Fancy footwork: Freshman receiver Mosley looks to follow up breakout performance against Cal in Big Game
STANFORD – When Emmett Mosley V was in elementary school in Chicago, he and his brothers would run on the sidewalk and throw footballs to each other, tapping their feet and trying to keep from falling into the street while catching the passes.
Now a freshman at Stanford, Mosley put that practice to good use last Saturday, toe-tapping his way to a touchdown in the back of the end zone on a crucial fourth-down throw in the fourth quarter against then-22nd ranked Louisville.
That was one of three touchdowns Mosley scored in a breakout performance last Saturday as Stanford stunned the Cardinals 38-35 as 21-point underdogs. Now a 14-point underdog at Cal, the Cardinal hopes Mosley’s emergence will help Stanford claim the Axe for the first time in four years on Saturday in Berkeley (12:30 p.m., ACC Network).
Mosley had 22 catches for 193 yards and one TD leading up to the Louisville game, when he set a program record for a true freshman with 13 receptions. His 168 receiving yards were the most for a Cardinal true freshman since Richard Sherman had 177 in 2006.
“When he made the commitment to us, we knew he was a special player,” Stanford coach Troy Taylor said. “He’s got unbelievable skills, his resiliency, his toughness. He really rose to the occasion. Not surprised at all. I thought, since he’s been here, that he had a chance to be one of the better guys in the entire country. Just made some huge plays, and he’s a tough kid.”
Mosley started with a 62-yard touchdown catch in the first quarter, the longest pass play by Stanford this season, in which he caught the ball at the Louisville 45 and ran the rest of the way.
He also had the biggest catch of the game, a 25-yard touchdown on fourth-and-1 with 45 seconds left that tied the game at 35. He even drew the unsportsmanlike penalty with one second left that gave Stanford a chance at the winning field goal.
“I just think he was consistent in everything that he did,” quarterback Ashton Daniels said. “Route running, blocking, everything. Every opportunity that he had, he went and got it. It’s extremely heart-warming to see a young guy that has confidence like that go out there and do what he does best. So, yeah, I’m extremely proud of him.”
Mosley’s production could not have come at a better time for the Cardinal (3-7, 2-5 ACC), who are 16th out of 17 teams in the ACC in scoring, yardage, and passing efficiency, ahead of only Florida State. Stanford has cycled through running backs without success, and sophomore Elic Ayomanor has been the only dependable wideout.
“It’s huge,” Taylor said. “You need a second guy because (Ayomanor has) garnered a lot of attention and cloud coverage and two-on-ones on him. When you have a guy (like Mosley) that can make plays like that, it changes what they can do coverage-wise. He’s really special. They’re both really special players.”
Mosley was a four-star recruit out of Santa Margarita. Both his parents were athletes at Notre Dame – his father was a receiver, and his mother Cindy Daws was an All-American soccer player.
He received an offer from Notre Dame and took official visits to UCLA and Washington, but he committed to Stanford and enrolled in January. He missed the first three games with an injury, but scored a touchdown in his debut at Clemson in Week 4.
Still, he didn’t find the end zone again until last Saturday.
“My coaches put me in great opportunities throughout this whole season,” Mosley said. “Teammates have pushed me. Coaches have pushed me just to get to this point. We had a great game plan coming in, and we executed.”
Now comes perhaps the even harder part – continuing that success now that he will be more of a focus in the defensive game plan. Ayomanor also had a breakout game in his redshirt freshman year last season (294 yards and three TDs against Colorado) but didn’t have more than four catches in a game for the rest of the season.
Mosley said he will keep the same mentality that allowed him to stay confident during Stanford’s six-game losing streak.
“Just keeping our head down, going to work every day,” Mosley said. “Not getting too high, not getting too low. Just sticking to the plan, trusting the process, and just staying together as a team in the locker room. Not turning on one another and just working hard, trusting our coaches, trusting each other, and just playing hard.”
It didn’t hurt that Mosley had been practicing his footwork since he was a 10-year-old on the streets of Chicago.
“It’s actually funny, me and my brothers used to just throw the ball to each other on the sidewalk and just practice that for hours on end,” Mosley said. “It’s funny that’s what (I’m) doing now at a bigger stage.”