HOOVER, Ala. — Now we know why Myles Garrett loves dinosaurs.
It’s because he is one.
On Tuesday at the 2016 SEC Media Days Garrett, perhaps the nation’s most explosive defensive player, spoke about antiquated athletic values like humility, honor, team and love-of-the-game.
In today’s sports climate those notions sometimes can seem as prehistoric as the reptilian beasts that Garrett loves to study and read about in the Jurassic Park series.
Of course, sometimes Garrett resembles those beasts, too.
Like on Saturdays in the fall when he’s roaring past offensive tackles and chasing down quarterbacks like an irate Texas T-Rex.
Garrett already has All-American credentials. He’s posted 23 sacks in just two collegiate seasons. He broke the Southeastern Conference freshman sack record once held by South Carolina’s Jadeveon Clowney, who eventually became the first player selected in the 2014 NFL Draft.
Next year Garrett could also be the first player selected in the NFL Draft.
The comparisons to Clowney don’t end there.
Some suggested Clowney sit out his junior season as to not risk an injury that could hurt his draft status.
I want to be one of the best that’s ever come through A&M, and that would just be betraying the people I’ve played with and the people who have come before me, who have worked their butt off … to get to a place where I could just sit out and go? I don’t think I could do that.
- Myles Garrett, on resting his junior year prior to entering the Draft
Garrett has heard similar suggestions. He’s ignored them.
“I’ve heard it, but I’m against it,” Garrett said. “I want to be one of the best that’s ever come through A&M, and that would just be betraying the people I’ve played with and the people who have come before me, who have worked their butt off … to get to a place where I could just sit out and go? I don’t think I could do that.”
Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin isn’t surprised.
He acknowledges that Garrett is a little “different,” but calls him a “great young man.” Garrett doesn’t spend hours on Twitter or other social media. He doesn’t call attention to himself. He doesn’t boast and brag.
All Garrett does is write poetry, read books (often about dinosaurs) and work out.
Oh yeah, and kick ass and take names.
And he does it with an unassuming attitude. Garrett could be a diva. Instead, he acts more like a walk-on than a warhorse.
When talk turns to turning pro, he turns a deaf ear.
“It comes up at least twice a day with people around me,” Garrett said. “But I tell them that’s in the future. All I can do is handle what’s around me at this time right now.
“That’s making sure I have a good season and keep on working hard right here in the summer. Fall camp’s coming up … make sure I work on my technique so I’m prepared for the first game, prepared to make a big impact for the team.”
Garrett is just what Texas A&M needs right now — on and off the field.
On the field, he can be a dominant force that can disrupt offenses and could help Texas A&M became a factor in the SEC West Division race.
Off the field he can represent A&M in a much more favorable light than its previous brightest star — Johnny Manziel, whose well-documented personal problems are still the fodder for questions directed at Sumlin.
Three years after Manziel appeared here, Sumlin was asked if he could have done something to help prepare Manziel for life after A&M.
“I exchanged text messages with Johnny Manziel over the last two weeks,” Sumlin said. “That’s the extent of it. He’s an Aggie and he’s always going to be an Aggie. At Texas A&M we take care of each other.”
Lindsay Caudle, TexAgs
Garrett is a freak on the field and increasingly a unique and engaging figure off of it, which only serves to fuel his fame.
That’s truly a wonderful sentiment. And it’s largely true.
But you get the feeling that text messages between Sumlin and Garrett in the future will reference comic books and super heroes.
“He beats to a different drum,” Sumlin said. “I looked down on the plane today … he had some flip-flops on and a Marvel comic book hat. So, that’s what we needed to see out of our toughest guy on defense. He’s just a different guy. He’s a great young man.
“There’s not a whole lot of guys out there of what I term the ‘low-maintenance great players.’ All he wants is maybe his headphones. And to know what time practice is, when to go to class, when meetings are, when game time is and where is the food.”
Some might ask why isn’t Garrett a diva?
He’d ask why should he be?
“My dad is a low-maintenance person,” he told a throng of reporters that were surrounding him. “My grandma is a low-maintenance person. She didn’t need much. She worked hard. She was humble. She’s sweet.
“The values she’s given to me I hope to display to other people.”
You thought you loved that guy before? Hell, A&M should just erect a statue of him now. In fact, carve out two sculptures.
Put one in front of Kyle Field. Put the other in front of the university’s paleontology department.
If A&M doesn’t have a paleontology department, it should build one if for no other reason than Garrett would like it.
Heck, a year from now Garrett will be so wealthy he could donate the money for construction.
Until then, he’s approaching football the old-fashioned way: he’ll work hard to help the Aggies win, not to improve his draft status.
Alas, Garrett is no fool, either. He may be a throwback to the past, but he understands the future, too.
He acknowledged that players may be more concerned with draft status and avoiding injury than winning championships. He realizes that someday in the near future a player may opt to sit out his third year of college football to prepare for the draft as some might have suggested he should.
“It could get to that point, but I hope it doesn’t,” Garrett said. “It’s hurting the game.
“You don’t disgrace the game like that and say, 'It’s not worth my time and I’ll be a first-round pick anyway.' You play because you love it, not because you can make money from it.”
He’s an ultra-talented athlete motivated by love for the game more than money.
In other words, he’s a dinosaur.
