When Reality (TV) Gets Real---A Football Story

[Barney Reinberg]

Lights, Camera, Action

Netflix has an original series called “QB1 beyond the lights”. A film crew follows top ranked and highly recruited high school quarterbacks through their senior season. Season 1 featured three quarterbacks, two of which were Jake Fromm and Tate Martell.

                                                          Jake Fromm
Jake’s path from high school to college was straight forward, a Georgia native he stayed in state and committed to The University of Georgia. Due to an injury in the first game of the 2017 season to Georgia’s starting quarterback, true freshmen Jake Fromm was in charge of the Bulldog offense. Since that game, he has not looked back. In his first year, he lead the Bulldog’s to an SEC Championship, Rose Bowl victory over Oklahoma and into the National Championship game against Alabama.

Tate Martell

Tate Martell’s path has not been as simple or as successful. Tate grew up in the San Diego area. Even at a young age, Tate showed promise. So much promise that University of Washington coach Steve Sarkisian offered Martell a scholarship when he was just fourteen. Martell committed to Washington, then de-committed to explore other options. After his freshman year, Tate transferred to Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, NV. After a couple more commits and de-commits, Martel settled on Ohio State. Tate redshirted 2017 season and saw very limited playing time in 2018.

Riding The Pine

It’s easy to understand why Tate did not see much playing time. He was playing behind Dwayne Haskins. Haskins after a couple of years with Ohio State has elected to enter the NFL draft. Some “draft experts” have Haskins being the number one pick, at least the first quarterback to be selected in the 2019 draft. The plan for Tate was clear, keep working and start in 2019. Everything was working out until….we’ll get back to Tate in a minute.
Season 2

                                                            Justin Fields
The next season of QB1 again featured three quarterbacks the one most important to our story is Justin Fields. Fields played for Harrison High School in Kennesaw, Georgia. Justin was ranked the number one high school football player by ESPN for the 2017 class. After a successful senior season, he committed to The University of Georgia. Justin knew that Jake Fromm was at Georgia and their starting quarterback. That did not seem to bother Fields when he committed to Georgia. But after a year at Georgia, it became clear that beating out Fromm was not going to happen. Justin Fields needed to look at other options.

Who Wants Me

When the football season ends, players can transfer to another university. They have to go through a “transfer portal”. Basically, stating that have an interest in transferring. Schools can begin the recruiting process. Talking with the players, setting up visits and offering scholarships. This is what Field’s decided to do. After weighing his options, Fields decided to transfer to Ohio State. Field’s once again has encroached on a Season One alumni’s turf.
This move by Fields did not sit well with Tate Martell. So, Martell entered the transfer portal. Martell recently committed to The University of Miami, Fl.