When Jerry Mixon was in junior high, he went through a "chubby phase" and nearly gave up football.
His cousin Joe Mixon, star running back at Oklahoma who made the Super Bowl with Cincinnati, encouraged him to stick with it.
Jerry was 8 when he first watched Joe play, as a five-star recruit at Freedom High School in Oakley, California, the No. 12 prospect in the country. In a playoff game Joe ran for 300 yards and seven TDs. Jerry told Mitch Stephens of MaxPreps,
"After that, I decided I really wanted to be a football player.