A lesson from Nick Foles helped inspire Texas' Breckyn Hager not to quit on his NFL dreams

Breckyn Hager eyed Nick Foles carefully.

It had been Hager’s oldest brother Bron’s idea to grab lunch with the nearly-retired-turned-Super-Bowl-MVP quarterback. Foles had played with Bron at Austin Westlake High dating back to 2005 and later with brother Bryce on the Rams in 2015.

Now here was the youngest Hager, whom Foles remembered flying past defenders for 80-yard touchdowns in Pop Warner games, in need of advice. Foles agreed to meet at Hopdoddy Burger Bar in Newport Beach, California.

Hager ordered a Prime Time burger, the American-grass-fed Kobe beef topped with Brie, arugula, caramelized onions, truffle aioli and tomato. He traded steak sauce for Hopdoddy’s “Sassy Sauce” combo of mayo, horseradish and honey mustard.

Foles ordered the Prime Time, too. He also ditched steak sauce for Sassy Sauce. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, Hager thought.

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Then Foles broke the news to Hager.

“It’s OK to tell yourself you’re more than a football player,” Foles recalled to USA TODAY Sports of what he told Hager. “Playing football doesn’t mean your dreams of doing something else are out the window. Playing football helps with all that.”

Hager did a double take: Could he really chase NFL dreams without relinquishing big-screen aspirations?

Hager didn’t doubt his love of football. The 22-year-old former Longhorns captain savored game days, film study and team camaraderie as he amassed 136 tackles, 30 tackles for loss, 12 1/2 sacks and a pair of forced fumbles in 48 career games. He energized teammates with a vow not to cut his long gold locks until the team won a conference championship (after Oklahoma outlasted Texas 39-27 in the Big 12 title game, Hager waited for a Sugar Bowl win before allowing actor Matthew McConaughey to perform a four-hour trim). 

Hager had eagerly awaited the chance to flash his explosion off the line at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis in February.

But the invite never came. Hager wondered if he should simply chase his film dreams.

“It crushed me,” he told USA TODAY Sports by phone. “It didn’t crush me. Here’s what it did: I immediately knew I was going to take over film. You don’t [expletive] with a man’s confidence.”

Hager had already pursued one acting role with “Twelve Mighty Orphans,” adapted from a 2007 novel billed as the “original Friday Night Lights.” He’s producing two documentaries, as well, including one on former Longhorns teammate Gary Johnson’s life story. Without a combine invite, Hager wondered if his film dreams were more realistic than their football counterparts.

The Hager men implored Breckyn to take a step back. Bron knew Foles would understand.

Foles had transferred from Michigan State to Arizona and almost quit football after losing his love for it while with the Rams. Then Foles landed with the Chiefs, and soon after the Eagles. A Carson Wentz knee injury later, and "Saint Nick" was leading the franchise to its first-ever Super Bowl title.

In Kansas City and Philadelphia, Foles told Hager, he learned he need not confine his identity to football.

“In reality if you’re lying to yourself, you’re not going to be the best version of yourself,” said Foles, who noted last year he hopes to become a pastor after his playing career ends. “I played for two amazing coaches in Andy Reid and Doug Pederson, and one thing they both said was: Let your personality show. You’re going to be a part of a team bigger than yourself, so do whatever you can to help the team. But what makes a team great is all these different personalities.”

Hager could do that, Foles assured him. The quarterback, who signed a four-year deal with the Jaguars this offseason, reminded Hager that a colorful personality at Texas enabled rather than prevented his on-field production. Sure, the honesty led to school-orchestrated apologies in 2016 when Hager said he would aim to injure then-Texas Tech quarterback Patrick Mahomes and in 2018 when he quipped “OU still sucks” to the dismay of Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby.

(Hager says his comment about knocking Mahomes out of the game was intended as the “biggest compliment I can give a man,” because he saw the prolific passer as the barrier to a Texas win. “It’s the inside of me people don’t get.”)

But overall, Foles told Hager, that energy will fuel NFL teammates like it did his Texas teammates.

Hager agreed.

He recommitted to training ahead of the Longhorns' pro day, where he jumped a 39 1/2-inch vertical, a mark that only one of 24 linebackers at the combine eclipsed. Hager felt he exploded through bag drills with the Texans and made his case as an edge rusher in a private workout with Saints defensive coordinator Dennis Allen. He took to heart Cowboys scouts’ imperative at pro day to bulk up to 260 by draft day. (He was up from 242 at the March 27 event to 250 first week of April, he said.)

Now, the self-described multihyphenate eyes the draft with fire. The always-confident prospect dares teams not to miss out on “the next Tom Brady,” the “most explosive player in the draft with the quickest first step in Texas” who will beat “any tackle off the block any time.”

“Something you can’t measure: When I want something, I go get it and go all in,” Hager said, recalling the aftermath of a dislocated elbow in the Longhorns’ 42-41 loss to West Virginia on Nov. 3.

An MRI that Tuesday indicated Hager would miss six weeks, he said. Hager instead showed up to practice in his hospital gown, insisting he’d sign any legal paperwork relieving the university of injury liability. No way was a team captain missing next week’s game vs. Texas Tech.

He recorded three tackles, half a sack, a tackle for loss and a quarterback hurry in the 41-34 win at Lubbock. The budding actor even bandaged up his healthy elbow (albeit unconvincingly, he admits) in hopes the Red Raiders couldn’t discern which he’d actually dislocated.

It’s that drive to succeed – and knack for combining his passions – Foles said, that illustrates Hager’s value to an NFL roster.

“Any team that ends up with Breckyn is going to be excited about what he’ll bring to the table,” Foles said. “The energy, the explosion is in his gene pool.

“The fact that he’s understanding who he is as a person makes him even more dangerous on the football field.”

Follow Jori Epstein on Twitter @JoriEpstein.