Since the NCAA began allowing athletic scholarships in 1950, no player to win the Heisman Trophy had started his career as a walk-on.
Baker Mayfield changed that Saturday night.
Mayfield, the Oklahoma quarterback whose storybook saga began with him walking on at Texas Tech, captured the 83rd Heisman in a landslide victory.
Mayfield collected 732 first-place votes and 2,398 points in the voting totals. Stanford running back Bryce Love was second with 1,300 points (75 first-place votes). Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson, last year's Heisman winner, was third with 793 (47).
Mayfield yielded the third-highest percentage of possible points received (86 percent) since 1950, behind only Ohio State's Troy Smith (2006) and Oregon's Marcus Mariota (2014).
Mayfield became the first senior to win the Heisman since Smith in 2006. Earlier in the week, he won the Davey O'Brien (best quarterback) and Maxwell (player of the year) awards. The Associated Press and Walter Camp also both named him their player of the year.
"This is unbelievable for me, being up here among these greats," Mayfield said upon receiving the award with past Heisman winners standing behind him. "It's something that words can't even describe. God has put me in this position that I'm so blessed, and a lot of times I wonder why. But it's such an honor to be up here. It's unbelievable."
Mayfield has put together one of the most impressive individual offensive seasons in the game's history and, in the process, led Oklahoma to the College Football Playoff for the second time in three years. The Sooners will open the playoff against Georgia in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day.
Mayfield has completed 71 percent of his passes and thrown for 4,340 yards and 41 touchdowns with only five interceptions. He is averaging 11.8 yards per passing attempt, which would shatter the FBS record that he set last season.
With Mayfield running the show, the Sooners have posted the highest offensive efficiency rating since ESPN began tracking the metric in 2005. Since Mayfield took over as Oklahoma's starting quarterback in 2015, the Sooners have led the FBS in points per game, offensive touchdowns, yards per game and yards per play the past three seasons.
This season, Mayfield became the 10th player in FBS history to throw for 14,000 yards in a career. He is the first of those to rush for 1,000 yards as well. He also moved ahead of former Oklahoma quarterback and Heisman winner Sam Bradford for the FBS record for career passing efficiency.
Mayfield became just the fifth player -- and joined Georgia's Herschel Walker as only the second in 68 years -- to finish in the top four of the Heisman voting three times. The other three to do so, SMU's Doak Walker, Army's Glenn Davis and Army's Doc Blanchard, achieved the feat during the 1940s. Before Mayfield, Blanchard was the only Heisman winner to transfer from one FBS-level program to another. Blanchard played at North Carolina before joining Army.
Mayfield gave Oklahoma its sixth Heisman winner, which moves the Sooners into a tie with USC for the third-most all time (not including Reggie Bush's vacated 2005 Heisman). Alongside Heisman winners Billy Vessels, Steve Owens, Billy Sims, Jason White and Bradford, Oklahoma will soon erect a statue of Mayfield in its Heisman Park, which sits just to the east of Oklahoma's Memorial Stadium.
"It's been a dream come true to play at OU," Mayfield said. "Although I grew up in Austin, Texas, I was always Sooner-born and Sooner-bred. And you know, they say, 'When I die, I'll be Sooner-dead,' and I truly mean that. It's been a dream for me. And it's an honor to represent my school."
After he won the starting job as a walk-on true freshman at Texas Tech, Mayfield bolted for Oklahoma. He showed up in Norman in 2014 without an invitation from then-coach Bob Stoops, much less the promise of a scholarship. But Mayfield grew up a Sooners fan living in Austin, Texas, and wanted to see if he could make it at his "dream school."
Then, after sitting out the first season as an ineligible transfer, Mayfield beat incumbent Trevor Knight for the starting job. In 2015, he led Oklahoma to the playoff on his way to posting a 34-5 career record with the Sooners.
"There's a lot of people who put effort into this. Coach Stoops, you welcomed a chubby, unathletic kid into the program with open arms," Mayfield said. "I wouldn't say that many would do that, but thank you."
Mayfield's Heisman season, however, didn't come without obstacles and controversy that he mostly created for himself and had to overcome.
In the early morning of Feb. 25, Mayfield was arrested in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on charges of public intoxication, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and fleeing. A month later, police released dash-cam video of Mayfield attempting to run away from the scene before officers tackled him into a wall. Mayfield agreed to a plea deal that eliminated the resisting-arrest charge. After Oklahoma's first spring practice, he spoke publicly for almost a half hour, noting that he realized he had "let down" many people.
Twice during the season, Mayfield's on-field antics stirred up controversy as well.
Following one of the biggest wins of his career, a 31-16 victory over Ohio State on Sept. 9, Mayfield planted an Oklahoma flag at midfield of Ohio Stadium. Two days later, he apologized, saying he "didn't mean for it to be disrespectful."
Mayfield also apologized after grabbing his crotch and cursing at the Kansas sideline on Nov. 18. In turn, coach Lincoln Riley suspended Mayfield from starting the final home game of his career and temporarily stripped him of his captain status. But after he sat out the first series, Mayfield passed for three touchdowns in the victory over West Virginia.
The following week, he passed for another four scores to propel the Sooners past TCU in the Big 12 championship game, which effectively punched Oklahoma's ticket to the playoff -- and clinched the Heisman for Mayfield.
Mayfield said Saturday night that Riley's hiring in June "changed my life."
"Coach Riley, you've been a great mentor to me," Mayfield said. "We've been through a lot together, so I appreciate you."