

That space, occupied by only the top names of the sport, usually comes with an invitation to New York. The Heisman hype is real for Mahomes. It will take wins, but the Red Raiders believe a Big 12 championship is attainable.

Kingsbury doesn’t want his quarterback to shoo away the hype. The son of a pro, Kingsbury wants Mahomes to embrace it.

An East Texas kid with a West Texas home, Mahomes isn’t your typical superstar quarterback. But he hasn’t had a normal journey, either.

“I never expected to even be in the Heisman conversation,” Mahomes said. “I didn’t even think I’d be playing football in college. It’s crazy that life takes you directions you don’t expect.”