Nevada’s four-star QB commit is ‘total package’
SNOQUALMIE, Wash. (BVM) – It only took Clay Millen one season of varsity high school football to become a four-star quarterback and garner plenty of Division I interest, but that’s not where the Mount Si High School quarterback’s story begins.
It begins in part with Millen’s father, Hugh, who starred at Washington in the 1980s and played for seven NFL teams from 1987-96. Hugh went on to become the quarterbacks coach at Mount Si where both of his sons, Cale and Clay, would play the position.
It was Clay who sat back and watched his older brother’s senior season in 2018 where Cale led the Wildcats to a 10-2 record while throwing for 3,807 yards and 51 touchdowns before joining Oregon as a scholarship quarterback.
“In our system, our second-team quarterback gets very few reps in a practice,” Mount Si head coach Charlie Kinnune said. “His (Clay) dad’s the quarterback coach and you would think he (Hugh) would do everything in his power to get his second son the reps, but he put such a premium on varsity practice reps that he didn’t find the reps for Clay his sophomore year.
“He (Hugh) just expected him (Clay) to be locked in mentally, and he was.”
Clay said he would’ve preferred to play as a sophomore, but it gave him the opportunity to sit back and learn from his brother.
“Throughout the week, us three would watch film and I prepared as if I had to start every Friday night,” Clay said. “But I think it was also a good thing to learn from him (Cale) and watch how he leads and runs the offense, so I could pick up where he left off.”
Picking up where his brother left off is exactly what Clay did during his first season as a starter in 2019.
The 6-foot-3 signal-caller threw for 3,145 yards and 34 touchdowns with a QB rating of 128.1 while leading the Wildcats to a 10-3 mark. It all came together for Clay during his first varsity playoff game when he threw for a jaw-dropping 500 yards and six touchdowns in a win.
For Kinnune, the physical attributes are present in Clay – the size, accuracy, anticipation – but so too are the intangibles that make him “the total package.”
“When your best player is your hardest worker, you have a chance to win and Clay has been that for us,” Kinnune said.
Perhaps the most impressive part of Clay’s spectacular junior campaign is the fact that he threw just one interception through 360 attempts. That one interception, though, came at a crucial time in the Wildcats’ season: the third quarter of a playoff game against then-No. 1 Lake Stevens.
“It floored us; we just had never dealt with it before,” Kinnune said. “In his whole high school career, he hadn’t thrown an interception and although he played behind his brother as a sophomore, he never threw any picks in JV.
“He’d never dealt with it; his coaching staffs have never dealt with it and his teammates had never dealt with it.”
But Clay and the Wildcats responded anyway. Mount Si’s defense immediately came up with a turnover of its own after Clay’s interception, and the four-star quarterback also returned the favor on the ensuing drive.
Kinnune said Clay called an audible before throwing a 34-yard touchdown pass which iced the Wildcats’ second consecutive playoff win.
“His response was exactly what any coach would want their quarterback to respond like, but rarely kids do, especially at that age,” Kinnune said.
Clay’s sparkling junior season earned him a four-star ranking and title of the 13th-best pro-style quarterback by 247Sports. The result was offers from Oregon, Oregon State, Indiana, Colorado and others, but Clay committed to Arizona due to his relationship with then-offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone.
That was until Mazzone was let go after Arizona’s 0-5 start, along with head coach Kevin Sumlin, just days before Clay planned to sign his national letter of intent with the school.
“The main reason I committed to Arizona was Noel Mazzone and once he left, it changed everything for me,” Clay said. “He (Mazzone) offered me after my third game, watched me throw and recruited me hard so we built a strong relationship over that time. There was nothing against Jedd Fisch (new Arizona head coach), I wish them the best, but I think it was in my best interest to decommit.”
Although Arizona remained interested in Clay, the Mount Si star chose the Wolf Pack on Wednesday over runner-up Colorado after a weekend visit in Reno.
COMMITTED🐺 pic.twitter.com/gPSnvjZFhI
— Clay Millen (@ClayMillen) February 3, 2021
Clay was Arizona’s top commitment at the time and is now Nevada’s No. 1 recruit for the 2021 class. For further context, Clay is the fifth-highest-rated player to ever commit to the Wolf Pack. Nevada doesn’t play in the Pac-12 like many of the other schools that offered Clay, but those other schools don’t run the type of pass-first offense that has him excited to showcase his talents.
“I think a lot of people were surprised I turned down the Pac-12 to go to Nevada, but they run the air-raid and they throw it 40 times a game,” Clay said. “It makes you think as a quarterback, ‘Why wouldn’t I want to play in this system?’”
Clay will add to a relatively thin quarterback room at Nevada, but one that boasts arguably the conference’s best player. Nevada junior Carson Strong is the reigning Mountain West Player of the Year and a potential early-entry candidate for the 2022 NFL Draft.
Because Nevada has signed the NCAA maximum of 25 players in its 2021 class, Clay will technically be a blueshirt for the Wolf Pack and count in the team’s 2022 recruiting class, but he is eligible to play for the team in 2021.
“I think Nevada has some great people down there on the coaching staff and I’m excited to come in and learn from Carson Strong and do what I can to help the team,” Clay said.
Amid the craziness of recruitment during a pandemic and the loss of a typical senior football season (Clay and Mount Si will play a conference-only schedule beginning February 24), the joy of playing football can be lost.
Kinnune spoke to Clay the night before his decision was made official and heard joy in his quarterback’s voice that has been missing.
“It’s been a while since I’ve heard a real sense of excitement with us not playing high school football in the fall,” Kinnune said. “I haven’t heard that level of excitement in Clay’s voice in a while, and it was great to hear that from him.”
