The grass on Marshall High’s practice field was burnt out, the leaves on the trees a distant memory, the scoreboard powered down.
The only sounds stemmed from a whipping Minnesota breeze and the clap of the ball against the receiver’s gloves after it hummed through the air.
It was football in its purest form.
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North Dakota State quarterback Trey Lance, a near-certain first-round pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, returned home in October to throw passes to his brother, Bryce, a record-setting senior receiver at Marshall High. It wasn’t much different than the times they’ve played catch in their back yard, maybe aside from the video recorder that was in place to promote Bryce’s college recruitment.
Football intertwined with serenity, it was a day to enjoy family and reflect on the path that has taken the Lances to the doorstep of stardom. Trey’s leading role will make it virtually impossible for him to throw another football under such anonymity for a long, long time.
“None of us probably ever would have thought that, all of a sudden, Trey would be a first-round draft pick,” Bryce Lance said. “We’re just playing football on the field a couple months earlier, and now things have changed so much. That’s just kind of our story. We’re just a couple kids who always loved playing football. It turned out to be really good for both of us.”
Trey Lance’s days in the shadows are numbered. The 20-year-old, small-town sensation went undefeated in 17 starts at North Dakota State and rapidly became one of the most decorated Football Championship Subdivision players in history — never once throwing an interception during the Bison’s national championship season in 2019 — but his stage hasn’t attracted the same spotlight as Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, Ohio State’s Justin Fields or even BYU’s Zach Wilson.
If Lance blows up the NFL scouting combine later this winter, as those around him expect, he’ll become — for quarterback-needy teams like the Patriots — one of the most coveted prospects in the draft, potentially even putting himself in the conversation for the second overall pick behind Lawrence.
Lance has been a trailblazer, continuously banking on himself when others were reluctant to believe what they were seeing. Every decision has paid off so far, with a monumental leap coming in the near future.
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“I would have never thought that NDSU would have a sophomore declare for the NFL draft and be a first-round pick,” North Dakota State quarterbacks coach Randy Hedberg said. “I never thought that would happen in my lifetime anyway, and it’s coming to a reality here pretty soon.”
‘We deliver the blow’
There are photos of Trey Lance with a football and basketball in his crib.
It was to be expected. His father, Carlton Lance, was a star cornerback at Southwest Minnesota State, where he met his wife, Angie. Carlton later played for the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders, where he was selected to the league’s all-rookie team, and the London Monarchs of the World League.
He also went to training camps with the Houston Oilers and San Francisco 49ers.
“I always tell people they flew Deion (Sanders) in and flew me out,” Carlton joked.
But as a hard-hitting, physical defensive back who understood the violence of the game by the way he inflicted it, Carlton wasn’t sure that he wanted Trey to play. It simply became inevitable Trey would fall in love with the competitive aspect, and he became a local standout in football, basketball and baseball.
Carlton helped stoke Trey’s fire as his drive intensified to play collegiately. They’d wake up at 5 a.m. to work out at the YMCA before school, with Trey recognizing the importance of outworking the competition at a young age. Even though Marshall, a town of about 14,000, had a proud athletic community, Trey widened his scope.
“He’d be standing there waiting for me (to go to the YMCA),” Carlton said. “Once he committed to something to get better, he just did it. When we left the gym, I’d give him five and say, ‘Hey, we outworked somebody today.’ He’s got that work ethic.”
Trey was in junior high when Marshall coach Terry Bahlmann remembered telling his wife about an upcoming star. Bahlmann just assumed it’d be at running back due to his athleticism. But after volunteering to fill a backup quarterback vacancy in youth football along with his standard role on defense, Trey informed Bahlmann as a freshman that he wanted to devote his time on offense to quarterback.
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“He’s got something special about him,” Bahlmann said. “It was showing at a young age.”
Carlton, who was a volunteer coach for Marshall High, liked Trey’s accuracy as a freshman. But he also knew the ball was missing something, so he enrolled Trey in Jeff Trickey’s nearby satellite camp to learn from the QB guru who has taught the likes of Tony Romo, Jared Goff and Tyrod Taylor.
“(Trey) came back and we’re throwing the ball, and it was just jumping off his hand,” Carlton said. “I was like, ‘Why are you trying to throw it so hard?’ He’s like, ‘I’m not.’ I got some gloves because he was tearing up my hands. I said, ‘OK, you’ve got it.’ It changed everything.”
After filling in for the injured starter in the playoffs as a sophomore, Trey really took off as a junior and senior, passing for 3,026 yards and 33 touchdowns and rushing for 1,177 yards and 18 touchdowns. Lance posted those numbers despite frequently getting pulled at halftime due to blowout victories and playing alongside running back Jefferson Lee, who scored 107 touchdowns in three seasons.
Beyond the numbers and the throws, Lance’s physicality on the field generated the most excitement. He took Carlton’s lessons and put them to action.
“He ran it like an old fullback when he had the chance,” Bahlmann said. “I remember one game when he had a chance to score a touchdown and preferred to run a guy over at the 5. On the outside, I got upset with him. But on the inside, I said I like it. I’m a line coach, and you know the offensive linemen love to see a quarterback run somebody over.”
Lance didn’t have much of a chance to catch his breath, either. He was one of the district’s best safeties and also returned kicks and punts, so he never came off the field while the game was within reach.
All of that early-morning conditioning, all of the competitive spirit instilled by Carlton came in handy — with both sons. Bryce was always the faster brother, so Trey would try to trip him when they raced in the back yard. They also couldn’t play golf together because Trey couldn’t stand losing to his younger brother. And whether they played basketball in the driveway or Uno, Monopoly or Life inside, it was with the intention of winning at all costs.
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Carlton recalled a play when an opposing tight end caught a touchdown pass and took a step before Trey flew across the field like a missile to jar the ball loose. It agitated the other team, but the hard, clean hit sent a message.
“I told the guys, ‘That’s the way you play.’ I was proud,” Carlton said. “It was a great play on his part. I’m the secondary coach, and I’m not upset about that at all. You have to deter people from coming in here. You have to hit people. An interception is nice, but a big hit deters people from coming here. I want you to be clean, but I want you to put every iota of yourself into him when you hit him. He would absolutely strike you back there.
“When you’ve played at a certain level, you understand what it takes. I don’t like this analogy, but I used to tell the kids you have to play to the death. If there’s a line there, I didn’t get to where I got because I’m going to be on this (short) side of the line. I’m going to cross the line a little bit.”
On the other side of that coin, Carlton made sure Trey knew how to protect his legs as a mobile quarterback, especially since smaller defenders went low on tackle attempts. They worked on technique in the living room, so Trey understood how to drop his pads, to use his forearm to shed a tackle and to always take two steps out of bounds to avoid a late hit.
“He understood we don’t accept getting hit,” Carlton said. “We deliver the blow. I would tell him, ‘There wouldn’t be a Tom Brady without (Drew) Bledsoe pulling up by the sideline. Get out of bounds. You take two steps out of bounds. Don’t pull up and think guys are going to (stop). Because for me, I’m probably taking that shot, because I know that shot means a lot more to our team than not taking it.’”
‘Know your worth’
Despite Trey’s pedigree and accomplishments, college recruiters were wary.
He dreamed of playing quarterback for Minnesota, but the Gophers didn’t see it. The Big Ten teams that recruited Lance preferred him at safety or outside linebacker, but he knew he was a quarterback.
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Bahlmann and the Lances heard it all from recruiters. Some said he couldn’t throw from the pocket, but they had film of him throwing it 60 yards with accuracy. Some balked at his stats, but Bahlmann pulled his starters from lopsided games.
Some pointed at Marshall being in the third-largest class in the state and questioned the competition. Others looked at Bahlmann’s Slot-T offense and wondered whether Lance’s game would translate.
“People didn’t believe their eyes and didn’t really want to trust it,” Bahlmann said. “It was frustrating.”
Carlton saw Trey’s talent. Carlton even tapped into his defensive background to consider the ways to attack his weaknesses, and he couldn’t find them.
But admittedly, Carlton conceded the plausibility of a father-son bias, so he sent his son’s film to friends who previously played or coached in search of their honest analysis.
“Everybody,” Carlton said, “came back with the same thing: ‘Damn Carl, he can play.’”
Meanwhile, North Dakota State was hot after Lance from the start. He attended the Bison’s summer camp prior to his junior year, and Hedberg, the quarterbacks coach, was impressed enough to make Lance a priority recruit.
This was also just a few months after the Philadelphia Eagles selected former North Dakota State quarterback Carson Wentz with the No. 2 pick in the 2016 draft, so the program had been developing a reputation. As much as it might have initially stung Trey not to get the desired interest from the Big Ten, he knew he could develop as a quarterback in Fargo.
Carlton wanted Trey to take control of his recruitment in one of two ways. If he was interested in playing defense, it was time to visit some high-profile camps to create a surge of offers. But if he truly wanted to play quarterback, it was time to cut off the programs that didn’t prioritize him because North Dakota State presented a path to the NFL.
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“I always poured into Trey, both my kids, ‘Know who you are. Know your worth. Don’t let another person put your worth on you,’” Carlton said. “So if this person says he doesn’t think you can play quarterback, it doesn’t matter. You have to know your worth and what you really want to do.”
Hedberg remembered being on a spring recruiting trip in Billings, Mont., when Trey called to commit toward the end of his junior year.
“I’ll never forget,” Hedberg said. “You never forget where you were when the Twins won the World Series. I’ll never forget where I was when Trey Lance committed to the Bison. You knew he was going to be a special player.”
It was also a critical time for North Dakota State. They needed a quarterback to learn under Easton Stick for a year, and they went all-in on Lance.
Boise State tried to steal him away before signing day in 2017, but Lance never wavered.
“Behind the scenes, there was a lot of fist-pumping going on, a lot of people who were really excited to get this young man on campus,” said Matt Entz, who was the NDSU defensive coordinator before he succeeded Chris Klieman as head coach in 2019.
‘It’s just Trey Lance’
Lance was glued to Stick during his redshirt freshman year in 2018.
Stick (with a 49-3 record) won more games than any quarterback in FCS history, including two national championships as the starter, so he was cemented in the No. 1 role as a senior.
If Stick was at the football facility, Lance was there, too. If Stick was relaxing at home playing Xbox, he made sure to have a second controller charged for Lance.
“You just meet some people who are fun to be around and bring good energy and have a presence when they walk into a room,” Stick said. “(Lance) is one of those people. He’s always smiling. He’s got good energy. He was much more mature than guys typically are when they’re coming in. Guys gravitated toward him in all classes, myself included. He was impressive from the day he got there.”
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The pair immersed themselves in the rigorous daily quarterback routine, breaking down their opponents by down and distance, situation, personnel groupings, pressure packages, red-zone formations and third-down strategy, and they were responsible for creating film cut-ups to show the wide receivers, tight ends and running backs.
Essentially, NDSU quarterbacks were an extension of the coaching staff. They also run a pro-style system, running a variety of plays from under center and calling plays into the huddle rather than using coded cards on the sideline. The quarterbacks are also responsible for pre-snap checks and protection calls.
Lance was already a football junkie, and he was taking a master’s course.
“I think it paid off in the long run for him,” Hedberg said.
Lance’s time on the scout team was brief but memorable. Once the coaching staff recognized his growth, they were determined to get him into a couple games without jeopardizing his redshirt eligibility.
“He just out-athleted some of our defensive guys (in practice), and maybe tried to take advantage of them a little bit and rubbed some salt in the wounds,” Entz said. “He was extremely competitive, made a ton of throws. We got spoiled having him down there because he could do everything. He could emulate a drop-back guy or a team that wanted to get into the ’gun and do a lot of quarterback run game just because he has such a wide variety of skillsets.”
And as much as Stick helped Lance, the opposite was also true. Stick witnessed Lance’s physical ability at practice and made sure he didn’t slip up to ever give the coaches reason to second-guess their depth chart.
“We had a lot of fun competing,” Stick said. “He could make some throws where it turns your head a little bit. I wanted to make sure I was on my game and that it was clear and obvious I was the guy. He was that impressive.”
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Lance checked into two games in 2018 and made highlight-reel plays in both. In the first drive of his college career, he checked out of a play at the line, called a quarterback draw and scored a 44-yard touchdown.
“It was like, ‘What the heck just happened?’” Stick said. “Physically, you watched him take off, and it was like, nobody is going to tackle this guy.”
And then on the first play of his second game against South Dakota, Lance fumbled the snap, scooped up the ball in one motion and determined it was too late to hand off to the running back, so he kept the ball for a 23-yard touchdown.
“It was like, OK, this is what we’re dealing with, a guy who has ‘it,’” Entz said. “Sometimes, it’s hard to explain what ‘it’ is until you’re around it. He was one of those players who you could tell had it. Extremely confident, extremely poised and had a ton of talent.”
Stick added, “When you look back on it, maybe it was a precursor of what’s to come. It was like, man, what are the odds of that? Some people just have a way of making plays. At the time, maybe it seemed a little lucky. But as you look back on it, it’s just Trey Lance. The guy just finds a way to make plays.”
‘The stars all aligned’
Even though Lance was the expected starter in 2019, Entz made him work for it. It wasn’t until after 30 practices — 15 in spring ball and 15 in fall camp — that Entz declared Lance the winner in the competition against Iowa State transfer Zeb Noland.
“The thing that probably put it over the top, I went back to what I knew best, and that was defensive football,” Entz said. “I asked myself, who did I think would challenge me the most if I had to defend them? At the time, Trey gave me some of those late-night headaches that you’d have trying to defend him.”
Lance quickly validated the decision. North Dakota State blew out Butler, 57-10, in the 2019 opener at Target Field — home of the Minnesota Twins and about two and a half hours east of Marshall — and Lance had a 33-yard touchdown run and a gorgeous 47-yard touchdown pass to roommate Phoenix Sproles in the first two drives.
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Lance cemented the win with a 61-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, again checking into a power draw against pressure and racing away from the defense.
“Right away, you knew this guy has a chance to be special,” Hedberg said.
It was just the start of a historic season. Lance completed 66.9 percent of his passes for 2,786 yards, 28 touchdowns and no interceptions — the NCAA record for most touchdowns without a pick — and rushed for 1,100 yards and 14 touchdowns while the Bison became the first college football team to go 16-0 in 125 years. They scored 37.2 points per game, beating their opponents by an average of 25 points per outing.
They faced minimal adversity — never trailing in the second half and just once needing a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter. The only real issue occurred in the first round of the playoffs when Lance strained rib cartilage, making it hurt to breathe, and he needed to miss practice time and scale back his workload in the quarterfinals to prevent further damage.
“He struggled, but he was out there with his teammates,” Hedberg said. “He gutted his way through it. I know it bothered him.”
Lance won the Walter Payton Award as the best FCS offensive player, the Jerry Rice Award as the top freshman and the Most Outstanding Player nod in the national championship game. As another testament to Lance’s commitment to the Bison, he didn’t attend the Walter Payton Award ceremony the night before the title game in order to go to an extra team meeting.
For a North Dakota State dynasty that had won its eighth national championship in nine years, there was a unique, albeit blissfully naïve, level of excitement over Lance’s ability to take the program to an even higher level.
“We’re on the podium after the game,” Hedberg said, “and I’m thinking, holy cow, we’ve got this guy for three more seasons. He just kept getting better and better.”
Lance’s ball security was legendary. By all accounts, he only threw two passes that season that a defender got his hands on for the chance to make an interception. Entz only recalled “a couple” of Lance’s picks in practice. Carlton Lance estimated his son threw just two or three interceptions in high school.
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The interception record was no fluke.
“You never go into a season with the anticipation that you’re not going to have any interceptions by your starting quarterback,” Entz said. “The stars all aligned, and that’s a once-in-a-career type of season.”
‘As ready as anybody that I’ve ever come across’
So, about Hedberg’s fantasy over three more years with Lance?
The universe, along with seemingly everything else in 2020, put the record scratch on those plans.
“One term we use, ‘2020 is just going to keep on 2020-ing,’” Carlton Lance said. “(Turning pro) was not on the radar at all.”
Easton Stick, now a Chargers backup after being drafted in the fifth round in 2019, was listening to Los Angeles sports radio in February when he heard Trey Lance discussed as a potential first-rounder. Stick immediately called Entz and Hedberg, who were together in Phoenix on a fundraising trip, to spread the word.
They were stunned.
“So I had a little bit of panic for a little while,” Hedberg said.
North Dakota State held its first spring practice March 13. By the end of the day, the NCAA wanted everyone off campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and they were limited to remote meetings until the summer.
By that point, Lance’s draft stock was hardly a secret, as NFL scouting departments that were kept off the road had more time to study lesser-known prospects from the previous season. Along the same time, the Missouri Valley Football Conference announced in August it would postpone its season to the spring, but NDSU scheduled a lone non-conference game in the fall against No. 11 Central Arkansas on Oct. 3.
Lance was 15-of-30 for 149 yards with two touchdowns and his first collegiate interception — Hedberg said the receiver’s route should have been sharper — and he added 166 rushing yards and two scores. He led three fourth-quarter touchdown drives in the 39-28 victory and declared for the NFL draft three days later.
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Aside from Lance’s first-round projection, the biggest factor was the compounded schedule. The idea of playing at least eight games in the spring and a full schedule in the fall — somewhere between 19 and 29 games, pending further regular-season scheduling and the playoffs, over the course of 10 months — presented a major and unnecessary injury risk.
“If it wasn’t for COVID, of course, we’re not having these conversations right now,” Carlton Lance said.
Hedberg, an NFL quarterback from 1977-80, added, “(Lance) had this opportunity, and he had to take advantage of it. There was no question about it. If I was in that boat, I’d do the same thing. They made the right decision.”
After stopping home for a week, Lance got an apartment in Atlanta with former Wake Forest and Georgia quarterback Jamie Newman to prepare for the draft with reputable quarterback coach Quincy Avery, who has also worked with Deshaun Watson, Dwayne Haskins, Jalen Hurts and Justin Fields.
They train for about eight hours every weekday on footwork, play-action techniques, eye placement, combine throws such as fades and deep corner routes as well as film study. It won’t supplant the lost game experience this season, but there is a benefit to this unique opportunity to fine-tune fundamentals for such a long stretch.
Avery, who also worked with Lance last spring, praised his football IQ and advanced mechanics due to his experience with North Dakota State’s demanding system.
“I don’t want this to sound like hyperbole,” Avery said about Lance’s big jump from NDSU to the NFL. “He is as ready as anybody that I’ve ever come across.”
There will still be non-believers, even if Lance’s combine performance is sharp — about the groupthink and why the Power 5 conferences ignored him as a quarterback, about the competition at North Dakota State, even about Carson Wentz’s current struggles and whether it was all a mirage.
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But consider those who have already watched Lance and refused to believe their eyes. Aside from Fields, there isn’t another Big Ten school with a quarterback who looks like a lock to be selected in the first three rounds next spring.
“I think those schools are regretting those decisions now,” Terry Bahlmann said.
The NFL hype train is steamrolling down the tracks. Entz and Hedberg have already hosted teams for two Zoom meetings about Lance, and more than 50 scouts attended each. They’re planning more in the future as well as a pro day in the spring.
The spotlight will only intensify from here. It’s already begun in Marshall, where Lance has been swarmed by kids at football games and viewed as a star in the community.
As for what’s to come, Lance has spent years making that perfectly clear. It’s been right there in the open — for anyone who chooses to believe what they’ve seen.
The quieter moments are dwindling for Lance. He has worked hard for those, too, like recently sneaking away to the high school practice field that set the stage for his improbable rise.
The field with the burnt grass.
And the barren trees.
And the powered-down scoreboard.
With his brother running routes through the whipping Minnesota breeze.
That’s Trey Lance — and football — in the purest form.
(Top photo: Sam Hodde / AP)
