Copyright Salt Lake City Deseret News
This article was first published in the Ute Insiders newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Wednesday night. As Utah freshman quarterback Byrd Ficklin prepared for the biggest moment of his football career, usual starter Devon Dampier had one last message for him. “He told me he trusted me and he knows everybody on the team was going to be able to trust me,” Ficklin said. “When he told me he had trust in me to lead the team and to play ball, I felt like I was comfortable and I felt like I know I had everybody on my back.” Dampier missed his first game of the season after re-aggravating an ankle injury in the previous week’s loss to BYU, so it was up to Ficklin to lead the Utes in a must-win Big 12 game against Colorado. The true freshman quarterback had already played 65 snaps for the Utes, totaling 138 yards and a touchdown through the air and 111 yards and three touchdowns on the ground, but all of that — save for three runs against BYU — came when the game was well in hand. Despite his lack of experience, no one on Utah’s staff seemed concerned about Ficklin’s composure in the first start of his collegiate career. “He’s just unflappable. Nothing bothers him and he is an intelligent young man, extremely intelligent,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. That composure is a trait that Ficklin has displayed since arriving in Salt Lake City last winter as a freshman. “You could tell from day one that his demeanor was different than a typical freshman,” Whittingham said. “The way he carried himself, the way he handled his business. And so it was very evident back in spring ball that hey, we may have something special here.” Though Ficklin got the majority of the first-team reps in practice leading up to the game, the decision to start him came down to the wire. Dampier warmed up and was available for the game, but he and Utah decided to have him play, though he was available in an emergency. The decision to roll with Ficklin in a must-win game proved that Utah’s confidence in the freshman wasn’t just lip service. You could tell how much the moment meant to Ficklin as he led the team out of the tunnel and onto the field. For one night, this was his team, and he was ready to meet the moment. On the second play of the game, Ficklin faked the handoff to NaQuari Rogers and tucked the ball as Colorado defenders converged on the Ute running back. By the time the Buffaloes realized it was Ficklin keeping the ball, he was 5 yards downfield with a head of steam. A couple of moves later, and he ran untouched into the end zone in a dream beginning to his first college start. The night started out with a bang and just kept getting better for Ficklin and the Utes. In a 53-7 romp over the Buffaloes — it was 43-0 at halftime — Ficklin was 10 for 22 for 140 yards and two touchdowns passing and rushed for 151 yards and one touchdown. You couldn’t have asked for a much better debut, and he was awarded both Big 12 Freshman of the Week and Co-Offensive Player of the Week honors for his performance. Though Ficklin didn’t look the part of a true freshman for the majority of the game, there were some passes in the first quarter that he wished he had back. “His arm talent was not really on display Saturday night, it really is most days in practice,” Whittingham said. “He’s got great accuracy and a strong arm. Wasn’t real sharp in the throw game. His numbers were just OK throwing the football. “But as he gets more time and down the road in the future, I think you’re going to realize that he’s got a really good, accurate, strong arm in addition to his athleticism.” Ficklin’s first five passes were incomplete, perhaps due to nerves and not quite being in sync in the offense. Utah offensive coordinator Jason Beck dialed up a short pass for his first completion to get things going, and then Ficklin really started to get in a rhythm. After going 1 for 7 in the first quarter, Ficklin completed nine of his next 15 passes, including two touchdown tosses. Those two touchdown throws were Ficklin’s most impressive passes of the night. He placed the ball right on the money for an open JJ Buchanan to put Utah up 26-0 and was on target on a back-shoulder throw to Larry Simmons in the end zone that increased the Utes’ lead to 40-0. It was Ficklin’s coming-out party on the national stage, but to Utah’s coaches, it was just a confirmation of what they already knew. ‘Did things in a very special way’ Back in Oklahoma, Ficklin’s high school coach, Travis Hill, was watching his former quarterback’s game on ESPN. Ficklin was doing the same kind of stuff that he did while playing all four years at Muskogee High, just at a higher level. “The quarterback power read game and some of the same stuff that we did at the high school level. To see him go at the next level and execute that stuff, it was not surprising,” Hill told the Deseret News. Ficklin’s given name is Jamarian Ficklin, but his parents nicknamed him “Byrd,” and it stuck. “It came from my parents. As I got older, I had no meat on my body at all. And as I kept getting older, I wasn’t putting on no weight. So my dad was like, you’re like a little baby bird. And it just kind of stuck. And then I fell in love with it and everybody just started calling me Byrd and then the name Jamarian just kind of fell out,” Ficklin said on this week’s ESPN 700 coaches’ show. The skinny 6-foot-1 high school freshman that arrived at Muskogee in 2021 wasn’t exactly the spitting image of a Division I quarterback, which usually weighs at least 200 pounds, but as Hill surveyed his roster, Ficklin’s talent couldn’t be ignored. “Like any coach that has any sense, as a freshman, you didn’t even want him playing, but he was by far our best kid, so we went ahead and moved forward with that,” Hill said. As a freshman, Ficklin threw for 2,455 yards and 21 touchdowns with 14 interceptions in a growing season for him and the team, which went 2-8. Those early reps, however, would prove to be valuable later down the line. “The progression was exactly what you would want it to be. We saw a kid grow from some talent, young — you’re talking about a 15-year-old kid — and obviously just go ahead and get to the end of the rainbow with the 18-year-old kid as a senior,” Hill said. The next year, Ficklin took a big jump, and so did his team. Muskogee went 11-2, led by Ficklin’s improvement. He totaled 2,788 passing yards, 38 touchdowns with 11 interceptions and an increased completion percentage of 64%. Ficklin’s team went from missing the playoffs to making a semifinal run. As Ficklin approached his junior year, Hill knew there was one more aspect of Ficklin’s game that he could unlock. “We really didn’t turn him loose running the football as a freshman and sophomore because we wanted to protect him a little bit,” Hill said. Hill gave Ficklin the green light to run the ball, and Ficklin hit the gas pedal. “His freshman and sophomore year were starting points for him to take over now and direct the team,” Hill said. “Throughout the process of his whole junior year, you saw him grow immensely with those leadership roles, talent continued to grow.” He went from 308 rushing yards his sophomore season to 947 yards and 20 rushing touchdowns. He also kept improving as a passer, throwing for 3,249 yards and 32 touchdowns with just six interceptions on 68% accuracy. “It’s really fun to watch the ones grow up and be special that do everything special, not just play football special, but take care of other kids, excellent student in the classroom, excellent leadership, community service. We’re humans. We root for those type of kids, and he’s one of those kids.” — Travis Hill, Byrd Ficklin's high school coach Ficklin led Muskogee to the Class 6A-II state championship game with a 36-35 win over Deer Creek in the semifinals. Ficklin threw for 250 yards and a touchdown and rushed for 194 yards and four scores, accounting for every Muskogee touchdown. In the championship game, Muskogee avenged one of its only regular-season losses, beating Stillwater 28-26 for the school’s first football state championship since 1986. Ficklin scored all four of Muskogee’s touchdowns and was 10 of 11 for 165 yards and a score through the air, adding 77 yards and three touchdowns on the ground. “It was fun to see that moment arrive from a coaching standpoint,” Hill said. What made Ficklin leading Muskogee to a state championship even more special for Hill was the off-the-field moments his quarterback displayed throughout his career. “It’s really fun to watch the ones grow up and be special that do everything special, not just play football special, but take care of other kids, excellent student in the classroom, excellent leadership, community service,” Hill said. “We’re humans. We root for those type of kids, and he’s one of those kids.” Throughout Ficklin’s time at Muskogee, Hill had numerous parents approach him, telling him they loved having their son play with Ficklin, not just because he was a good quarterback, but also a good person. “We didn’t have to ask him to go to community service. He wanted to go to community service. He expected to go to community service. He was never too good to say, ‘Hey, I get to be first in line.’ ‘I’m just another dude on this football team that wants to do things right,’” Hill said. “So it happened constantly. I mean, it’s the little things, but little things add up to big things. And so he was always a really, really, really good teammate, did things in a very special way.” In his senior season at Muskogee, Ficklin put up more eye-popping stats — 2,351 passing yards and 30 touchdowns with just four interceptions and 687 yards and 13 scores on the ground — and led his team to a perfect regular season. Muskogee breezed through the playoffs, and were just one win away from back-to-back state championships and an undefeated season. Ficklin threw for 133 yards and two touchdowns and rushed for 154 and a score in the state championship game, and Muskogee led 25-7 in the third quarter before Choctaw stormed back to take a 26-25 lead. Ficklin led Muskogee on a drive with time dwindling in the fourth quarter, setting up the field-goal kicker on the 10-yard line, but his kick missed, dealing a heartbreaking end to Ficklin’s high school career. ‘I seen a home here’: Ficklin commits to Utah As Ficklin rose to Oklahoma high school football prominence during his junior and senior years, offers from Power Five schools just weren’t materializing. “I started off with multiple (Group of Five) offers, a handful of G5s. My senior year I went to a mega camp, picked up maybe 10 offers at the mega camp, and it was all literally just all G5,” Ficklin said. Ficklin, not wanting to miss out on a college football scholarship, signed with Texas State ahead of his senior year, but still had faith that a Power Four offer would come. Power Four coaches would come to practices or watch tape, but there was always a reason why they never offered. “He’s left-handed, he’s got a little hitch in his throw. Is he just an athlete? I heard more excuses. I don’t know what they were looking for,” Hill said. “It really tested my patience. It tested my knowledge. “I’m a 63-year-old man that’s been coaching for a long time, coached at the college level. So I’ve been around all these particular situations and I just scratched my head every time. What are they seeing that I’m not seeing or vice versa?” Hill felt like the stats, and the film, spoke for itself, to say nothing about the intangible qualities like Ficklin’s leadership. “I try to be very professional about it … but there’s probably a couple of (media) interviews, I can tell you one at the end of the state championship game, when he won it as a junior, I said, I don’t care how, excuse my language, ‘I don’t care how the (expletive) kid throws the damn football. I don’t care if he throws it behind his back. He’s a (expletive) stud. He’s damn good.’ And I think we’re going to find out that I was correct,” Hill said. One Power Four team believed in Ficklin enough to offer him a scholarship — Kyle Whittingham and Utah, who offered him in November 2024, just ahead of signing day. It was far from a sure thing that he’d see the field anytime soon. In addition to Dampier, Utah also had sophomore Isaac Wilson and signed Sierra Canyon quarterback Wyatt Becker in Ficklin’s same class. But Utah was Ficklin’s only chance to compete at the Power Four level, so he took a visit to Salt Lake City, where he fell in love with the program. “Late in the year Utah came, Coach Whitt called me and I just seen something, I seen a home here and that’s where I’ve been since,” Ficklin said. At the time he committed on Dec. 2, Utah didn’t even have an offensive coordinator. It was a leap of faith for Ficklin, but so far, it’s worked out even better than expected. Being mentored by Dampier Ficklin graduated high school early so he could enroll at Utah in January, letting him participate in winter conditioning and spring football. Through that winter strength training, he bulked up to 200 pounds, which would better prepare him for the physicality of high-level college football. From the moment he arrived, Ficklin impressed his coaches — most importantly Beck — and his teammates. “He was probably the hardest person to tackle. Every tackle day we had, defense, it was very hard for them to get him down, so I knew that was going to translate into his game just easily,” Dampier said. “But also, I mean his passing game’s up there too, so for him to have both, I think he showcased that for sure.” Dampier took Ficklin under his wing when the freshman enrolled, mentoring him and also becoming a close friend. The two room together in hotels — Utah not only stays in a hotel for away games, but also the night before home games — and have quickly developed a bond. “Dev has been the most help out of anybody that’s been here,” Ficklin said on the ESPN 700 coaches’ show. “... He’s been really pushing me on and off the field to not just be a better player, but also be a better person. And that’s what I mainly love about Dev. “It’s more than just football. We always hang outside of football, we do a lot together, but our bond is a really love relationship.” It says a lot about both quarterbacks — especially Dampier — to not feel threatened by each other but instead to lean into that relationship to help grow and develop as players and people. “We love each other enough where we compete and make each other better. It’s not a bitter competition. It’s definitely out of love and when it’s out of love, you tend to both rise and become better together,” Dampier said. As he progressed through spring camp, then fall camp, Ficklin started to emerge as the natural backup to Dampier, especially with Utah planning to redshirt Wilson. Like the dual-threat Dampier, Ficklin is able to make magic happen with his legs, and the lefty may actually have a stronger arm than his mentor. “That’s been the thing with Byrd is he kind of fits our offense right now, both in terms of what Devon does, but also in terms of what’s best for our team and that is a run-first approach, a running quarterback, adding the numbers,” Beck said. “And so he’s kind of provided (that) being a natural backup that way and it’s played to his skill sets. There’s minor things with (him) being lefty and working some things that way, but otherwise, yeah, it’s allowed it to transition pretty seamlessly.” That’s why when Dampier missed Saturday’s game and starting duties fell to Ficklin, there was no panic whatsoever from Utah’s players or coaches. The combination of Ficklin’s physical talent, his ability to remain cool under pressure, and his grasp of the offense has been evident to Utah’s coaching staff for a while. On Saturday, a national TV audience got to see it. There’s still so much room to grow, starting with improving the throwing accuracy in competitive games, but all that will come in due time. It’s just one start — a good one at that — but Ficklin knows he has much, much more to prove. “I just try to stay levelheaded. Can’t let my head get too big or it will be deflated quick on a college field. I feel like it was a good win, a good first start, and it was also a good bounce back from what happened the previous week for the team, for everybody to come in with their motivation,” Ficklin said. For now, Utah fans are breathing a sigh of relief that the Utes have what looks to be a solid backup quarterback on the roster — and perhaps the program’s quarterback of the future. In case you missed it When the national spotlight is on, does Utah shine or shrink? A look at how Utah has fared in big-time games with another opportunity this week vs. No. 17 Cincinnati. From the archives Extra points Utah adds commitment from in-state recruit previously committed to Big Ten program Big 12 football power rankings: Where do BYU, Utah stand in league race with a month left in regular season?
