Mayfield talks Georgia fans finding his leaked phone number

Baker Mayfield wasn’t upset. He had every right to be, considering his cellphone continued to receive call after call, and text message after text message.

The calls and texts got to the point where his cellphone actually died. And the messages that were left – well, Mayfield wouldn’t go any further than to say they were “creative.”

In essence, someone posted Mayfield’s phone number, the same one he has had since the eighth grade, on the internet. And while TCU fans reached out to him a couple of weeks earlier, Georgia fans apparently took it a higher level.

But Mayfield said he holds no ill will toward the Georgia fans who blew his phone up.

“Respect. I respect them,” Mayfield said. “People ask me if I was really that mad, but not really. It was pretty funny, creative stuff. I’d hope our fans would do the same if they had a chance.”

The phone call and text message barrage began Sunday when Mayfield was in Arkansas for the Burlsworth Trophy presentation, an award that goes to the best college player who began his career as a walk-on. This year, Washington State’s Luke Falk took home the honor.

Mayfield began to notice some Georgia numbers ringing his line, which had him suspicious that his phone number was out there somewhere. An hour after the first calls started coming through, the calls and texts came in at such a rapid rate that he couldn’t use his phone.

“They called so much it died,” Mayfield said. “I realized something was going on. When I got my phone charged back on, I had guys send me screenshots that it was posted online. They were creative, I’ll say that. There were probably 100 text messages and calls for 45 minutes. It just blew up.”

Mayfield later received a screenshot from a friend that showed his number posted on an SMU Barstool Instagram page. While he doesn’t know how the number got there, he assumes someone he knows from the Dallas or Austin, Texas area gave it out to someone else, who then leaked it for the world to see.

A lot of folks would have been aggravated by this. Oklahoma tight end Mark Andrews said Mayfield took what happened in stride.

“It’s stuff like this that happens that he handles incredibly well,” Andrews said.

Asked which message was his favorite, Mayfield smiled before revealing his answer. And that answer probably ranged on the tamer side of the messages he heard and read.

“A couple of people asked me if I had done my homework yet,” Mayfield said. “I guess they were concerned about my academics so I appreciate that.”

This story was originally published December 7, 2017 at 10:03 AM with the headline "Mayfield talks Georgia fans finding his leaked phone number."