Two of the three players who represented the Oklahoma Sooners as faces of the program at SEC Media Days this week can be traced back to Baker Mayfield, the epitome of the crimson and cream.
It was a well-known story last spring that Mayfield himself called John Mateer to help recruit the top transfer portal quarterback from Washington State to Norman. The process to get offensive lineman Eddy Pierre-Louis to Oklahoma, though, started long before and didn't even require a call from Mayfield. It just took Baker being Baker to get a young Eddy dreaming.
"I seen them on TV, and I was just a football kid," Pierre-Louis said. "I seen them on TV. That red just lit up to me. I seen the passion that they had when they were playing a game. So that was something that I wanted to be a part of. I just kept working for it."
Eddy Pierre-Louis reveals Baker Mayfield influenced his dream of wanting to be a Sooner
Despite being a kid from Florida, where the Gators and Hurricanes and at times even the Seminoles reign supreme, Pierre-Louis still always wanted to leave his home state to be a Sooner. When he was 7 years old, he made a video just to himself to promise he'd play for Oklahoma one day. Eventually, as a four-star recruit, he got an OU offer. Today, he's a projected returning starter at guard as a redshirt sophomore while representing the Sooners in his hometown of Tampa during SEC Media Days.
"It was really Oklahoma," Pierre-Louis answered when asked about his fandom considering all the local options. "Oklahoma was my dream school since I was a kid. I made a video to myself saying, like when I was 7, saying I was going to go to Oklahoma. And I'm blessed that I made that happen, for sure."
So what exactly captivated Pierre-Louis' attention so much that he already made his college decision as a young kid? "It was Baker Mayfield," Pierre-Louis confirmed.
The math doesn't fully add up with Pierre-Louis now 20 years old, but Mayfield stormed onto the scene in 2015 to eventually cement himself as a fan favorite throughout all of Sooner Nation while winning the Heisman Trophy in 2017 and leading OU to two College Football Playoff appearances as a former walk-on. It was the passion, though -- between the yelling and planting flags and trucking defenders -- that really won over OU fans, including Pierre-Louis.
Ironically, Mayfield now calls Pierre-Louis' hometown of Tampa home as the Buccaneers' quarterback.
There hasn't been any flags planted or Heismans won, at least not yet, but the guy Pierre-Louis blocks for today gives him that same feeling Mayfield did way back then. A guy Mayfield also helped get to Oklahoma.
"The thing that I liked about Baker is really the way he comes out. He has good passion, good energy," Pierre-Louis said. "That's something that John Mateer has as well, like him having that good energy, good juice is very -- that's good across the whole board because that brings me, too, and especially my offensive line group. That has us all being able to really go run through a wall for him as well, like, literally.
"Just him coming out with good passion, energy, juice, each and every day, that's something that you need and what you want in your quarterback."
Thank God for Baker Mayfield.
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