Bryce Petty appears confident and comfortable when he enters the room for the start of daylong interviews on the ESPN campus. He's wearing a dark suit, a white shirt and a mega-watt smile. His handshake is firm, his mood serious yet relaxed.
It's the same sort of demeanor he displayed when meeting with the Saints, Chargers, Packers, Rams, Cowboys and Jets, among other teams, over the past two months. And although there may be vexing questions about what type of player he'll be once drafted -- the record-setting quarterback from Baylor is projected to go in the second or third round -- there are no concerns about what type of person he'll be.
"With no schtick, he's about faith, family and football," says QB whisperer George Whitfield, whose pupils included Petty this spring in San Diego. "It's always telling who's the first person to come out and visit the guys while we're training. Bryce's first visitor was his Bible study coach from his years at Baylor, a 62-year-old gentleman named Chris Wommack who stayed for seven days."
Says Petty, "Me and [Wommack] have been through a lot, in terms of my growth off the field and, by happenstance, my growth on it, too. It was fun to have him be out there and to have him kind of see what I do and get his take on it, because I was away from home for an extended period for the first time."
The two first met in January 2012, when Petty began attending Bible study at Wommack's home. Before that, Petty had always kept faith and football on opposite sidelines. He focused on each at specific times, but rarely simultaneously.
"He kind of brought God onto the field, in the sense that it's not just a prayer before the game," Petty says of Wommack. "Now, I actually pray before every snap, like, 'Here we go God.' It's not a long, drawn-out kind of thing, but for me it's important because I put so much pressure on myself. I'm a perfectionist, and I've been battling that forever; the fear of failure is something that has always kind of hindered me as an athlete. To kind of have that peace of mind from a prayer just before the snap, it's like, 'OK, we're good. Let's just go play. Good play or bad play, God's got this. There's purpose in all of it.'"
That calming presence helped him become one of the country's most productive college quarterbacks the past two seasons, when he threw for 8,055 yards and 61 touchdowns. The 6-foot-3, 230-pounder led the Bears to consecutive Big 12 championships and went 21-4 as a starter, setting 31 school records in the process.
Yet he's an enigma to many scouts, who like his strong arm and ability to make all the necessary throws but question whether he can flourish in a pro-style offense.
Success did not come swiftly, however. Petty committed to Tennessee before his senior season in high school, but Volunteers coach Phil Fulmer was fired two months before national signing day. New coach Lane Kiffin recommended Petty look for another program, which led the Midlothian, Texas, native to sign with Baylor.
But even then, Petty spent a semester in junior college at the request of Bears coach Art Briles. He subsequently was redshirted as a freshman and saw only limited playing time as a backup the next two seasons. Ultimately, 1,756 days passed between his last start in high school and his first start in college. Even for someone as confident as Petty, it was a struggle to not question his future.
"A moment of doubt? There were several moments," Petty says. "There were a lot of venting sessions between those days. But it all goes back to my support staff, my family and Chris Wommack, who is very important to me. They just told me that God has a plan with everything, so for me it was just about waiting my turn and working my butt off and still having that end goal in mind. Too often in society today, if things don't work out right away, you move on to the next thing. But there's so much to gain and learn through patience and hard work."
With the draft still more than a week away, Petty must be patient again. It's not easy. Teams want to know whether he can make the transition from a spread system that rarely utilized huddles or snaps under center. He tells them yes but knows there's no way to truly convince them until he gets on the field and does it.
"I'm sitting back as an athlete, saying, 'What do I have to do?'" he says. "I want to scream: 'Just draft me, then sit back and watch.' It's my goal to make that one club that does draft me excited about selecting me and the 31 other teams realize they made the wrong decision. The team that does select me is going to get a passionate guy, a guy that loves football, loves his teammates, loves the locker room. Above all, it will get a guy who has a burning passion and desire to be the best. That's important in this game. I just try to tell myself that it doesn't matter when I go; it just matters what I do when I get there."