ATHENS - Baker Mayfield is back in the Georgia-Oklahoma conversation, and this time it has nothing to do with a choke sign or a villain role.
Kirby Smart said this week that he and Mayfield are now good friends, a notable turn for two figures tied to one of Georgia’s most memorable wins. Smart’s Bulldogs beat Mayfield’s Sooners in the 2018 Rose Bowl, ending the Heisman winner’s college career in dramatic fashion.
“We’ve just crossed paths from time to time,” Smart said on this week’s SEC coaches teleconference. “I have a lot of respect for him as a player and his family and the community work they do down in Tampa.”
That kind of respect would have sounded a lot different in the moment. Georgia fans had plenty to dislike about Mayfield in that game - he was confident, loud and excellent.
After Rodrigo Blankenship missed an early field goal, cameras caught Mayfield flashing a choke sign toward Georgia. The Bulldogs got the final word anyway, with Sony Michel’s walk-off touchdown run in double overtime.
Afterward, Georgia linebacker Davin Bellamy told Mayfield to “humble yourself.”
More than anything, that 2018 matchup created a lasting image of Mayfield as the antagonist. But as Georgia and Oklahoma prepare to meet for the first time since then, Mayfield is part of the story again for a very different reason.
Smart’s connection to the Tampa area helps explain some of that. His mother is originally from Plant City, Florida, just outside Tampa, and Smart said earlier this year that he spent many summers as a child in the Tampa area.
Mayfield, of course, has built a career far beyond that Rose Bowl stage. The first overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft spent his first four seasons in Cleveland, where he was teammates with Georgia running back Nick Chubb.
After bouncing around during the 2022 season, he found a home with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He has made two Pro Bowls, helped lead the team to multiple playoff games and recently signed a three-year, $165 million contract to stay in Tampa.
Bellamy, too, has softened his view of Mayfield over time. He recently shared how the quarterback earned his respect both during the Rose Bowl and after it.
Bellamy recalled a play in the fourth quarter when Georgia defensive lineman Julian Rochester landed on Mayfield. Rochester, listed at 6-foot-5 and 300 pounds, dropped his knee on Mayfield’s ribs.
“You could hear the breath leave, you know, Baker’s body,” Bellamy said in an appearance on DawgNation Daily on Wednesday. And he got up, and he was grabbing his rib. And he looked at us and said, you know, is that all y’all got?
Bellamy said that was the family-friendly version of what Mayfield said in the moment.
Even so, Bellamy came away impressed. Mayfield started as a walk-on at Texas Tech and has become a veteran NFL quarterback who, in Bellamy’s eyes, simply keeps coming.
“That right there, that showed me, man, we can’t break this guy,” Bellamy said. “And you see that now in the NFL, you know, he plays with a torn labrum, man.
He plays with, you know, broken ribs, and he just will not, you know, come out of the game. So, just going warrior for warrior, you respect, you know, a guy that goes out on his shield.”
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