Riders’ Fine has proven doubters wrong throughout his football journey

Mason Fine has been overlooked a lot throughout his football career.

“I think the height and the stature was a big turnoff,” the 5-foot-10 quarterback said Friday. “They always said, ‘The small-town Oklahoma kid is too short or too small.’

“Every camp I went to, all the coaches at (the NCAA) Division 1 FBS level said, ‘You’re just too small, but I’ll write a recommendation for a Division 2 or an FCS school.’ My whole life, I’ve been trying to fight for that respect, and being the person I am today, that wouldn’t have happened (without) that adversity and those challenges.”

Now the 25-year-old is being given the reins of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. On Saturday, he’s to start his first CFL game with the team on the brink of being eliminated from playoffs.

He will lead the team against the Calgary Stampeders, with the Riders needing a win if they hope to qualify for the 2022 playoffs. Kickoff for the game is set for 5 p.m. The Green Zone pre-game show begins at 3 p.m.

It has been a long journey filled with a lot of hard work for the product of Peggs, Okla. Fine never even considered playing football until he was in fifth grade and saw Adrian Peterson light up the college ranks as a member of the University of Oklahoma Sooners.

“There’s really been no football in my family,” Fine said. “I talked to my dad and we didn’t know anything about football and I wanted to be a quarterback — just because — and I had natural knack for throwing the ball.”

So he and his dad went to a football camp at Oklahoma and Josh Heupel — a former quarterback for the Sooners — was giving a talk. Fine hung on every word.

“I just remember writing down the notes of what he said. I printed it and put it on my wall and every day, me and my dad played catch in the yard,” Fine said.

Fine starred with the Locust Grove High School team, setting school records for passing yards and touchdowns. Despite that, his size made teams hesitant to give the quarterback a try.

It wasn’t until signing week when the University of North Texas Mean Green reached out to him with an opportunity. He decided to take a unique approach to his visit there after being told so many times he was too small to play quarterback at a high level.

“I went there and I said, ‘I’m not screwing this one up,’ because it was four days until the signing day. So I put extra soles into my shoes and wore big Air Force 1’s and I had soles that added about two inches,” Fine said. “The coaches said they didn’t look that much into it but I don’t know.”

After the coaches saw him practise, they decided to give Fine a shot. He even said he impressed Graham Harrell, who at the time was the offensive co-ordinator at North Texas and is now the offensive co-ordinator at West Virginia.

“He said, ‘I always thought short quarterbacks couldn’t play, but you proved me wrong,’ ” Fine said of Harrell, who had a brief stint with the Roughriders in 2009. “He said, ‘It’s all about the arm strength and the attitude and the leadership and all the other attributes you can’t really measure.’ ”

Fine played in 48 games for the Mean Green, throwing for 12,237 yards with 91 touchdowns and 32 interceptions.

But he went undrafted in the 2020 NFL draft. He was given a tryout by the Chicago Bears, but nothing came of it.

In December of 2020, Riders general manager Jeremy O’Day reached out and offered Fine a contract to play for Saskatchewan in 2021. Fine came in as a practice roster player but eventually surpassed Isaac Harker to become Cody Fajardo’s backup.

In his second CFL season, Fine has seen some more game action, throwing for 326 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions.

But now with the Riders’ 2022 season hanging in the balance, Fine will be given his first CFL start with head coach Craig Dickenson going with him over Fajardo.

While it is a pressure-filled game, Fine said he can’t just focus on how big the matchup is.

“You have to have great balance — you’ve got to have a little bit (of awareness) of how big of a game it is, but also don’t put too much pressure on yourself. I’m going to be the player I am and the leader and teammate I am,” Fine said. “I’m going to go out there and play my game and let the cards (fall) where they may.”

And every snap he takes is a chance to show that height doesn’t measure talent at the position.

“I kept trying to prove it throughout high school and college. There’s always going to be doubters,” Fine said. “I keep going to the saying, ‘Your O-linemen are all 6-foot-5 and 6-foot-6 anyways and if you have a quarterback that’s 6-foot-1, you don’t see over them anyways, you see through passing lanes.’

“I never played at 6-foot-2 (and) I never played at 6-foot-3. I’ve always played at 5-foot-10 and that’s all I know.”