From the Mean Green to Team Green: Mason Fine’s prolific passing paved a path to the pros

Mason Fine passed with flying colours throughout high school and university. 

Jason Pirtle was able to catch the entire show, not to mention a succession of touchdown tosses. 

Pirtle was a key part of the receiving corps when Fine was a phenomenally productive passer at Locust Grove High School and the University of North Texas. 

Now, from afar, Pirtle is closely monitoring the progress of his close friend and former teammate as he prepares to start at quarterback for the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Saturday against the host B.C. Lions (5 p.m., TSN, CKRM). 

“Definitely, we’re all going to be watching very closely,” says Pirtle, who was born in Locust Grove, Okla., and now resides in Houston. 

“Everybody from our hometown is posting articles and everything. Being from a small town, there’s just the support, because everybody knows everybody. When you see somebody go on to the pros, you want to cheer for them.” 

Pirtle was inclined to cheer from the moment he first saw Fine launch a pass at a Locust Grove Pirates practice, heading into their Grade 9 year. 

They had actually known each other in passing, if you will, as far back as Grade 6. At the time, Fine was going to school in tiny Peggs, Okla., 16 kilometres south of Locust Grove. 

Fine and Pirtle had interacted while playing in summer basketball tournaments, so there was some familiarity. Nonetheless, there was an element of surprise when Pirtle walked on to the Pirates’ practice field for the first time. 

“Mason was out there early, throwing the ball, and I thought, ‘Man, who is that? This guy is really good,’ ” Pirtle recalls.  

“Our high school had gone 2-and-28 over the three years before. To see somebody like him, I thought, ‘How did we miss that?’ But it turned out that he was just coming in.” 

Fine had attended Peggs Public School, which offers classes from kindergarten to Grade 8. Thereafter, he had to attend high school in a nearby community. Locust Grove was the choice. 

There was only one problem, at least temporarily. As a high school freshman, Fine was 5-foot-9 and a mere 115 pounds. Because of his modest dimensions, the decision was made to use him as a receiver. 

Even in that capacity, his electric throwing arm was put to good use. He threw for more than 600 yards as a freshman without lining up at quarterback. 

“We did a lot of fly sweeps and stuff, where he’d get the handoff and throw the ball,” Pirtle says. 

Fine was elevated to the starting quarterback’s role in Grade 10. Over the next three seasons, he established Oklahoma all-time records for aerial yards (13,081) and touchdown passes (166). 

The latter total is the fifth-highest in history for any high school quarterback in the United States. Yardage-wise, Fine is eighth all-time. 

At Locust Grove, Fine achieved a statistical peak as a junior, throwing for — please read this while sitting down — 71 touchdown passes in 14 games. He added 53 more TD passes the following season. 

After his junior and senior years, he was named Oklahoma’s Gatorade Player of the Year. He was the first repeat winner of the award. 

As for Pirtle, well, stay tuned for more staggering statistics. 

His numbers as a junior: 99 receptions for 2,096 yards and 29 touchdowns. 

The senior stats: 92 catches for 1,702 yards and 19 TDs. 

Over four seasons at Locust Grove, Pirtle set Oklahoma state records for catches (249), receiving yards (4,843) and TDs (59).  

“We always thought that nobody could really stop us,” Pirtle says. “We prepared the same every week. We watched film together. We talked about what we saw. 

“We didn’t have a complex offence or anything crazy. We just ran the same plays over and over and we just had them down to perfection.” 

Considering the well-established rapport, which helped Locust Grove go 37-3 over Fine’s three years as the starter, it was fitting that he and Pirtle would both proceed to the NCAA ranks in Denton, Texas. 

For the well-named North Texas Mean Green, Fine started in nine games as a freshman. Exclusively the No. 1 quarterback as a sophomore, junior and senior, he threw for 10,665 yards and 85 touchdowns over those three seasons. 

Unquantifiable is the presumably substantial number of autographs he signed as the Mean Green’s marquee player. 

“Off the football field, he has always been a great guy,” Pirtle says. “He’ll talk to anybody and make anybody’s day.  

“He’ll say thank you to all the fans who are staying to the end. He’ll run around the whole field and high-five everybody in the lower half of the stadium. He’ll stay afterwards and sign autographs for everybody. He’s just a great guy — a great friend to have.” 

After graduating from North Texas, the 5-foot-11, 190-pounder had a tryout with the NFL’s Chicago Bears in 2020. When that did not evolve into a longer relationship, the Roughriders entered the equation. 

“When Saskatchewan wanted to offer me a contract, I was really excited,” Fine says. “I knew about the CFL and I knew about the CFL beforehand, so I was excited about the opportunity.” 

Fine signed with the Roughriders on Dec. 20, 2020, after being on the team’s negotiation list for a considerable period. 

“Sometimes you look at players who may get overlooked for various reasons in the NFL,” Roughriders General Manager and Vice-President of Football Operations Jeremy O’Day says. “It could be someone who’s performing at a level that’s indicative of getting an opportunity in the NFL, but they might not get an opportunity  

“In his case, he’s just short. He’s not a prototypical quarterback.”  

But few quarterbacks can amass 71 touchdown passes, unless they are proficient at, say, rookie-level Madden. When the excellence carried over into the college game, the Roughriders secured his CFL negotiating rights. 

“He played all four years (at North Texas) and broke all their records and is up there in NCAA history for passing yards, so there’s no doubt that he can throw the ball, and he has the ability to do it,” O’Day says.  

“Whether he’s going to do it consistently at a high level, that’s yet to be determined. But guys don’t become veterans and 10-year players or All-Stars or Hall of Famers until they get an opportunity to play, so you don’t know until he gets his opportunity.  

“He’s going to get a bigger opportunity than he has had in the past and we’re excited to see what he can do.” 

The opportunity arose after Roughriders quarterback Trevor Harris suffered a tibial plateau fracture of his right knee on July 15, during the fourth quarter against the visiting Calgary Stampeders. 

Fine entered the game and ultimately rallied the Roughriders from a 27-17 deficit by throwing back-to-back touchdown passes, the latter of which was a 69-yarder to Tevin Jones on a Hail Mary heave with 42 seconds remaining in the game. 

Jones’ touchdown was followed by a Brett Lauther convert that enabled Saskatchewan to a assume what would be a short-lived one-point lead. Rene Paredes kicked a 50-yard field goal on the final play to give Calgary a 33-31 victory. 

Had the Roughriders’ 31-30 lead endured, Fine would have engineered a miracle victory for the ages — something to compare with the improbable events of Oct. 14, 2017. 

With 1:07 remaining in the fourth quarter, North Texas was trailing the University of Texas at San Antonio Roadrunners 26-22. 

Exacerbating the challenge facing Fine and his cohorts on offence, the Mean Green was out of timeouts and hemmed in on its two-yard line. 

Seven plays and 98 yards later, North Texas was in the end zone, courtesy of a 22-yard scoring strike from Fine to Rico Bussey Jr. 

“Mason was able to lead that crazy, crazy drive,” Pirtle says of that 29-26 Mean Green victory. “He got hit really hard on the last play. He stood in the pocket and took a major hit and had to be helped off the field, but he threw a touchdown. 

“I would assume that it’s probably every North Texas fan’s greatest memory of him.” 

Now the objective is to create more magical moments while helping the Roughriders weather an adverse situation — a potentially season-ending injury to the No. 1 quarterback. 

“Obviously, you don’t want it that way, but the opportunity is there,” Fine says. “It’s everything you can ask for.” 

With Harris sidelined, Fine ascends to first-team status and Jake Dolegala moves from the practice roster to the No. 2 spot. That was how the Roughriders’ pivots were tiered on Dec. 12, when Kelly Jeffrey was named the Offensive Co-ordinator and Quarterbacks Coach. 

“When I took this job over, I had about three months of designing an offence before Trevor Harris was even a thought in our minds,” Jeffrey says. “So my whole time putting things together, I was thinking about Mason and I was thinking about Jake Dolegala and about how we can get them to best move the football. 

“And so, in a way, this offence is set up more for Mason than it is for Trevor. Trevor has come in and given us some really good ideas and concepts that we’ve worked with, but a lot of the bulk of the offence was really designed for Mason and Jake to kind of flourish. 

“So, from that standpoint, I don’t think they’ll miss a beat.” 

Or a detail, for that matter. 

“(Fine) is an extremely hard worker so, as long as you bring that to the table, you’ve got credibility,” Head Coach Craig Dickenson says. “He comes in early and he stays late. He’s diligent in his film study and he cares about being prepared. That’s the main thing that I see moving forward with him.  

“I think you’re going to see good football from him. I think you’re going to see toughness from him. He has demonstrated that his whole career. He just needs some game action. I’m excited to see him out there.” 

Fine is poised to make his third start in the professional ranks. He called signals for Saskatchewan in its final two games of the 2022 season. 

“This isn’t his first start — he got a couple in last year — but this is his first meaningful game in a while,” Dickenson notes. “I think he’s going to be nervous and excited, but I don’t think it’s going to be too big for him.  

“I think he’s going to do fine.”