John McNulty Lets Loose On Feelings About Michael Mayer and the Mackey Award
Notre Dame tight ends coach John McNulty has been able to coach some of the nation's best players at the position the last two seasons. In 2021, sophomore Michael Mayer has had an outstanding season, hauling in 64 catches for 768 yards and five touchdowns.
Mayer ranked 3rd nationally in catches for a tight end and 4th in receiving yards. Yet Mayer was not a finalist for the John Mackey Award, which goes to the nation's top tight end. It's an oversight McNulty wasn't shy about bashing.
In his view, Mayer is as good as any tight end in the country.
“To me, one of two things happened. Either that committee actually watched all these guys and then came up with the conclusion that he wasn't one of the top three, which I would strongly disagree with based on doing this for 30 years and 15 of it in the NFL,” he said. “ I feel pretty confident in the way I can evaluate players. I think my four daughters could look up and go, ‘He's the best player. Or they just were lazy and didn't do their job and just took the three guys they thought at the beginning of the year were going to be the guys and just stamped them forward."
According to McNulty, not having Mayer as a finalist diminishes the credibility of the award.
“It's too bad because it's it's a special award,” McNulty stated. “Obviously John Mackey being a great player, it's something that's really important to the players and something that's important to Mike and he put a lot of time and effort into it, and you expect the same from the committee. That was my problem with it. I don't think I'm in the minority in that vein. It seems like the national media and the people that actually watch the games are pretty much in agreement with that.”
The oversight apparently hasn't effected Mayer negatively. If anything it has only added fuel to his fire.
“He doesn't need much for a fire,” he said. “He’s a very unique individual. He's wired differently. I've been fortunate enough to be around a few of these guys like Larry Fitzgerald, and Antonio Gates. There’s some internal extra something. It's not just because they're just better than everybody else and in a lot of cases they are, but there's more to it. He's pretty highly motivated himself. He finds things to push him and he's playing at a very high level right now. But it certainly didn't go over well to put it lightly.”
Colorado State’s Trey McBride won the award.
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