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What happened to Khalil Tate?

My response typically begins with a deep breath. Then this: “It’s complicated.�

Is it ever.

As we say goodbye to Tate this weekend — the NFL draft is essentially the graduation ceremony for players as they head off to the pros, especially this year, when there are no graduation ceremonies — I’ll attempt to answer that question as thoroughly as I can. Tate hasn’t played a down since Nov. 30, but he remains a compelling figure in UA sports lore whose rise and fall will be dissected for decades.

Let’s start by defining what the “what� is. In brief: In the span of two years, Tate went from an electric, buzzworthy Heisman Trophy candidate and Sports Illustrated cover subject to an NFL afterthought who might not hear his name called during the draft — without ever suffering a catastrophic injury or getting in trouble off the field.

Just let that sink in for a minute.

Did anyone think, even at the height of his powers, that Tate would be a first-round pick? Probably not. But the idea that he’d go undrafted seemed inconceivable during the 2017 season or ’18 offseason, when hype and hope were abundant.

To figure out how and why Tate’s ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ tenure turned sour, we’ll revisit his career, step by step. To call it a career arc doesn’t do it justice. Tate’s time here had more ups and downs than Donald Trump’s signature.

The emergence

Tate came to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ as a four-star prospect from Junipero Serra High School in Gardena, California — typically a pipeline for nearby USC. Tate spurned ’SC and UCLA — where his cousin, Manuel White, had played — and signed with ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, where he’d have a legitimate chance to play quarterback under Rich Rodriguez. Many schools viewed Tate as an “athlete,â€� more suited to play receiver or defensive back. That’s not how Tate sees himself, then or now.

He enrolled at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ in January 2016. He was young for his class, not turning 18 until October. He wasn’t ready to play as a freshman, but injuries forced Rodriguez’s hand. Tate appeared in seven games, including one ill-fated start against the Trojans. For the season, he completed only 18 of 45 pass attempts. But he rushed for 79 yards against UCLA and 72 against USC. You could see the potential.

I talked to Tate after the ’16 season, and I remember thinking how hungry he was. He wanted to get better. He wanted to start.

Tate expressed those sentiments to Rodriguez before the Colorado game early in the 2017 season. Incumbent Brandon Dawkins had retained the starting job. He struggled in home losses to Houston and Utah, though. Tate hadn’t been available against the Utes because of a minor shoulder injury that was healed by the time ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ headed to Boulder.

You know what happened next. Dawkins got banged up in the first quarter. Tate came off the bench. He put on a show unlike anything anyone had ever seen.

Tate rushed for 327 yards, the most by a quarterback in an FBS game. He completed 12 of 13 passes, the lone incompletion coming on a drop. He ran out the clock as ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ won 45-42. A star was born.

The Wildcats would win four straight games. Tate would claim an unprecedented four straight Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week awards.

Even in defeat against USC, Tate played with determination and fight. He led ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ back from a 28-6 third-quarter deficit. He rushed a career-high 26 times for 161 yards. He left the L.A. Coliseum field in tears.

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ would win only one game the rest of the season, over Oregon State, and at this point I’d like to push back against two popular narratives.

The first is that Tate tapped out in the second half against ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ State. I’ve never bought into this. He got drilled into the turf on the final play of the first half. His left shoulder was hanging from his body like a noodle. Tate had played brilliantly up to that point. Why would he bow out with ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ holding a 24-14 halftime lead?

The second is that opponents had figured out Tate by the end of the ’17 season. Yes, his rushing numbers plummeted over the final three games (42 carries, 118 yards). But he was slicing apart ASU before getting hurt, and he notched career highs with 302 passing yards and five TD tosses in the season-ending Foster Farms Bowl. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ was one defensive stop away from winning that game.

Little did we know then that it would be Rodriguez’s final game at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.

Coaching change

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ fired Rodriguez on Jan. 2, 2018. Later that month, Tate would lose his biggest advocate, quarterbacks coach Rod Smith, who took the offensive coordinator job at Illinois. Tate also posted a tweet during the search for Rodriguez’s replacement that might have influenced the selection of his successor.

On Jan. 12 — the same day the Star reported that Navy’s Ken Niumatalolo had emerged as the leading candidate for the job — Tate tweeted the following: “I didn’t come to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ to run the triple option.â€� He subsequently deleted the tweet, but the message had been sent.

How much that tweet resonated with ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥’s decision-makers is up for debate. reported that it “spooked” UA president Robert C. Robbins and “gave him pause” regarding Niumatalolo. Bleacher Report published an 1,800-word story the following July about the growing influence of student-athletes. The title of the piece: “ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ QB Khalil Tate’s tweet may spark a revolutionary change in the NCAA.”

Although Robbins and Tate spoke to B/R, lending credence to the premise, the idea that Tate dictated the coaching choice — to any degree — remains speculation. But I’ve always felt that theory had some legs.

Just consider the context at the time: Tate was coming off a season that vaulted him into the Heisman conversation. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ never has had a Heisman finalist, let alone a winner. How would it have looked if the UA had hired Niumatalolo and Tate transferred?

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ pivoted to Kevin Sumlin, and that seemed like a perfect fit. Sumlin had coached record-setting Case Keenum and Heisman-winning Johnny Manziel. Who better to take Tate’s game to an even higher level?

Sumlin hired Noel Mazzone to be the offensive coordinator and QB coach, and that also seemed like a sound move. Although he primarily had mentored pocket quarterbacks, Mazzone coached Brett Hundley from 2012-14, when he averaged almost 12 rushing attempts per game; and Trevor Knight in 2016 (614 rushing yards, 10 TDs).

Sumlin and Mazzone spent that offseason tamping down expectations. They knew Tate was far from a finished product. They also didn’t want his ego to swell to the point where he no longer felt obligated to put in the work.

Then, in August 2018, Tate appeared on a regional cover of Sports Illustrated — not as big a deal as it once was, but a rare achievement for a UA student-athlete. The subhead was bold, to put it kindly:

“He’s the nation’s best QB (hand him the Heisman).�

How the SI cover affected Tate psychologically isn’t clear to this day. I’ve theorized that it was the worst thing that could have happened to him, because it created the false impression that he already had made it. Maybe that’s an overstatement. But the way Tate performed during the ’18 season suggested something — or someone — had gotten into his head.

Not quite right

I never agreed with the notion that Sumlin and Mazzone didn’t want Tate to run. It never made any sense.

Manziel had 345 rushing attempts during the 2012 and ’13 seasons under Sumlin. Hundley and Knight ran plenty of zone-read plays under Mazzone. Although you might argue otherwise, Sumlin and Mazzone aren’t idiots.

Did they want Tate to become a more complete quarterback? Of course. So did Tate.

But the game plan for the ’18 opener against BYU took it too far. Tate rarely ran (eight attempts, 14 yards). His 34 passing attempts were the second most of his career. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ lost 28-23.

Sumlin acknowledged the following week that the Wildcats needed to call more designed QB runs. But on the first series that Saturday at Houston, Tate tweaked his left ankle. He wasn’t quite right the rest of the day — or for much of the rest of the season. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ lost 45-18, and it wasn’t that close.

The severity of that injury was hotly contested over subsequent weeks and months. Tate downplayed it during the season but said the following summer that it was “very difficult� to play through the ankle and other bumps and bruises. He looked tentative. Why wasn’t he running as often or as forcefully? Was it the ankle? Something else?

Another theory, one that was never corroborated: Someone told Tate he was a legit NFL prospect who needed to protect himself. He no longer could afford to bowl over defenders. He had to run out of bounds instead. The ankle gave him a built-in excuse to do so.

The injury worsened at Utah, forcing Tate to miss most of that game and all of UCLA. He returned the following week against Oregon and helped the Wildcats upset the Ducks. He then had his best game of the season, completing 17 of 22 passes for 350 yards with five touchdowns and one interception in a win over Colorado (poor Buffaloes).

At that point, ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ needed one win in its final two games to secure a bowl berth. It didn’t happen at Washington State, where Tate threw for 294 yards and four TDs. But everything was trending in the right direction against ASU.

Again, you know what happened next. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ blew a 40-21 fourth-quarter lead. A combination of overly conservative play-calling and turnovers — including a Tate interception — doomed the Wildcats.

Of course, Tate also nearly won the game — twice. He just missed a streaking Shun Brown on a pass that traveled 71 yards — 71! — in the air. Stanley Berryhill III couldn’t corral a subsequent Tate toss in the end zone.

Moments of near-brilliance, moments of boneheadedness. That fourth quarter foreshadowed what was to come.

Recovery and retreat

The 2018 season showed cracks in Tate’s game and raised concerns about his makeup. He didn’t handle losing well and seemed to perceive questions about his mistakes as attacks on his character.

Twice Tate refused to answer basic queries about interceptions that all quarterbacks face in postgame settings. His behavior bordered on disrespect. It was a bad look for a young man with professional aspirations.

Whether Tate would come back to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ for his senior year became the next twist in the drama. He requested an evaluation from the NFL, which recommended that he return to school. A transfer rumor surfaced. Sumlin and Tate’s family concluded that his best move was to come back and try to get better.

As poorly as 2018 went, Tate improved his touchdown-to-interception ratio from 14-9 to 26-8. His 26 TD passes were two shy of the UA record. With another year in the system, improved health and a better relationship with Mazzone — who acknowledged “growing pains� during Year 1 — Tate seemed well positioned to ascend anew.

In a wild opening loss at Hawaii, Tate passed for a career-high 361 yards, threw a critical red-zone interception and came within a yard of scoring the tying (or winning) touchdown on a last-play dash from the UH 31. Who would even conceive of such a thing?

Although he landed just shy of the goal line, Kevin Dyson-style, Tate’s 30-yard rush gave him 108 yards for the night — his first 100-yard effort since 2017. Physically, he appeared to be back.

Three weeks later against Texas Tech, Tate rushed for 129 yards, including a vintage 84-yard sprint into the end zone. He missed the UCLA game because of a hamstring injured suffered late against the Red Raiders. Then came a sequence of events that still has me shaking my head.

Tate had the best passing game of his career — 31 of 41, 404 yards — in a 35-30 win at Colorado. He even secured the win with a run, a la 2017.

One week later, Tate had the worst game of his career. Washington blitzed him like no other opponent had, and neither Tate nor his offensive line could deal with it. Neither Tate nor the 2019 Wildcats would be the same after that 51-27 defeat.

Tate got yanked late against UW. He got pulled against USC — in his hometown — after failing to generate a single scoring drive. He platooned with freshman Grant Gunnell until the finale against ASU. Tate played the whole way against the Sun Devils, accounted for 306 yards of offense and two touchdown passes — but also threw a career-high three interceptions. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s 24-14 loss was its seventh in a row.

To his credit, Tate handled himself much better in the face of defeat. He answered every question thrown his way. But many remained unanswered.

Chiefly: Where did it all go wrong?

Based on conversations with people inside and outside the program — but neither Tate’s family nor his representatives, who didn’t respond to requests for comment — here’s how I’d sum it up: Tate and Mazzone never were able to find the middle ground upon which Tate truly could thrive. And both parties deserve their share of blame for that.

Tate could have handled himself better, worked harder, studied longer. Mazzone could have been more flexible and understanding.

It’s a shame, because the possibilities were tantalizing. Whatever he lacks in awareness, Tate makes up for in speed and arm talent. His gifts are rare. He’s capable of so much.

What happened to Khalil Tate? A lot. The question now is: What happens next?

This much I can guarantee: It won’t be boring.