Great story about Bears new starting qb

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Hardly anyone had ever heard of Tyson Bagent before his first NFL start. He had played Division II football, gone undrafted and was serving as a backup for one of the league’s crummiest teams.

Then the newly minted Bears quarterback defied even the rosiest expectations by leading Chicago to a blowout win in his first start.

But there were some people who weren’t at all shocked by the most improbable story in the NFL this season. They’re the same people who had actually seen Bagent play football before. .....

Bagent was ignored by mainstream college programs coming out of high school. NFL teams didn’t pay much notice when he broke NCAA records and became the rare Division II prospect invited to the Senior Bowl. Even when he scored an invite to the annual scouting combine, every single franchise passed on him in this year’s draft. That turned out to be an opportunity for the Bears, who signed him as an undrafted free agent and are already reaping a windfall.

But the first time Bagent went completely overlooked, Ernie McCook was the one celebrating. McCook was the coach of Shepherd University, a D-II school in West Virginia, who recruited him out of high school. He knew that he had a genuine shot at landing Bagent. He also knew that he shouldn’t have. “We knew he was better than a Division II football player,” McCook says.

Top-shelf Division I teams took too long to realize that, and McCook had some advantages. Shepherd is a quick drive from where Bagent attended high school in Martinsburg, W.V. Both of Bagent’s parents attended Shepherd. His father actually played baseball for the Rams, though these days he’s better known as one of the greatest competitive arm wrestlers of all time. It runs in the family: Bagent’s grandfather was also an elite armwrestler.

Not everyone appreciated the genes running through Bagent’s arm. Walker, the coach at Martinsburg High School, was taken aback when colleges would call him about Bagent only to pass in the end. Bagent, Walker thought, could make all the throws. More than that, he was a film rat with an unbelievable work ethic.

Walker has a couple ideas on why they whiffed. Bagent was still just 17 years old when he graduated high school. He thrived more as a traditional pocket passer at a time when some coaches wanted a quarterback with more athleticism. It didn’t exactly make sense to Walker given who he would compare Bagent to.

“I always called him our little Tom Brady,” Walker says. “Tyson Bagent, TB, same initials.”

Bagent’s top offers ended up coming from FCS schools like Albany in the lower level of Division I. He opted to stay close to home, and that came with the benefit of gaining instant experience on the field. Bagent was installed as Shepherd’s starter as a freshman in 2018, and in his first game he threw for over 500 yards and three touchdowns. That was just the beginning of his assault on the college football record books. ....

When he returned (from Covid shutdown), he was better than ever. He had career highs with 53 touchdowns and 5,000 passing yards in 2021, and those numbers were so outrageous that Bagent entered the transfer portal and attracted the attention of schools like West Virginia that once ignored him. “I don’t like to think about that time in my life,” McCook says. But this time it was Bagent’s chance to snub them: he chose staying at Shepherd over his Division I suitors.

After coming back for one last season, Bagent led Shepherd to the D-II playoff semifinals for the second consecutive year and threw a career-low eight interceptions with 41 touchdowns.....

By the time the 2022 season was over, Bagent hadn’t just set the D-II high-water mark with 159 career touchdown passes. He owned the mark at every level of NCAA football.

Bagent’s play netted him an invite to the Senior Bowl, where one team’s brass got an especially good look at him. Luke Getsy, the Bears’ offensive coordinator, was the coach of the American team, which counted six players from the Alabama Crimson Tide, four Georgia Bulldogs and one Shepherd Ram on its roster.

During Senior Bowl week, Getsy said he at first thought Bagent was a “nervous dude.” Then he realized Bagent was just working maniacally hard.

“By the time we got to Wednesday, Thursday, I saw a guy ready to rock and roll,” Getsy said last week.

Shortly after the draft, the Bears scooped up Bagent as one of their undrafted free agents. Those players are usually happy to make the practice squad because it means they weren’t cut from the team entirely. Bagent, though, defied expectations once again: he beat out a veteran for the role of No. 2 quarterback.

The player ahead of him on the depth chart couldn’t have been more different. Justin Fields was a first-round pick after being one of the top recruits in the entire country out of high school. He enrolled at Georgia before transferring to Ohio State—the exact type of schools that never had Bagent on their radar.

When Fields injured his thumb mid-game a couple of weeks ago, Bagent was called into replace him, and he got the starting nod with Fields out last week. In the start, Bagent completed 72.4% of his passes while Chicago cruised to a 30-12 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders. The solid, if not spectacular, performance included a touchdown throw and no turnovers.

It’s been an extraordinary turn of events for Bagent, who was used to playing on Saturdays in front of a few thousand fans. And with Fields out this weekend, Bagent will get a second consecutive start.

This time, it will be nationally televised with millions of viewers on Sunday Night Football.

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