MMQB: Justin Fields, Trey Lance, Aaron Rodgers and Inside the Biggest Stories on Draft Night

Matt Nagy and Ryan Day have a lot of history with each other—and it goes back to well before either guy had a whistle around his neck. Both came to the Atlantic 10 in 1997, and by the fall of 2000, the two quarterbacks, the former at Delaware and the latter at New Hampshire, were familiar with one another. And it was no surprise to either that when their teams faced off for the last time, their senior years, the game was a barnburner.

Nagy’s second-ranked Blue Hens came in with a shot to get to No. 1, with top-ranked Georgia Southern’s having fallen earlier that November day. But down seven, with less than two minutes left, Day rallied the Wildcats, executing a perfect hook-and-ladder from midfield for the game-tying score. The two then traded touchdowns in overtime, the Blue Hens missed their PAT, the Wildcats hit theirs, and Day and UNH scored the 45–44 upset.

Twenty-one years later, why does that matter?

That experience in the A-10 bonded Day and Nagy, and they’ve stayed in touch since. And that bond, during the last 13 months, helped deliver the Bears a new franchise quarterback.

Nagy and Day got to know each other better through camps and combines as they rose through the ranks after that epic game. They stayed in touch through the years, and bounced stuff off each other enough to build a level of mutual respect and trust. And so it was that last March, as the U.S. shut down, Nagy was in his home office looking at Day’s Ohio State prospects and decided to give his old buddy a call.

They went through all the big names you’d remember from the 2020 draft: Chase Young, Jeff Okudah, Damon Arnette, J.K. Dobbins. And after getting all those boxes checked, Nagy had one more lingering question from having watched all that tape.