Fat Guy Touchdowns and Baylor's 410-Pound Beeftank
LaQuan McGowan is an impossibly large man, even by football's standards, which makes him something of a novelty. Can he become something more than that to fans?
We're now in the throes of college football spring practices, which means a litany of players changing positions—all because there isn't much for coaches to do in spring ball besides shift roster pieces around like itinerant salesmen.Most of these pseudo-transactions aren't even blips on the local radar, let alone approach any kind of national attention. The very (very) large exception to this is Baylor's LaQuan McGowan, who checks in at a cool 6'7", 410 pounds. If you know of this man, you do so for one play and one play only—an 18-yard touchdown reception in this year's Cotton Bowl game.
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It looked like this:
As you might expect, the play set Twitter's barn door on fire, because phone booth-sized humans don't usually catch-and-run past linebackers . So it wasn't altogether surprising, then, to see the college football world throw something of a parade for itself upon learning on Thursday that McGowan will now play tight end and fullback on a semi-regular basis.McGowan's transition from backup o-lineman to subpackage specialist registered as news not only because he's big, but because Fat Guy Touchdowns are evolving from a novelty into a phenomenon, replete with spools of video on YouTube and even a hashtag. The basic conceit is that it's fun to watch comically large people do surprisingly athletic things. On a deeper level, the appeal is on par with that of a trick play, because in some sense that's what this really is, irrespective of the actual play design. The excitement is borne from subterfuge, whether the wool is pulled over the rules of the game or the laws of nature. If norms are subverted, expectations upended, people go home happy.McGowan accomplished the expectation-upending better than any other player in 2014; his might be the meatiest Fat Guy Touchdown ever scored. The earliest returns from his position change are highlighted by Baylor head coach Art Briles declaring that McGowan's own teammates have to take caution when covering him to avoid injury, and it doesn't take much extrapolation to imagine gnat-like cornerbacks bouncing off his massive belly as though he were made of lots and lots of Flubber. McGowan won't unseat incumbent starter Tre'Von Armstead, but Briles is an offensive mastermind of the highest order who considers every wrinkle the way a seamstress ponders embroidery: The big man will be used effectively, if not often. There will be more beefy touchdowns, then, and maybe also some blood. Video annals will be updated; hashtags will trend.
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Until when, though? More specifically: What happens if the very expectations McGowan became famous for defying—namely, that a man so big should never score points—become something of a mandate?
Image via Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
McGowan will be hard-pressed to brush against that threshold in such a limited role, but what would happen if he did? It's tempting to argue that his anomalous physique would always foster some type of interest, except there's a reason why no one has ever tried to market a football league full of jumbo-sized skill players: It's not aesthetically pleasing in anything more than bite-sized chunks. And wouldn't be effective. Fat Guy Touchdowns are the one-hit wonders of the football landscape. Nobody listened to the entire Baja Men album.McGowan and his touchdown became noteworthy because they forced us to take note of something totally unique. Yet his girth and overall immobility mean there's very little he can actually do as an offensive skill player, which takes us to a rather depressing paradox: Unless he reaches some absurd number, the more touchdowns McGowan scores, the less novelty, and the less people will actually care.What's best for Baylor, in this case, is not best for him.Then again, this is just football. Sometimes merely playing is a victory. McGowan's journey is indicative of as much: He made it to Baylor by way of inner-city Dallas and largely did so thanks to Cal Farley's Boys Ranch, a school deep in the Texas Panhandle that specializes in taking in kids from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds. If his rise into touchdown-scoring fame comes with a quiet fall into the anonymity of your usual tight end, well, that's not such a bad gig, either. Maybe people will learn about his ambition to be a youth minister as he rumbles through Texas, or how he made the Big 12 Commissioner's Honor Roll last spring while he steamrolls Kansas. There would be a humanity to that, sure, but it would arrive only in concert with a metamorphosis into a full-fledged football sideshow act. His best means of transcending the sport's imposed anonymity would be to submit himself to its commoditization.Two months ago, the wider viewing public saw LaQuan McGowan in earnest for the first time. Now that they'll catch more glimpses, the challenge will be for the unique exploits of college football's largest skill player to stay in the line of sight.
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