University of West Virginia
Two Mondays ago, the (possible) future at quarterback for the Toronto Argonauts was at a charity golf tournament in Pittsburgh, blissfully unaware that he was less than 48 hours away from being back on a football field in a country he’d never been to.
By that Thursday, Skyler Howard was in the early stages of what will likely be at least a six-week sponge mode.
Everything — the field, the 12th man, the receivers in motion before the snap, our money — is new to him and at times feels overwhelming. It also managed to feel familiar to the 23-year-old.
“I have some of the same feelings I had going to California,” Howard said, with two practices with the Argos under his belt. The team signed him and five other players on Wednesday, as part of the expanded practice rosters that teams are allowed after NFL cuts.
“I didn’t think I’d ever end up in California. I never thought I’d have to go the JUCO route. I didn’t think I’d be in Canada, playing Canadian football, but I’m blessed to be here.”
Howard’s football journey is one that’s anchored by rejection but fuelled by self-determination. There were exactly zero recruitment offers for the five-foot-11 quarterback coming out of Brewer High School in Fort Worth, Texas. He walked on at Stephen F. Austin — he showed up at the school with transcripts and SAT scores and four hours later was a Lumberjack — but ran into two problems there. On the field, he was being used as a running back. Off the field, without a scholarship, he ran out of money. So he contacted coaches until he got a nibble from Riverside City College in California.
“I treat life like I treat a football game. You’re going to have times where you throw an interception and you have to go to the sideline, regain yourself, go back and throw a touchdown.”
– Argos QB Skyler Howard
He packed up his life and made the 24-hour drive from Nacogdoches, in eastern Texas, to his new team in Riverside. The move launched his college football career. The Tigers went 10-2 with Howard under centre, while Howard passed for 3,151 yards with 33 touchdowns and rushed for 343 yards with five touchdowns. By the end of the season, all of those schools he wanted to hear from as a high school senior had finally come around. He transferred to West Virginia for the 2014 season.
“I think God instilled this dream in me and something I’ve always wanted to do was play ball at the highest level,” he said. “I told myself I was going to do it and told everybody else I was going to do it. It didn’t really affect me, how I was going to do it. Regardless of what they say, it’s my life, not theirs and I have to live it.”
He left West Virginia with 7,302 passing yards, 60 touchdowns and 24 interceptions, while rushing for 1,105 yards and 16 touchdowns. Despite the success he had at West Virginia, his quest for a pro career started to feel familiar. He slipped through the NFL draft this year, then signed with the Seattle Seahawks on May 12. He was released on May 15.
“I had packed for months. I got my hotel room unpacked and everything ready to go the next few months. I didn’t have any intention of being cut in three days,” he said.
“I got all positive feedback, it wasn’t like I laid an egg. I didn’t do anything detrimental.”
With rejection piling up again, Howard did the only thing he knows how to do. He dug his feet in and kept looking for an opportunity.
“I treat life like I treat a football game. You’re going to have times where you throw an interception and you have to go to the sideline, regain yourself, go back and throw a touchdown,” he said. “It’s one of those moments.”
Howard, along with Southern Methodist University quarterback Matt Davis — he redshirted at Texas A&M in 2012 as Johnny Manziel burst onto the scene in college football — landed on the Argos’ practice roster with four other players on the same day.
It’s a tricky time of the year to join a team, both for players and the coaching staff that takes them in. Practice rosters have expanded, just as the playoffs start to come onto the horizon and when for most teams, the games mean the most.
“There are two sides to it,” Argos coach Marc Trestman explained. “There’s one side as a coach, where you don’t want any new guys on your team. You know the guys you have are emotionally invested, but you’re excited for (the new guys’) opportunity.
“There’s a fine line in between you’ve got to give them time and develop them and you’ve got to give them the opportunity. But there’s no way they can understand right now what we’ve been through, where we are emotionally as a football team. There’s a fine line of assimilating them.
“I think we’re doing a good job of that. We have coaches who spend time with them and talk with them about who we are what we want to be about, how we live each and every day here.”
In Toronto, it’s all new and kind of familiar at the same time for Howard. He knows that he’s here now with an eye to the future and hopes to be a part of what’s shaping up to be an offseason of heavy quarterback change across the league. Every move will create a ripple effect and he’s hoping he can ride those waves to his advantage. For now, in these final weeks of this season, his goals are simple.
“Just get better as a football player, get better as a person,” he said. “Get better at something every day. As a football player, a man, a son, everything I am. I’ve got to be better every day.”
