Iowa State star Breece Hall leans on hometown Wichita roots as Heisman hype builds
Iowa State football coach Matt Campbell has a message for anyone out there who thinks Breece Hall might not be able to handle the intense spotlight that will shine upon him this season now that he is a contender for the Heisman Trophy.
Hall remains as hungry and humble as the day he played his first game with the Cyclones ... and there’s a reason for that.
“Breece has got a mother that is going to demand that happens,” Campbell said.
It’s appropriate that Hall’s mother, Larhonda McDaniel, earned a shout out during Big 12 Media Days this week at AT&T Stadium. Hall left Wichita for Ames in 2019, but the former Northwest standout still leans on his family and his hometown support system to keep him grounded now that he is the starting running back for a team that enters the season with playoff hopes.
McDaniel works as a Delta flight attendant in Wichita, so she visits Iowa State’s campus often along with Hall’s stepfather, Jeff Smith. They try to make it to all his games. And whenever Iowa State travels to Kansas or Kansas State for road games, a small army of friendly faces descend on the visitor’s section of those stadiums.
He wants to make them proud, and he can’t do that by focusing on a Heisman campaign, even though he led the nation with 1,572 rushing yards last season on his way to becoming the first unanimous first-team All-American in Iowas State history.
“Home keeps me humble and grounded,” Hall said. “It just has to do with the way I was brought up. I was never brought up to be one of those guys that fought over everything. I never thought I had to brag about anything. I am never satisfied. Everything that I’ve done so far has been good, but I know I have a lot more to do. I know I can maximize my full potential.”
It’s hard to say exactly what the next evolutionary step might be for Hall.
He has already established himself as one of the best running backs in all of college football, and he has already put his stamp on Jack Trice Stadium. Perhaps next he can put his name in the same conversation as some of his favorite all-time Wichita football players, such as Barry Sanders.
“He’s probably the best running back to ever play,” Hall said.
Hall thinks he is one of the top players to ever come out of Wichita, and he would love it if others agreed with that opinion. He also thinks he has already done enough to help put Wichita “on the map” as a destination for college recruiters. But he is always looking to do more.
Iowa State rarely recruits the Wichita area, but Campbell made an exception when he stumbled upon highlight videos of Hall playing as a sophomore and junior at Northwest.
“We were the first ones to offer him, and, for me, it was a no-brainer,” Campbell said, “because I could compare his video tape to Kareem Hunt and David Montgomery. You could tell he stacked up with all those guys. He was there. Now we just need to develop him so he can play that way consistently. But Breece had such great video tape at a young age that there was no question I knew what he could become.”
Others took a wait-and-see-approach with Hall when he arrived at Iowa State. Yes, he was a four-star recruit with offers from Iowa, Baylor, Kansas State, Michigan, Nebraska and Tennessee, but some thought it might take him a year or two to make an impact at the Big 12 level.
He quickly put those doubts to bed by rushing for 897 yards as a freshman. Then he put himself in the Heisman conversation with a sensational sophomore season in which Iowa State defeated both Texas and Oklahoma on its way to the Fiesta Bowl.
Other teams placed Hall at the top of their scouting reports, and yet they could do nothing to slow him down. The entire team fed off his touchdown runs. Those happened frequently. At 6-foot-1 and 220 pounds, it was hard to keep him out of the end zone.
“One of the great things about Breece is he’s got this great smile and he’s got the ability to project a lot of positivity,” Campbell said. “Breece has earned everything he has gotten. Where does confidence come from? Where do expectations come from? They come from earning the right to have confidence and expectations. He has earned the right to have them. It’s not luck, it’s work ethic.”
When the season was over, Hall’s body of work was impressive enough for a sixth-place finish in Heisman voting. He finished behind only Najee Harris, Kyle Trask, Mac Jones, Trevor Lawrence and Devonta Smith. All five of them are now in the NFL, which means Hall might be the preseason favorite to win the award in 2021.
Of course, his mother won’t let him focus on that.
“I want to win the Heisman, but I care more about my team’s success,” Hall said. “So I’d rather win the Big 12 championship.”
This story was originally published July 15, 2021 at 2:15 PM with the headline "Iowa State star Breece Hall leans on hometown Wichita roots as Heisman hype builds."