By Luke Johnson
With one year of eligibility left as a San Jose State athlete, Brandon Mitchell is rolling the dice and changing sports, but his gamble is not as inconceivable as it was 15 years ago.
There are currently several star players in the NFL who made the leap to football after spending most — if not all — of college playing basketball.
“I figured that I wasn’t going to play basketball anymore after college, so my father brought up the idea first about me trying to play football,” Mitchell said. “In high school, I loved basketball more, so I decided to play basketball [in college] and I don’t have any regrets for that. But the [football] coaching staff said they’d give me an opportunity to play, so here I am now.”
Five-time All-Pro tight end Antonio Gates created the mold in 2003 for college basketball players to transition to competing at the highest level in football. Before playing in the NFL, he was a power forward at Kent State and had not performed in pads since high school.
Following in Gates’ footsteps has been two-time All-Pro tight end Jimmy Graham, two-time Pro Bowl tight end Julius Thomas, Detroit Lions tight end Darren Fells and Green Bay Packers cornerback Quinten Rollins.
Each of these athletes were described as “tweeners” in basketball, because they were undersized at their positions — which is the same for Mitchell, who played in the frontcourt for SJSU listed at 6-foot-6 and 210 pounds.
“I definitely see some similarities,” said SJSU wide receivers coach Kevin Cummings. “There’s been a lot of guys who’ve done it. I think Brandon might have a different body type than some of those guys. He’s tall, but he’s not as thick as some of those other guys were — which molds him into a receiver more than a tight end.”
Future Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez does not fall under this category because he played football and basketball simultaneously throughout his career at Cal-Berkeley.
Mitchell said the biggest inspirations in his pursuit of playing football are Gates as well as five-time All-Pro wide receiver Terrell Owens, who played NCAA basketball and football in Mitchell’s home state of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Mitchell last played football in his senior year (2012-13) at Ridgeway High School in Memphis before committing to basketball at SJSU.
His best season statistically as a member of the Spartans was his sophomore year when he averaged 3.7 points and 5.0 rebounds per game.
Despite having four years of gridiron rust, Cummings said Mitchell has shown promise early in spring workouts.
“He’s already making plays after two weeks of practice,” Cummings said. “He can run. If you’re 6-6, 215 (pounds) and you can run it makes it hard for defenses to cover you, because they’re gonna be scared to cover you. They don’t wanna hit you; they don’t wanna have to tackle you.”
Although Cummings believes Mitchell has potential, he said it might not translate right away. In Graham’s one-and-only year of college football at Miami he had 17 receptions, but in his second year in the NFL he had 1,310 receiving yards. It was the the same way for Gates who went from catching two touchdowns his rookie season to exploding for 13 the year after.
“There’s nothing like playing in a game with 40,000-plus people in the stands,” Cummings said. “That’s going to be different for him, so there are going to be some growing pains.”
He added that Mitchell’s role on the team is to be determined, but expects there to be designed packages for him in jump-ball situations.
