A decade before Mason Rudolph revived a 7-7 Pittsburgh Steelers team that looked dead in the water — with Kenny Pickett injured, Mitch Trubisky ineffective and a three-game losing streak threatening to hand coach Mike Tomlin his first losing season in 17 years — he walked into the head coach’s office at Oklahoma State.
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There he met coach Mike Gundy, offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich and a decision.
Rudolph, a 6-foot-4, strong-armed quarterback from Rock Hill, S.C., began his freshman year in 2014 the same way he did this season with the Steelers: third on the depth chart with almost no shot of seeing the field.
Gundy and his staff intended to redshirt Rudolph. At least that was the plan before injuries sent the Cowboys’ season into a tailspin. Just two games in, starter J.W. Walsh needed foot surgery. Eight games later, backup Daxx Garman reported concussion symptoms. The Cowboys had lost four in a row, falling to 5-5 and threatening Gundy’s bowl-eligible streak.
“I’m sitting there sweating bullets being like, I’m the coordinator that’s going to be responsible (for ending the streak)?” Yurcich said.
With two games remaining, the Cowboys needed one win. Gundy, who had been reluctant to burn Rudolph’s redshirt after Walsh’s injury, needed a quarterback.
“If you want to play, we’ll start you,” Gundy remembers saying. “If you don’t want to play, I certainly understand.”
“I’ll play,” Rudolph answered, without hesitation.
“Are you sure?” Gundy asked. “It’s going to burn your year.’”
“Coach, I want to play,” Rudolph responded. “I came here to be the quarterback. I want to play.”
Gundy told Rudolph to step outside and call his dad, Brett, to make sure the family was OK with the decision. Brett wasn’t sure that playing was in his son’s best interest.
Not only would Mason burn his redshirt for just two (maybe three) games, but the task was daunting. His first college start would be at No. 7 Baylor, which had the country’s most potent offense. That juggernaut was followed by a rivalry game at No. 20 Oklahoma, in which Oklahoma State would be a 19.5-point underdog.
But Brett had become an honorable mention All-American linebacker at North Carolina by running through ball carriers with his eyes open. He wasn’t going to tell his son not to compete.
“He wanted to play, so I certainly wasn’t gonna say no, nor did I have the authority to anyway,” Brett said. “I just remember thinking, ‘This isn’t good.’ And, yet, it was the best thing that could have ever happened to him.”
In a driving rainstorm, Oklahoma State dropped Rudolph’s debut 49-28, but he stood tall in the pocket, never backing down while throwing for 281 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. In the regular-season season finale, trailing 35-21 with less than five minutes remaining, Rudolph bombed a 43-yard touchdown to Brandon Shepard. Then, with just 45 seconds remaining, speedster Tyreek Hill returned a punt 92 yards to force overtime, where a field goal completed the thrilling 38-35 upset.
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“(Rudolph) just stayed calm, and the moment never got too big for him,” said Gundy, whose bowl streak reached 18 seasons this fall.
Rudolph went on to throw for 299 yards and two touchdowns in a Cactus Bowl victory over Washington. His success in relief won the team over. In January, Gundy named Rudolph his starter for 2015.
He never looked back, becoming the the winningest quarterback in Oklahoma State history, breaking 54 team records (including single-season and career marks for passing yards, passing touchdowns and pass efficiency) and winning the 2017 Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award as the top upperclassman quarterback in college football.
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While Rudolph showed off his big arm and fearlessness in the pocket during that three-game stretch, his coaches still look back on the decision in Gundy’s office as a more revealing moment.
“To say, ‘I don’t care about my redshirt,’ that’s a big deal, man,” Yurcich said. “I think that speaks volumes on who you are as a person and what it means to you to just compete.”
And that’s the thing about Mason Rudolph, who will step behind center for the No. 7-seeded Steelers on Sunday when they kick off the playoffs as 10-point underdogs against No. 2-seeded Buffalo Bills.
From the time he started playing football at 8 years old through this season — when he climbed the depth chart from third-string afterthought to playoff starter — he’s always been waiting and searching for an opportunity to seize.
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When Brett Rudolph accepted a real-estate job in 2007 and moved his young family from Virginia to Rock Hill, S.C., little did he know he was setting up roots in “Football City, USA.”
That’s what residents call the town of about 75,000 people that proudly boasts what is believed to be the most NFL players per capita in the country, including Jadeveon Clowney, Stephon Gilmore, former Steeler Chris Hope, Cordarrelle Patterson and many others.
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The passionate pigskin community proved perfect for a family full of athletes. Brett, a former linebacker and track star with a square jaw and the same quick wit as his son, briefly explored college coaching when he met Jamie, a track athlete at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. A year later, they were married.
“Somehow, the speed that we were both blessed with didn’t seem to translate to our quarterback,” Brett said with a laugh. “We joke with him a little bit about that.”
Mason was the oldest, followed by Logan, who won a national championship on the Clemson football team in 2019, and finally their sister Dasha, who played high school volleyball.
Baseball. Basketball. Football. Mason played everything. Well … everything but quarterback.
Mason strengthened his arm on the baseball diamond and began growing into a long, lean frame. But in Pop Warner, he was asked to play linebacker or tight end while the head coach’s son got the start behind center. Other times, Mason carried the ball out of the single wing in run-heavy offenses.
He spent his freshman season running routes as a receiver at a small, private Christian school with only about 20 players on the varsity roster.
“I thought he could throw,” Brett said. “But the opportunity didn’t present itself in any meaningful way.”
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Brett took Mason to camps to compete as a quarterback, including at his alma mater and the nearby public school, Northwestern High, where coach Kyle Richardson’s Air Raid offense ignited an explosion of points.
After the first day of camp, Richardson spoke with Rudolph’s parents.
“If you’ll let him come to the public school, I think he’s got a bright future,” Brett remembers Richardson saying.
Initially, the family was hesitant. Brett served on the board at the Christian school. But seeing an opportunity, the parents relented ahead of Mason’s sophomore year.
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For the first time in his life, Rudolph stepped behind center full-time — and right into the loftiest of expectations. His predecessor at Northwestern High was All-American Justin Worley, who had led the Trojans to a 15-0 record and a state championship.
“He was replacing, literally, the best quarterback in the history of the state of South Carolina,” Richardson said. “Justin Worley was national Gatorade Player of the Year. And to put that into perspective, there’s never been (another) national Gatorade Player of the Year ever, in any sport, in the state of South Carolina. … If you didn’t win a state championship, everybody viewed it as a terrible year.”
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Growing pains accompanied Rudolph’s sophomore season, but the pass-happy offense accelerated his development at breakneck speed. As a junior, he threw for 3,990 yards, 41 touchdowns and seven interceptions, leading Northwestern to the state championship game and coming up one play short in overtime.
After the season, Richardson met with Rudolph.
“I think the biggest thing was not that he improved his game as much as people would think for us to get over the hump,” Richardson said. “He improved himself as a leader and taking our team to another level. I just remember how motivated and how driven he was that entire offseason to get back to the state championship and win it.”
That senior season was special. Rudolph totaled 4,377 passing yards with 64 touchdowns and eight interceptions. And in the Division II championship game, he completed 40 of 57 passes for 488 yards with eight touchdowns and only one interception in a 62-35 rout, matching the 15-0 season led by his predecessor.
Worley’s final high school pass was a touchdown on a corner route in the state championship.
“Mason’s last throw of his high school career, in the exact same stadium, in the exact same corner of the end zone, we throw the exact same route for a touchdown,” Richardson said. “And that’s how he ended his high school career.”
Though Rudolph was a four-star recruit, he wasn’t inundated with offers. Many skeptics in the SEC and ACC believed he was a system quarterback, nothing more than a product of the wide-open Air Raid offense.
Not Yurich. He immediately recognized the same pocket presence that has allowed Rudolph to unlock the deep ball in the Steelers’ offense.
“He had so many tough, competitive throws on tape,” Yurich said. “It was overwhelming. I mean, I knew this kid was going to be a really, really good college football quarterback because of the tough throws that he made, hanging in the pocket, people draped on him and still making throws.”
Ready to embrace a new Air Raid-style offense, Rudolph packed his bags and set off for a college journey 13 hours from home.
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Ahead of the 2018 NFL Draft, former Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert and his scouting staff put a first-round grade on Rudolph, who started 42 games over four seasons at Oklahoma State.
When Rudolph slid into the third round, the Steelers traded up three spots to snag him at pick No. 76. He was seen as the heir apparent to future Hall of Famer Ben Roethlisberger.
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“It was a really simple choice,” Colbert said during a Q&A with fans after the draft. “We had Mason Rudolph rated among a really good group of quarterbacks, which was unique in this draft. We haven’t seen a group like this, in all honesty, since the 2004 draft when were were able to take Ben. Mason had first-round grades on him. We thought he could be an eventual starter in this league at some point.”
However, Rudolph’s first foray into life as a starting quarterback was a mix of injury, inconsistency and controversy.
In 2019, Rudolph’s second season, Roethlisberger went down with a season-ending elbow injury in Week 2. Ready or not, Rudolph’s time had come.
At Oklahoma State, Gundy’s mantra was “discipline and toughness.” A former QB himself, the coach emphasized the importance of standing in the pocket and taking the big hit to make a throw.
In Week 5, that approach changed the trajectory of Rudolph’s career when Ravens safety Earl Thomas lowered the crown of his helmet to knock Rudolph unconscious. As the Steelers fell to 1-4 that day, the legend of Devlin “Duck” Hodges was born.
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The championship duck caller snapped the Steelers’ skid against the Los Angeles Chargers the following week. After missing one game, Rudolph returned from his concussion. But his play deteriorated over the next five games, the fourth of which ended with Myles Garrett striking the QB’s head with Rudolph’s own helmet.
The fracas fueled a firestorm after Garrett accused Rudolph of using a racial slur on the field. Rudolph said the claims were “100 percent” false. Tomlin eventually appeared on ESPN to deliver an impassioned defense of Rudolph.
Mike Tomlin reacts to the allegations made against Mason Rudolph. pic.twitter.com/H2lkcu4YQY
— First Take (@FirstTake) February 17, 2020
A week after the Garrett incident, Rudolph was benched for Hodges at halftime. He finished the year 5-3 as a starter, completing 62.2 percent of his passes for 1,765 yards, 13 touchdowns and nine interceptions. The city gave up on Rudolph, and so did the team.
“God uses adversity in everyone’s life to harden us,” Rudolph said this season when reflecting on 2019. “I’ve had a fair share, and I think it’s made me better. It’s made me a better person, and I think about some of the things that happened in ‘19, and it was quite a lot. But I’m grateful for that. I think it has made me a better man and a better leader.”
Onward And Upward. pic.twitter.com/a4RE6qVbqT
— Mason Rudolph (@Rudolph2Mason) January 3, 2021
After an aging Roethlisberger returned in 2020, Rudolph started only two games over the next two seasons before the Steelers signed Trubisky and drafted Pickett in 2022. Rudolph tumbled down the depth chart, relegated to the third string.
“Those were tough days, tough times,” Brett Rudolph said. “They were for us, too. It’s like the old adage says: As a parent, you’re only as happy as your saddest child. So we felt that, too.”
As a free agent in the spring of 2023, Mason returned to Rock Hill to train at a middle school field full of the NFL stars who gave the city its sterling reputation. However, finding an interested team was more challenging than when he was an overlooked kid.
One evening, Mason sat with his father, considering if it was time to — as former Steelers coach Chuck Noll famously used to say — get on with his life’s work. Together, they put together a resumé, as Mason contemplated following his father into real estate.
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“All right, tell me about your other work experiences,” Brett said. “And he looked at me like, ‘Dad, I’ve been playing football since I was in 10th grade and training year round.’”
Mason thought for a minute. What about the time he pressure-washed the neighbor��s driveway?
“It was funny, because he was trying to remind me when he had done certain jobs,” Brett remembers. “And I said, ‘Yeah, but that was for a week. So I don’t know that you want to put that on your resumé.’”
After a few weeks passed, somewhat out of nowhere, the Steelers offered Rudolph a guaranteed, one-year contract for the veteran’s minimum ($1.08 million).
Just over six months later, with the Steelers’ season on the brink of disaster amid a three-game losing streak — back-to-back losses to the two-win Cardinals and Patriots and a no-show outing in Indianapolis — that dropped their once-promising playoff odds under 10 percent, Rudolph’s time finally came.
Tomlin, who has repeatedly praised Rudolph’s “unflappable confidence,” named him the starter over Trubisky as Pickett continued his recovery. Rudolph couldn’t sleep that night as he looked forward to his first opportunity in years, like a kid on Christmas Eve.
“As a third-string quarterback, you feel, are you really earning your paycheck week-to-week, you know?” Rudolph said. “I get to finally earn it this week and put my hand in the pile and go fight for a victory together.”
“He probably has always believed in himself more than anybody,” Brett Rudolph said. “We’ve all believed it, but we all fall prey to the same negativity that makes you think, ‘Maybe he doesn’t belong.’ And you start to question yourself now and then.
“I don’t think he’s ever done that. He’s stayed the course when many others haven’t.”
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During Rudolph’s first start in 769 days, holiday vibes and footballs filled the air at Acrisure Stadium on the night before Christmas Eve. Fans showed up wearing red noses to salute their new starter. Others wore antlers.
Rudolph head-butted Steelers rookie lineman Broderick Jones before the game, beginning what has become something of a fiery pregame ritual. Then, on the Steelers’ second offensive play, he hit George Pickens for an 86-yard touchdown to kick-start a 34-11 victory. As Pickens ran down the field, Rudolph raced after him, looking up into the stands to find the eight family members who made the trip to support him.
THIS ENERGY 🙌 pic.twitter.com/SbJVnu3EEY
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) December 23, 2023
A night that began with skepticism ended with fans singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” after the Steelers finally let Rudolph play in a real game.
“You never know. You got confidence in yourself as a player, but you’re kind of thinking, ‘Am I going to jump into the commercial real estate realm next year or will I be playing quarterback?’” Rudolph said with a grin after the game. “Absolutely, those thoughts come into your head.”
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He was later asked if this was the best Christmas yet.
“I don’t know. I got a treehouse when I was like 12, which was pretty cool,” Rudolph deadpanned. “But this is definitely up there, yeah.”
TBH, a tree house is a pretty awesome Christmas gift. 😂🎁@Rudolph2Mason | @steelers pic.twitter.com/1lOdZQ4EIc
— NFL (@NFL) December 24, 2023
A sputtering Steelers offense that had averaged just 14.8 points and 287 yards per game through the first 15 weeks eclipsed the 30-point plateau for the first time all season. The following week in Seattle, Rudolph did it again, completing 18 of 24 passes for 274 yards in a 30-23 victory that earned him the right to remain the starter for a must-win road game against Pittsburgh’s biggest rival, the Baltimore Ravens.
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In a driving rainstorm, eerily reminiscent of his first college start, Rudolph completed 18 of 20 passes and connected on a 71-yard touchdown to Diontae Johnson to seal the win and help send the Steelers to the playoffs.
With new play caller Mike Sullivan running the show and a reliable running game to take some pressure off the QB’s right arm, Pittsburgh went from one of the league’s worst offenses in virtually every category to fourth-best in points (27.0) and fifth-best in yardage (384.7) over the final three games. In his three starts, Rudolph completed 53 of 71 passes (74.6 percent) for 716 yards and three touchdowns with a passer rating of 120.4. He lost one fumble and hasn’t thrown an interception.
As Rudolph jogged off the field in Baltimore, soaking wet and smiling like Andy Dufresne after he escaped Shawshank Prison, he raised his fist to salute the crowd and his parents standing just outside the tunnel. The satisfaction on his face said it all.
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“I’m just thankful,” Rudolph said afterward. “I’m enjoying each day, whether it’s practice or visiting with (the media) or playing out there. It’s been a long time, and I’m just so thankful and grateful for the opportunity.”
Rudolph’s results made it impossible for the Steelers to pivot back to Pickett, even though the 2022 first-round pick is now recovered from December ankle surgery. On Tuesday, Tomlin confirmed he will “ride the hot hand” into the playoffs and start the quarterback who began the season third on the depth chart — a development no one could have imagined even a few weeks ago. Even at the midpoint of the season, Rudolph asked his dad to revisit that resumé.
Whether Rudolph can use this opportunity to steal the Steelers’ starting job in the long run remains to be seen. However, he has certainly boosted his NFL resumé and should draw interest as, at minimum, a primary backup.
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One thing is for sure: He won’t be selling real estate next year.
(Top photo: Randy Litzinger / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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