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SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Stakes will be higher Monday night than when Brock Purdy and Breece Hall , hypercompetitive roommates at Iowa State, wouldn’t speak to each other for hours following video game battles in college. Purdy, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, and Hall, the New York Jets running back, will be on opposing NFL teams for the first time in their careers.
It’ll be a reminder of a formative era, the three years the two spent together starring for the Cyclones in Ames, Iowa. Advertisement “He was a brother to me, man,” Purdy said last week of Hall. “Like a little brother, bringing him under my wing.
I just tried to push him and wanted to see him be his best. To see his mentality flip, to go get after it, man, it was pretty sweet to see. We pushed each other in everything we did.
” Literally everything. “Me and (Purdy) are actually overly competitive with each other, so even in college when we played Madden and stuff, whoever won, we wouldn’t talk to each other for the rest of the day,” Hall told reporters in June . “So that’s how it’s going to be until after the game.
” GO DEEPER Brock Purdy's origin story, the Ames chapter: How Iowa State crafted the 49ers QB Competition extended to Pop-A-Shot, pickleball and pickup basketball games in the driveway of Iowa State coach Matt Campbell’s house. But it was probably most beneficial in the weight room, where Purdy and Hall strained through core and leg workouts until failure to see who could last the longest. The results spoke for themselves.
Purdy broke essentially every school passing record. Hall amassed nearly 4,000 rushing yards over just three seasons. The duo was central to the most successful stretch in Iowa State’s history, which peaked with a 34-17 Fiesta Bowl thrashing of Oregon that capped the 2020 season.
The dividends of this golden age are now apparent in the NFL with 12 Cyclones, the most ever, on active rosters across the league. Four of them — Purdy, Hall and Jets defensive lineman Will McDonald IV and receiver Allen Lazard — will suit up Monday night, making the NFL opener must-watch TV in Ames. Three Jets — Breece Hall, Allen Lazard and Will McDonald IV — and a prominent 49er — Brock Purdy — on the wall at Iowa State’s facility, where TVs will be tuned to Monday Night Football pic.
twitter.com/jF3mSqTMas — David Lombardi (@LombardiHimself) September 4, 2024 “It’s really special for us,” Campbell said in a phone interview last week. “This is the game that my own family has been bragging about because they’re so fired up about it.
They religiously follow the 49ers and the Jets. It’s permeated our walls this week as the kickoff for the NFL season comes.” Advertisement The backstory dates back to Campbell’s decision in 2019 to house the freshman Hall with a sophomore Purdy, who’d already been living with star linebacker Mike Rose .
“(Purdy and Rose) were a year older and growing superstars on our team, and I could see that Breece was going to be that way,” Campbell said. “And what I found was Breece was really good for those guys. He’s got elite confidence.
Like Brock and Mike, he’s an unbelievable competitor — and he was able to bring a sense of calmness to Brock. He’s so calm, cool and collected in the moment.” Those are traits Purdy has leveraged to big success early in his NFL career, and Campbell believes that living with Hall helped the quarterback sharpen them.
“On the flip side, I think what Brock brought to Breece was, ‘Here’s what excellence looks like in practice every day — here’s how to become a pro in your approach of studying a game,'” Campbell said. “I feel that those two helped each other immensely in their time here. They were two absolutely similar competitors’ hearts.
“I feel exactly what I wanted to get out of those guys being roommates was what we were able to get out of it. What they were able to do for our team was transformational, but how they transformed each other’s lives was really special.” The Jets picked Hall in the second round of the 2022 draft — well ahead of Purdy, a 2023 MVP finalist who famously went last in that draft to the 49ers.
Hall rushed for 994 yards and racked up 1,585 yards from scrimmage in 2023, his second season in the NFL. The return of Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers from last season’s Achilles tear should presumably open more operating room for Hall in 2024. GO DEEPER What I'm seeing from the New York Jets: Every throw of Aaron Rodgers' return so far Neither Purdy nor Hall overlapped with Lazard at Iowa State.
The receiver played for the Cyclones from 2014 to 2017, but he was part of a group that built a strong foundation for Purdy when he took over as a freshman starting quarterback in 2018. McDonald, however, did more than overlap with Purdy and Hall in Ames. On his way to grabbing Iowa State’s single-season and career sack records, the edge rusher — a first-round pick of the Jets in the 2023 draft — created massive problems for the Cyclones offense at practice.
Advertisement “You could really spark the practice by just putting the ball down and going good-on-good,” Campbell said. “Those guys loved to compete — third down, red zone, two-minute drill. And Will McDonald could wreak such havoc on a practice.
“There were many times Will McDonald ruined two-minute drills here at Iowa State, so I would purposefully have to put Will next to me (out of the play) for two-minute drills, just so we could execute the situation at times. He’s always said that I’ve never allowed him to rattle or get after Brock — and he was right for four years.” Pick up The Athletic 2024 Fantasy Football Guide to read expert evaluations & everything you need to know to win your fantasy football league.
Pick up The Athletic 2024 Fantasy Football Guide to read expert evaluations. Purdy smiled when reminded of the times that Campbell yanked McDonald off the field. “At practice, Will was so twitchy and bendy,” Purdy said.
“It was very hard for our offensive line to block him. For me, going up against him in practice at Iowa State, it was always like, ‘Man, this guy is a freak. It’s hard to go through my progressions.
’ We’re on another level now in the NFL, but he’s still that twitchy, fast, quick, explosive player, so anytime he’s on the field, I’ve definitely got to be aware of him.” As the NFL’s training camp and preseason wrapped up over the back half of August, Campbell’s former players checked in with him as they customarily do. The coach shared that McDonald — who had three sacks as a rookie but is poised to grab a bigger role in his second season — seems especially excited by his chance to chase Purdy, the QB he wasn’t allowed to touch at Iowa State practices over four seasons.
“The one thing I told Will: ‘You’d better not hurt Brock — you can sack him, but you just can’t hurt him,'” Campbell said with a laugh. “So he promised me that would be how he approached the game.” Time for another season of Cyclones in the NFL!!️ 🌪️🚨🌪️ pic.
twitter.com/y8xivMe3NQ — Iowa State Football (@CycloneFB) September 5, 2024 Monday night’s clash is a high-powered one. Purdy led the 49ers offense, which returns all of its key pieces, to a No.
1 efficiency ranking by expected points added (EPA) per play in 2023. The Jets defense, meanwhile, also returns key pieces from a unit that ranked No. 3 in EPA per play last season.
There’ll also be another layer of familiarity with Jets head coach Robert Saleh, previously the 49ers’ defensive coordinator. Jets defenders Javon Kinlaw , D.J.
Reed and Solomon Thomas all began their careers as 49ers draftees. GO DEEPER What we're seeing from the 49ers: Brock Purdy airing it out and other observations But it’s the Iowa State reunion that will capture the attention of Ames, a town of about 60,000. “That’s the neat thing about this place,” Campbell said.
“It’s got the small town, high school feel to it. So once these great people and football players move on, you follow and track their every move. What a celebration of Iowa State football, to be able to watch four guys who had a profound impact on this program and have been cornerstones of our success.
” Advertisement The Cyclones will be fresh off their dramatic in-state rivalry win against Iowa — the alma mater of 49ers tight end George Kittle , who lost his friendly annual bet to Purdy thanks to that result — when “Monday Night Football” rolls around. Back in Ames, Campbell and his staff will be busy delving into game tape of their massive victory. “But I can promise you,” he said, “that every television in this facility will be on with that game on.
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