How Patrick Mahomes’ worst football loss helped him become KC Chiefs’ quarterback

College football games don’t finish much more lopsided than the one at Iowa State late in the 2016 season.

The Cyclones, 2-8 under first-year coach Matt Campbell, toyed with their opponent, rolling up nine touchdowns and 608 total yards. The 66-10 final unfolded like one of those early season non-conference tuneups.

But the losing side on that cold, blustery day in Ames, Iowa wasn’t a directional school getting drummed for a payday, but fellow Big 12 foe Texas Tech, led by quarterback Patrick Mahomes — who was playing in his next-to-last college game.

The Red Raiders entered the game as a 3 1/2-point favorite, and with a 4-6 record they needed victories in their final two games to become bowl-eligible. Personally, Mahomes needed a victory in this game and two more (TTU’s season finale and bowl) to finish .500 as a starting quarterback in college.

Instead, Iowa State set a school record for points in a conference game and sent Texas Tech to the second-most lopsided defeat in school history.

“I remember it very well,” Mahomes told The Star. “It’s the worst loss I’ve ever been a part of.”

And, as it would turn out, the most fortuitous.

Where a late-season blowout loss might damage an NFL hopeful’s prospects and signal another year of seasoning might be in order, it instead helped set in motion a series of events that would change Mahomes’ life and alter the course of the Kansas City Chiefs.

The franchise is preparing for its fifth Super Bowl in six years and bidding for an unprecedented third straight championship — the NFL’s first three-peat.

Mahomes didn’t know it then — and of course the Chiefs didn’t, either — but that day in Ames drew them closer together.

Watching from the Jack Trice Stadium press box was Chiefs general manager Brett Veach, who at the time was the team’s co-director of player personnel. The Chiefs were still forming ideas for the 2017 NFL Draft, but Veach was well down the road in his excitement for a prospect flying largely under the radar.

“I was already all-in,” Veach said.

Veach was the only representative of an NFL team at the game in Ames, which kicked off with a wind chill of 28 degrees. Things started falling apart for Tech early; the spiral accelerated with a left-shoulder injury to Mahomes, who departed the game in the first quarter after being tackled at the end of a run.

Conditions were ideal to linger in the visiting locker room, get warm, turn this lost cause over to backup Nic Shimonek and reevaluate at halftime.

None of that crossed Mahomes’ mind.

“It was a long way to the locker room, but I was trying to hurry so I could get back in the game,” he said.

The Red Raiders trailed 7-3 when Mahomes left, and Veach was about to call it a day. Then Mahomes jogged back to the sideline and started warming up. The Cyclones’ lead had grown to 21-3 early in the second quarter when Mahomes reemerged ... and to Veach, another box was checked.

“They take him to the locker room, and I’m packing up my bag,” Veach said. “But he comes back out and I put my bag down and watched the rest of it. That was another sign there. This kid, you can’t win this game, it’s dreary conditions, and he’s out there slinging it around.”

As is often the case in scouting, Mahomes initially came to Veach’s attention by accident. Veach was checking out a Tech offensive lineman, Le’Raven Clark, while watching tape of the Red Raiders’ Texas Bowl loss to LSU the previous season.

But he couldn’t take his eyes off the quarterback.

“I’m watching this LSU game, and I’m like, ‘That’s a cool throw,’ and you see another one, and now I’m not watching the tackle anymore. I’m watching the quarterback.”

Veach then reviewed Mahomes tape from the 2015 season when, as a sophomore, Mahomes led Division I with 393 total yards per game. The Tech quarterback now had Veach’s full attention and, it seemed, no one else’s in the NFL. Veach began pitching the idea of Mahomes being the Chiefs’ future quarterback to head coach Andy Reid and then-general manager John Dorsey.

Adding to the admiration in Ames: Veach knew Mahomes was playing through a nagging AC joint sprain from an injury he’d suffered earlier in the season.

“He had been hurt most of the year,” said Chris Level, who was the sideline reporter for the Texas Tech Sports Network throughout Mahomes’ career in Lubbock, Texas. “Then he took that shot early against Iowa State and still finished the game on a day that was about as cold as I can remember. But if you knew Patrick, that wasn’t a surprise.”

Not much happened for Tech the rest of the game. Mahomes finished with one touchdown and two interceptions. In a season in which he passed for 734 yards in a game against Oklahoma — and would lead the nation in several statistical categories and set numerous NCAA and school records — Mahomes finished tha game in Ames with his lowest passing total (219 yards) and passer rating of the year.

Was he concerned his NFL stock plummeted with the temperature that day?

“Honestly, I didn’t realize at the time that I would be coming out after the year,” Mahomes said. “I was more thinking about us being in a bowl game and how that ended because we lost.”

Surely, Tech would be low on spirit the next week for its finale against Baylor in Arlington. Instead, Mahomes passed for 568 yards and six touchdowns in a Red Raiders victory — his final regular-season game in college football.

“That was our bowl game,” Mahomes said. “I was so proud of how the guys responded. After that loss we took the guys kept their heads and didn’t start looking ahead to next year.”

The time had come for Mahomes to consider his future. As a junior, he had done everything in his power to keep then-head coach Kliff Kingsbury’s Tech team competitive in a year that the Red Raiders would rank dead-last in FBS in scoring defense and total defense. Texas Tech’s low point may have been when Arizona State running back Kalen Ballage tied an NCAA record with eight touchdowns.

The average score of Tech game in 2016: 43.7-43.5.

Between his passing and rushing yards, Mahomes accounted for 78% of Tech’s offense that season and all of that produced a mere five victories. A postseason analysis identified Mahomes’ return as the key for Tech in 2017.

Another productive season would improve his NFL stock. After all, Mahomes finished with a 13-16 record as Tech’s starter. Players have become NFL successes after posting losing records in college — John Elway went 20-23 at Stanford — but that’s not a typical path.

A headline in the Wall Street Journal after the Chiefs had traded with the Buffalo Bills to select Mahomes at No. 10 read, “Why Patrick Mahomes could be the next Jay Cutler” — Cutler went 11-35 as a starter at Vanderbilt before a 12-year NFL career that included a Pro Bowl and trip to the NFC Championship Game.

But on Jan. 3, 2017, Texas Tech released a statement: Mahomes was declaring for the NFL Draft. “With my love for Texas Tech and my excitement about the program’s future, it was not an easy decision. I plan on staying close to the program and being a Red Raider for life,” Mahomes’ statement read.

Eight seasons, five Super Bowls and three championships (and counting) later, Mahomes views the most miserable game of his life as a pivot point.

He didn’t know Veach was there that day in Ames, watching from the press box, until talking with him about it later in Kansas City, after he’d been drafted by the Chiefs.

“We’ve joked about that day,” Mahomes said. “It’s crazy to think that game had a lot to do with why I’m in Kansas City.”

This story was originally published February 3, 2025 at 10:36 AM.

Blair Kerkhoff

The Kansas City Star

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Blair Kerkhoff has covered sports for The Kansas City Star since 1989. He was elected to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023.