Still, his play has been stellar. He has thrown for 4,340 yards and 41 touchdowns this season for the Sooners, who are 12-1 and the Big 12 champions. For his career, Mayfield is eighth in Football Bowl Subdivision history in passing yards (14,320) and sixth in touchdown passes (129). He is quite likely to leave college with the two best season passer ratings in major college football.

That is pretty good for a scrawny boy who grew up rooting for Oklahoma in Austin, Tex., but did not receive a scholarship offer out of high school from either his hometown Longhorns or his beloved Sooners.

Mayfield had won a state championship at Lake Travis High School, which regularly pumps out Division I quarterbacks. But at 6-foot-1, he was undersized and received just one offer from a Power 5 program: Washington State.

Instead, he walked on at Texas Tech and started eight games as a freshman. With a glut of quarterbacks there, however, Mayfield left with only one school in mind.

Oklahoma had Trevor Knight, who had three seasons of eligibility left after a Sugar Bowl victory against Alabama, but that did not dissuade Mayfield, who had a contentious departure from Texas Tech. At first, he lost a year of eligibility despite not being on scholarship. Texas Tech could have given permission to waive the lost year but did not.

Mayfield eventually regained that year of eligibility when the Big 12 tweaked its rules, but he never let go of the slight. For his final game against Texas Tech this season, he wore the “Traitor” T-shirt that some Red Raiders fans wore when he first returned to Lubbock with Oklahoma.