Brock Purdy's high school coach explains how the 49ers rookie got ready for this moment.
The 49ers are on the cusp of a Super Bowl appearance, and everybody wants to know Brock Purdy’s secret. How is this rookie from run-of-the-mill Iowa State, who started the season as a third-stringer after being the last pick in the draft, the 262college player selected, leading San Francisco on a blistering win streak that has fans in red and gold thinking championship? The answer, at least to hear his high school coach Preston Jones tell it, is all about experience, which is ironic considering Purdy is going into just his eighth game as an NFL starter.
“He was everyone’s backup plan,” Jones said, reflecting on Purdy’s career at Gilbert Perry High School. Purdy might have been the undisputed king of Arizona high school football in his senior year, but he wasn’t hotly recruited by big-time colleges. “It was a combination of things,” Jones said. “Going into is junior year, right before the season started, he got mono. He missed our preseason practices and the first three weeks of the season. So, he had six weeks of doing absolutely nothing and losing 20-plus pounds, losing all of his strength. “So, when he came back, he was exceptional … but he didn’t look great. Physically, he didn’t look real big, and his arm strength looked suspect because of that mono. College coaches took notice of that and didn’t listen to me saying, ‘Hey, guys, he had mono. He lost weight.’”Getting overlooked was a blessing in disguise. Purdy’s record-shattering senior season had scouts re-evaluating their assessments. “He ended up being the best quarterback left standing, and it seemed like everyone in the country wanted him,” Jones said. Sound familiar? Isn’t that what happened to Purdy this year with the 49ers after Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo went down with injuries?The Cyclones might not be a football powerhouse along the lines of Oklahoma, Texas or Clemson, but these are exactly the sorts of programs Purdy faced as a four-year starter. He saw scenarios on the field that more highly touted players with less playing experience have only seen on video games. “Some of the things he’s doing out there, people don’t even make a big deal of it,” Jones said. “They don’t realize how different it is.Against Dallas, Purdy “ran the 4-minute drill in the fourth quarter, and every time he snapped that ball that play clock was at 1 second,” Jones said. “And when they were playing the Seahawks, he was running the 4-minute drill, and he scrambles, gets the first down, and instead of running out of bounds, he slides and sticks the ball on turf, so he doesn’t get called out of bounds. “He’s been doing 2-minute drills and 4-minute drills since he was a sophomore in high school. Then he goes to college, and he actually used them.” But does Purdy’s experience with being overlooked actually go back further? Did Jones almost make the same mistake as everyone else in the football world seems to have made?The first time Jones met Purdy was “in the weight room at Perry High School the summer going into his freshman year.”But Jones paid more attention than college recruiters and NFL scouts.“When you start to get to know him in the weight room and see what he was doing on the football field was when he really started to stand out,” Jones said. It didn’t take long to realize that Purdy was “extremely hard working,” Jones said. “Very, very coachable. He listened. Detail-oriented. And he always wanted to be the best at anything he was doing.”“I’m up to following the 49ers, watching NFL football, which I’ve never done before,” Jones said. As a high school football coach for nearly 30 years at various programs, including 15 at Perry High, Jones used weekends to prepare. “My Sundays were usually 10- to 14-hour workdays, so I just didn’t have time. I was working on Sunday to get ready for the week,” he said.49ers QB rises from Arizona, Iowa State to brink of Super Bowl “It’s absolutely insane,” Jones said. “People send me pictures of where they’re watching the game, at different bars and restaurants, and everyone is packing these places to watch the 49ers. That didn’t happen in the past, and it’s because of Brock.”“I think my biggest role was to not screw him up. He had all the intangibles … we were always big on discipline. Just expectations and ‘Do what you’re supposed to do, when you’re supposed to do it, and do it the best you can, and do it that way all the time.”The rookie’s secret is his experience, which starts with preparation, and to hear his high school coach tell it, the run of success should be no surprise, even if Purdy did start the season buried on the bench. “Everyone says, ‘Even if you’re a backup, you gotta prepare like you’re a starter,’” Jones said. “Well, that’s a great saying, but Brock does that above and beyond. … I wasn’t at practice, but I can promise you he was doing all the studying and everything necessary to get ready … That’s just who he is.”
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