Mason Fine facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Mason Fine

Fine at 2018 C-USA Football Kickoff
Position:	Quarterback
Personal information
Born:	(1997-04-19) April 19, 1997 (age 28) Peggs, Oklahoma, U.S.
Height:	5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
Weight:	190 lb (86 kg)
Career information
High school:	Locust Grove (Locust Grove, Oklahoma)
College:	North Texas
Undrafted:	2020
Career history
Saskatchewan Roughriders (2021–2023)
CFL status:	American
Career highlights and awards
2× CUSA Offensive Player of the Year (2017, 2018) 2× First-team All-CUSA (2017, 2018) Second-team All-CUSA (2019) All-CUSA Freshman team (2016) 2× Oklahoma Gatorade HS Player of the Year (2014, 2015)
Career CFL statistics
Passing completions: 167 Passing attempts: 249 Passing yards: 1,803 TD–INT: 6–8
Player stats at CFL.ca

Mason Fine (born April 19, 1997) is an American professional football quarterback. He recently played for the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Canadian Football League (CFL). Mason played college football at North Texas.

Mason Fine's Early Life

Mason Fine grew up in Peggs, Oklahoma. He is one-quarter Cherokee and is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. His family has Cherokee roots on both sides.

Mason started learning to play quarterback before he was in sixth grade. He went to a special camp at the University of Oklahoma. There, he watched former Oklahoma star and coach Josh Heupel. Mason paid close attention to how Heupel threw the ball and listened to his advice.

Every day after camp, Mason wrote down what he learned. He and his dad, Dale, typed up these notes. Mason even kept a copy next to his bed to study.

Learning to Play Football

Mason's dad, Dale, had never played football before. But they learned together using the notes from the camp. Dale said they spent "hours and days and months and years of repetition." Their motto was: "It wasn’t just practice that made perfect. It was perfect practice that made perfect."

By the time Mason finished eighth grade, they didn't need to work on his throwing anymore. The next summer, Mason went to another camp. An instructor there was amazed by his throwing and asked who his coach was. The instructor couldn't believe it was his dad, who had no football experience!

High School Football Career

Mason's hometown only had a school up to eighth grade. So, in 2012, he chose to go to Locust Grove High School in Locust Grove. The school's team, the Pirates, had a new coach, Matt Hennesy. They had only won two games in the past three seasons.

Coach Hennesy saw that Mason was the best passer on the team. But Mason was only 5-foot-9 and 135 pounds as a freshman. The coach worried about putting such a small player behind a weak offensive line. So, Hennesy decided to start Mason as a wide receiver. However, he created special trick plays to let Mason throw the ball. As a freshman, Mason threw for over 600 yards, even though he wasn't the main quarterback.

For his last three years of high school, Mason was the starting quarterback. He set new records for passing yards and touchdowns in Oklahoma high school history. He also became the first player ever to win the state's Gatorade Player of the Year award twice!

College Recruitment Journey

Even with amazing high school stats, Mason didn't get any scholarship offers after his senior year. This was mostly because of his size. At a summer camp, a coach from Arkansas State told him he had a great arm. But the coach also said Mason was too small to play at a top college (Division I FBS). He offered to recommend Mason to smaller schools. Mason was polite but felt very angry inside.

Many other coaches felt the same way. Mason sent out many highlight videos and went to camps at other big schools, but still got no offers. Rice was interested but chose a taller player. Oklahoma State only offered him a chance to join the team without a scholarship (as a walk-on). Even when his coach called Kansas State's coach, Bill Snyder, Snyder said he didn't recruit quarterbacks under 6 feet tall.

A Chance at North Texas

Mason finally got a big break when North Texas hired Seth Littrell as their new head coach. This happened right after the 2015 season. Coach Littrell was friends with Mason's high school coach, Matt Hennesy. Littrell also used a similar offensive style, called the Air Raid, which Mason was good at.

Soon after being hired, Coach Littrell called Hennesy to ask about quarterbacks. North Texas was getting a transfer quarterback from Alabama for 2016, but Littrell wanted a future star. Littrell and his team were very impressed with Mason's skills. Littrell said that Mason was better than local players who had offers from bigger schools. He joked that if Mason was 6-foot-2 or 6-foot-3, every team in the country would have wanted him.

Mason knew this was his best chance for a scholarship at a big school. He even made special lifts for his shoes to look taller for his visit to North Texas! Coach Littrell said they would have taken him no matter what. On February 3, 2016, Mason Fine officially signed with North Texas.

College Football Career

Mason Fine started nine games for North Texas as a freshman in 2016. He threw for 1,572 yards. He also set a school record for the longest play with an 80-yard touchdown run against UTSA. Because of his great play, he was named to the Conference USA All-Freshman team.

In his second and third years, Mason led the Mean Green to nine wins each season. He threw for a total of 7,845 yards and 58 touchdowns. He won the CUSA Offensive Player of the Year award two years in a row. He also broke the school's record for career passing yards.

Before his senior season in 2019, Mason was named the top college quarterback in Texas by Dave Campbell's Texas Football. The North Texas athletic department even started a campaign to promote him for the Heisman Trophy, a very famous award.

College Statistics

Professional Football Career

After the 2020 NFL draft, Mason Fine was not chosen by any NFL teams. He had a tryout with the Chicago Bears on August 17, 2020.

Playing for the Saskatchewan Roughriders

Mason Fine had been on the Saskatchewan Roughriders' special list of players they were interested in since 2017. He signed a three-year contract with this CFL team on December 30, 2020.

In his first season in the CFL, Mason was a backup quarterback. He played behind Cody Fajardo, who had been the Roughriders' starting quarterback since 2019. Mason played in the final regular season game, completing 5 passes for 64 yards. He also served as the backup in the playoff games.

On October 19, 2022, it was announced that Mason Fine would start as quarterback for the Riders. This was for their second-to-last game of the 2022 regular season against the Calgary Stampeders. In his first CFL start, Mason completed 18 of 28 passes for 196 yards and one touchdown. The Riders lost, which meant they missed the playoffs for the first time since 2016. He also started the team's final game of the regular season, which was another loss.

Mason started the 2023 season as the backup to veteran quarterback Trevor Harris. When Harris got a serious knee injury in Week 6, Mason finished that game and started the next four. In his fourth start, on August 11 in Montreal, Mason left the game in the second quarter due to an injury. He missed four games because of this injury. He then dressed for the final five games of the regular season, but only played in one of them.

On January 23, 2024, Mason Fine signed a two-year contract extension with the Roughriders. However, he was released by the team on June 1, 2024, after the final training camp cuts. He is currently a free agent.

CFL Career Statistics