Too short? Mason Fine is just fine proving doubters wrong
The most prolific passer in Oklahoma high school football history couldn’t risk another coach telling him he was too short.
Mason Fine scoured his closet for a way to make himself look taller before visiting the only college still recruiting him.
It was January of Fine's senior year of high school, and he had yet to receive a single Division I offer. College coaches were hesitant to take a chance on the 5-foot-10 Fine even after he shattered Oklahoma passing records and became his state's only two-time player of the year.
Fine planned to try to walk on at Oklahoma State or play for a Division II program until North Texas reached out weeks before signing day. Sensing this was his last chance, Fine devised a plan to appear closer to 6 feet tall when he met the coaching staff.
He retrieved the thickest shoes in his closet, a pair of Air Force 1s. He left the stock insoles inside and added extra arch support on top.
"I was trying to look a little taller than I actually am," Fine told Yahoo Sports with a chuckle. "I was trying to get that voice in their heads saying this guy’s not that small."
If Fine had to resort to deception to land a college scholarship, the fight to prove he belongs in the NFL at his size promises to be even tougher. He could go undrafted next weekend despite possessing a combination of grit, intelligence and flashy passing numbers that scouts would surely find enticing were he a few inches taller.
In three-plus seasons as a starter at pass-happy North Texas, Fine showcased a quick release, savvy decision making and a knack for extending plays with his feet. He was the Conference USA offensive player of the year twice and set school records in career passing yards (12,505), passing touchdowns (93) and passer efficiency (140.68).
Fine would be one of the two shortest quarterbacks in the NFL next season if he makes a team. Of the 98 quarterbacks on NFL rosters last season, 63.3 percent were 6-foot-3 or taller and only Arizona’s Kyler Murray and Seattle’s Russell Wilson were listed as shorter than 6 feet.
Consider Fine lucky to be trying to break into the NFL now rather than a decade ago. The league has ever so slowly begun to embrace quarterbacks who stand around the 6-foot mark or just shy of it, as long as they possess uncommon arm strength and athleticism.
The Cleveland Browns took 6-foot-1 Baker Mayfield first overall in 2018. Arizona selected Murray with the same pick last year. The rise of shotgun-heavy, spread offenses and rule changes restricting hits on quarterbacks has opened the door for averaged-sized humans to play the NFL’s most demanding position.
It doesn’t matter to Fine if he’s a late-round draft pick or an undrafted free agent signee. All he wants is a chance to do what he’s done ever since he first quarterbacked a football team in middle school.
“It’s a great opportunity to keep proving people wrong,” Fine said. “I’ve beaten the odds this much. Why stop now?”
Father and son on a mission
The story of how an undersized kid from Northeast Oklahoma blossomed into a record-setting quarterback begins inside his childhood bedroom. Hanging on the wall is a sheet of paper that Fine studied obsessively for years while learning the basics of how to throw a football.
The summer before he began sixth grade, Fine attended a quarterback camp at the University of Oklahoma. Each day, he’d observe Josh Heupel’s throwing motion and soak in the advice the former Oklahoma quarterback offered. On the drive home, he’d jot down what he learned so that he wouldn’t forget any of it.
At the end of that camp, Fine and his father typed up those handwritten notes, which covered anything from proper grip, to elbow placement, to pointing his toe at his target. Fine pinned a printed copy next to his bed so he could see it when he went to sleep and woke up.
Whereas other high-profile quarterbacks had professional throwing coaches in middle school, Fine had that sheet of paper and a father who had never played football before. Dale Fine and his son taught themselves how to throw via nightly games of catch in their front yard. Anytime someone got lazy with his mechanics, the other would call out the mistake.
“It was hours and days and months and years of repetition,” Dale Fine said. “The motto we went by was that it wasn’t just practice that made perfect. It was perfect practice that made perfect.”
It took Mason about a year to consistently deliver tight spirals, but by the end of eighth grade, he no longer concentrated on his throwing mechanics. The revamped motion he and his dad had worked on now felt natural to him.
At a showcase camp the following summer, an instructor praised Mason’s throwing form and asked who his quarterbacks coach was. The instructor couldn’t believe it was his dad, let alone that Dale Fine had no previous football experience.
“That’s one of my favorite stories to tell because it shows who I am and where I come from,” Mason said. “We didn’t have money to spend on personal trainers and quarterbacks coaches, so it’s really neat that I can say that my father taught me how to throw a football.”
Since his 813-person hometown only had a K-8 school, Fine had a choice between high schools in neighboring communities. The one he picked had just hired an energetic new football coach after only winning two games the previous three seasons.
Locust Grove High School coach Matt Hennesy faced a dilemma when Fine enrolled in 2012. Fine was already the team’s best passer, yet Hennesy feared putting a 5-foot-9, 135-pound freshman behind a patchwork offensive line.
Hennesy’s solution was to start Fine at wide receiver but design a set of trick plays that showcased his arm. Fine actually threw for more than 600 yards as a freshman receiver. He then quarterbacked Hennesy’s explosive Air Raid offense the next three years and piled up numbers never seen before in Oklahoma.
Seventy-one touchdowns, six interceptions as a junior. Fifty-three touchdowns, seven interceptions as a senior. More than 13,000 yards passing during his high school career. Fine led Locust Grove to a 37-3 record as a starting quarterback, yet he finished his senior season without a scholarship offer.
The height problem
The recruiting snub that stung Fine the most began as a pleasant conversation. An Arkansas State assistant pulled Fine aside at a July 2015 camp to rave about his arm and his knack for escaping a collapsing pocket.
At first, Fine thought Arkansas State wanted to recruit him. Then the coach revealed he had something different in mind. Declaring it unrealistic for Fine to hope to receive Division I interest at his size, the coach offered to do the quarterback a favor and recommend him to any FCS or Division II program he liked.
"I was polite and told him that I appreciated it, but inside I was fuming,” Fine said.
The Arkansas State coach who underestimated Fine can take solace that he wasn’t alone. The quarterback sent out dozens of highlight tapes and attended camps at Kansas, Missouri, Tulsa and Oklahoma State without picking up a single scholarship offer.
When college coaches asked Hennesy about Fine, their first question inevitably was, “How tall is he?” Hennesy often responded that Fine was “almost 6 feet” because he neither wanted to lie nor admit that his quarterback was 2 ½ inches away.
Rice took a hard look at Fine after his junior season. The Owls ultimately chose 6-foot-3 Sam Glaesmann over him.
Oklahoma State only recruited Fine as a walk-on. No scholarship offer came even after the Cowboys’ primary quarterback target decommitted.
Hennesy called his former college coach on Fine’s behalf. Kansas State’s Bill Snyder said he doesn’t recruit quarterbacks shorter than 6 feet tall.
“The hardest pill to swallow was that it was something I couldn’t do anything about,” Fine said. “I can’t change my height, and that was the only thing stopping me from getting looks.”
Instead of bemoaning being too short, Fine focused on what he could control. He studied extra film to improve at spotting vulnerabilities in a defense. He lifted weights every day to make himself more durable. He read books on leadership to learn how to better command a huddle. He maintained a 4.0 GPA and graduated as a valedictorian.
Other Locust Grove students spent Friday nights going out to eat, watching movies or attending parties. Fine would often stay on campus after football games to do extra work.
“That’s the difference between Mason and every other guy I coached,” Hennesy said. “He’d go to Subway, get a sandwich, come back and watch film or lift. He had a key to the field house, so he’d actually lock up himself at 2 a.m. when he’d go home.”
For months, Fine acted like the lack of interest from bigger programs didn’t bother him. Not until midway through his senior season did some cracks in that facade begin to show.
Hennesy found Fine by himself in the weight room one day, overburdened and despondent. The quarterback felt he would be letting down his family, coaches and community if he didn’t play Division I football.
“Look, there is absolutely zero else you can do,” Hennesy assured Fine. “You just have to keep doing what you’re doing and put it in God’s hands.”
The tape didn’t lie
The answer to Fine’s prayers arrived in the form of a coaching change 250 miles to the south. North Texas hired a former Oklahoma football captain who grew up in Muskogee, favored the Air Raid system and was close friends with Fine’s high school coach.
Seth Littrell called Hennesy a few weeks into his tenure to ask what quarterbacks were still available so late in the recruiting cycle. Alabama grad transfer Alec Morris had already chosen North Texas, but Littrell also sought a prospect to redshirt and groom for the future.
Hennesy had previously recommended Fine when Littrell was still a North Carolina assistant, but the Tar Heels had already recruited another quarterback. Now that Littrell was in charge at North Texas, he agreed to take a closer look.
Littrell and offensive coordinator Graham Harrell compared game tape of Fine and the other quarterbacks they were considering. Each time, it was no contest. The shorter quarterback was also the better prospect.
“There were local kids with Power Five offers who were calling us because they wanted to play in our system, but he was better than them,” Littrell said. “To be honest, we kept laughing because it wasn’t even close. If this kid was 6-2 or 6-3, he’d have been offered by everyone in the country.”
Harrell met with Fine in early January and returned raving about the quarterback’s confidence and determination. By the time Fine donned his extra-tall Air Force 1s for his visit to North Texas, Littrell insists, “He could have shown up in combat boots with four-inch heels and we’d have taken him.”
Fine arrived at North Texas expecting to redshirt as a freshman, but his performance during fall camp forced Littrell to reconsider. Not only did Fine win the admiration of his teammates with his enthusiasm and work ethic, he also picked up the offense unusually quickly after running a similar system in high school.
In North Texas’ season-opening loss to SMU, Fine relieved Morris during the second half and engineered a fourth-quarter touchdown drive. A few days later, Littrell warned Hennesy to get to Denton the following Saturday if he wanted to witness Fine’s first collegiate start.
Over the next four years, Fine started 49 games at North Texas, led the Mean Green to a pair of nine-win seasons and shredded opposing defenses just like he did in high school. A school-record 4,052 passing yards as a sophomore. Twenty-seven touchdowns and five interceptions as a junior. Twenty-nine touchdowns and nine interceptions as a senior.
Those are the kind of numbers that merit early-round consideration if you’re 6-foot-4. For Fine, they may not even be enough to get him drafted.
Snubbed again
In early February, Fine learned he was not among the quarterbacks chosen to participate in this year’s NFL Scouting Combine. Seventeen taller quarterbacks received invitations, some of whom hadn’t accomplished as much as Fine in high school and college.
That snub became more damaging a month later when the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of Fine’s March 26 pro day. Without warning, Fine lost his chance to showcase his arm in front of representatives of all 32 NFL teams, to prove that he could put enough zip on his passes to make the toughest throws and to display his charisma and determination in meetings with executives.
“I had trained really hard these past four months and I was throwing really well,” Fine said. “To not have the opportunity to show out and to prove to scouts that I belong was really tough to swallow.”
Fine would have been at an even bigger disadvantage were it not for his agent’s quick thinking. Kelli Masters had the foresight to have Fine videotaped throwing his entire route tree last month in San Diego as part of a mock pro day with Drew Brees’ longtime quarterbacks coach Todd Durkin.
In addition to sending that video to executives from every NFL team, Masters has also made Fine’s college medical records available. She admits quarterbacks under 6 feet “automatically have a strike against them” in the eyes of scouts, but she’s optimistic that Fine’s productivity, character and determination will help him overcome that.
“He has a fire inside of him like I’ve never seen,” Masters said. “I really believe that teams will be able to look past his height after they meet with him, hear about his leadership skills and see how confident and coachable he is.”
When Fine speaks with NFL executives via Zoom or FaceTime, whether he can be effective in the NFL at his size inevitably comes up. Fine answers politely but firmly that he can.
He’ll explain that he’s been answering the same questions since middle school; that it won’t be any tougher finding passing lanes between 6-foot-5 NFL defensive linemen than throwing over 6-foot-3 college linemen; that he’ll continue to compensate for his height by excelling in the areas that he can control.
“My height was a concern in high school and in college,” Fine said. “Obviously it’s now a different level with better competition, but, humbly, it hasn’t stopped me yet.”
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