Antwaan Randle El on the College Football Hall of Fame ballot, Steelers Super Bowl memories, being a QB 20 years too soon

Former Pittsburgh Steeler Antwaan Randle El wasn’t on the other end of a FaceTime conversation. It was just a phone call. But as soon as the question was asked, you could easily picture the smile coming across his face.

You could certainly hear it in his voice during the answer.

Do you think things would’ve gone differently in your career if you had come into the NFL after the 2021 college season instead of 2001? Could quarterback have been in your future instead of wide receiver?

“Oooo weee,” Randle El exclaimed during Tuesday’s “Breakfast with Benz” podcast. “No question I think it would have been different. You go back two or three years ago when Lamar (Jackson) came out (of Louisville), that is what I was doing in college. A lot of the stuff that he was doing in college, and what he was doing in the NFL, it would’ve been like my ticket. And obviously for me, that would’ve been ideal.”

Those things that Randle El was doing at Indiana as a college quarterback recently got him nominated for the College Football Hall of Fame. It was the kind of career that — with the benefit of 20 years of more advanced thinking about how to adapt athletic college quarterbacks on the next level — may have found him on top of the draft boards as a quarterback instead of coming to Pittsburgh in the second round as a wide receiver.

Granted, it’s not like that turned out too badly, as Randle El played eight years in the NFL between Washington and two stops in Pittsburgh, playing in two Super Bowls with the Steelers and winning a ring in 2005.

“I love what God had for me in terms of me coming in and being a wide receiver … and still being able to throw the ball,” Randle El said on Tuesday’s “Breakfast With Benz” podcast.

Oh yeah. He did throw the ball once or twice, didn’t he? I seem to recall one throw in particular that stands out in Steelers history.

No. 80: @Steelers WR Antwaan Randle El’s pass to Hines Ward in @SuperBowl XL (Feb. 5, 2006) #NFL100

?: NFL 100 Greatest Plays on @NFLNetwork pic.twitter.com/imEdUo8VSm

— NFL (@NFL) September 14, 2019

“During the play as I’m getting a reverse, and I’m just saying, ‘Don’t overthrow him,’” Randle El said of his famous Super Bowl XL 43-yard touchdown toss to Hines Ward. “Once I came around, he was obviously wide open. It was great. I was very excited.”

It was exactly the right time for Randle El to dial up the quarterbacking skills which built a Hoosiers resume that is now under consideration for College Football Hall of Fame honors.

During his time in Bloomington, Randle El was named a 2001 First Team All-American and Big Ten Most Valuable Player. He was the first player in FBS history to pass for 6,000 yards, while also rushing for at least 3,000 yards. He was also the first NCAA Division I player to score 40 touchdowns both running and passing.

Randle El left Indiana fifth on the all-time NCAA total yardage list and was the first player in college football history to record 2,500 total yards for each of four consecutive years. Randle El totaled 7,469 passing yards and 42 touchdowns, while rushing for 3,895 yards and 44 touchdowns.

If you thought the Lamar Jackson analogy was a little generous, given that Jackson is about five inches taller and 25 pounds heavier, then what about Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray? Like Randle El, Murray is 5-foot-10 and a little bit more stout (205 lbs) than Randle El was (185 lbs). But Randle El insists that’s the kind of scouting pedigree that could’ve been bestowed upon him had he been born about two decades later.

And Murray was drafted first overall.

“It would’ve come back to the idea of, ‘This guy can play. He can play that position. Let’s let him play that position. Period,’” Randle El said. “You look at (Murray), it’s the same deal. He can play that position. Let him play that position.”

Like Murray, Randle El was drafted as a baseball player. Murray with the Oakland A’s, Randle El with the Chicago Cubs. During our podcast, Randle El gets into how his parents told him that he was going to have to put baseball on hold so he could get his degree at Indiana first, even though baseball was his first love.

And how that decision changed his life.

We also dive deeper into his time at Indiana, his new job as wide receivers coach with the Detroit Lions and what it was like coaching on last year’s Super Bowl-winning Tampa Bay Buccaneers team with Bruce Arians and Tom Brady.

Listen: Tim Benz talks with former Steelers wide receiver Antwaan Randle El on his College Football Hall of Fame ballot, Super Bowl memories and being 20 years too early to be quarterback