On September 7 2013, freshman quarterback Ryan Buchanan stepped off of the Ole Miss team bus on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Oxford and proceeded down the Walk of Champions into a sea of red and blue.
It was a sight he’d seen many times as a young kid, but now he was on the other side of it as a player.
Buchanan and the rest of the team then made their way to the stadium and into the locker room. It was there where he would see a red number nine uniform sitting in his locker with his name embroidered in white across the back. It was the culmination of a dream turned into reality for the then-freshman from Jackson.
“I had never seen my name on the back of a jersey before, and to see that it was with Ole Miss, I was pumped,” he said with a smile. “The first thing I did was pull out my phone and take a picture of it.”
That moment, as real and fulfilling as it was, was a culmination of hard work that started long before the grueling two-a-days at Ole Miss.
As a freshman at Jackson Preparatory school, Buchanan made the decision to turn his full focus on becoming a college quarterback.
“Ninth grade year was really when I wanted to try to go get a scholarship,” he said. “After my tenth (grade) year we started going to different combines and different colleges.”
With the help of his father, Brooks Buchanan, among many others, the pocket passer began to try and get his name out to universities across the country.
“We didn’t know what to think or expect,” Brooks Buchanan said. “We had heard that if they like you they’ll pull you to the side, and they did.”
After attending camps at Mississippi State and Alabama, Buchanan began talking with coaches. Those talks turned into letters expressing interest, and growing more personal each time. Those letters turned into visits, and soon after, those visits turned into offers.
After taking other SEC unofficial visits, Buchanan took one to Ole Miss. At its conclusion, he committed to Freeze and the Rebels. He knew Ole Miss was where he wanted to spend his college years.
“I didn’t want to play for another school being from Mississippi,” Buchanan said. “I wanted to represent Mississippi so badly. I believed we would turn it around. This was my dream. I wanted to play for these coaches.”
From then on, his recruitment was closed. Buchanan faxed in his letter of intent the following February to join the most historic recruiting class in the history of the program. He was finally a Rebel.
“It was a big gamble to turn down all of those other places,” Buchanan said. “But it was what I wanted to do. I had one dream. I wanted to be the quarterback here, I didn’t care if it was just for a year or what. I wanted to come here.”
A few months later, he was at Ole Miss, suiting up in the locker room and about to take the field surrounded by 60,000 people packed into the same seats he had sat in growing up.
“I tried to instill in him to use this as motivation. Someone may have more talent, but you can always out-work them. Don’t let anyone out-work you,” Brooks said. “You feel good that he worked hard to achieve something, and that God’s blessed him with a measure of talent that most don’t have and that he understands that.”
Buchanan redshirted in 2013, sitting behind three-year starter Bo Wallace.
He was on the sidelines in Nashville against Vanderbilt when Bo Wallace approached him with some good news.
“Bo came up to me and said ‘Hey man, you’re going in, don’t get nervous’ and I was like ‘How on earth am I not supposed to be nervous?’” Buchanan recalled.
The moment was finally here. This is what he’d been waiting for. All of the reps in practice, the 5:30 a.m. alarms, and eight workouts per week in the offseason had paid dividends. He was going in.
He wasn’t the only nervous one in the stadium. His parents, along with his brother and sister in attendance, noticed he was warming up and stretching on the sideline and thought something might be up, and as number nine trotted onto the field, they too realized the moment was here.
“My heart started beating. Here it is. This is your son. You’ve always kind of dreamed of this moment,” Brooks said. “To see it actually happen, it can be pretty emotional, really.”
Two plays in, Buchanan hit Quincy Adeboyejo on a 15-yard dig route over the middle for his first completion.
“Once I played the first play, I was fine. I don’t know how big the crowd is or anything. I just lock in. That was the most fun I’ve ever had,” Ryan said.
Soon after, the young quarterback got a taste of just how difficult playing on the road in the SEC can be. In the penultimate game of the regular season at Arkansas, with Ole Miss’ SEC West dreams in the balance, Wallace went down with an ankle injury. On a rainy afternoon in Fayetteville, down 17-0, Buchanan was back in the game for his first meaningful snaps in an Ole Miss jersey.
“It was raining and like 40 degrees, and I had never played in that bad of conditions before,” Buchanan said. “It was tough. I didn’t want to force anything. My mindset was just to take what I can get.”
He held on strong, and Wallace would eventually return in a game that the Rebels would lose, but it was valuable experience nonetheless.
You won’t find a college athlete under more pressure than a quarterback in the SEC, especially one in the middle of a competition. That’s exactly where Buchanan found himself heading into his third year in Oxford, in a three-way race with DeVante Kincade and junior college transfer Chad Kelly.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself. You know you worked your whole life for this,” Buchanan said. “Every little thing was looked at and examined.”
A week after Ole Miss’ Chick-fil-A Bowl appearance, he was training with Bo Wallace in Los Angeles, doing anything he could to get an edge.
“I knew I had to win it fair and square,” Buchanan said. “I did everything I could to compete. I worked on my arm, my mechanics, everything.”
It was a tight race, and Buchanan held a slight edge coming out of spring practice and heading into fall camp. As fall camp progressed the race got tighter, and Kelly would eventually edge him out for the starting job.
“It was tough not to be pissed, but at the same time I was just one play away,” Buchanan said. “Chad’s a great player and absolutely deserved it.”
It’s often hard to be positive in the face of adversity, but he knew at the end of the day, the success of the team was what mattered most.
“The whole year I had Chad’s back. Every time he’d come to the sideline and I’d encourage him, and tell him what I saw,” Buchanan said.
Ole Miss would go on to have its most successful season in more than 50 years, finishing in New Orleans with a Sugar Bowl win. Despite the thrill of a ride that was the 2015 season, Buchanan’s mind began to move past football. With Kelly coming back for his senior season, he knew playing would be tough.
He talked it over, with friends and family, and eventually decided to move on from football.
He could have gone elsewhere. There was an opportunity to play football elsewhere. He decided against it.
“It just wasn’t worth it. I’ve met so many people here that will be my friends for life. I’d be leaving it all for what? A small shot? Maybe playing another year?” Buchanan said. “I have a future outside football, and I’ve got so many people here. I didn’t want to leave it all behind.”
“He didn’t choose Ole Miss just because of the opportunity to play football. He chose it because he wanted to be there,” Brooks said. “He chose Ole Miss because that’s always where he wanted to go. He grew up loving it.”
Though Buchanan is not positive what that future is, he’s determined to find it. He’s a finance major and has always kept his GPA over a 3.0. He’d like to land a solid internship somewhere and see what the business world has to offer.
“I realized that this is my future. The NFL isn’t my future,” Buchanan said. “This is my time to do these internships, and apply myself and figure out what my future is.”
Though it may not have turned out exactly how he would have liked, Buchanan is proud of what he accomplished and has no regrets. He was apart of the most historic recruiting class in Ole Miss history. He got to play for the school and state he’d so feverishly had hoped to represent, and he ended his career in a place the Ole Miss football program hadn’t been in over 50 years– in New Orleans at the Sugar Bowl.
“I knew I gave it all I got. I don’t regret anything,” Buchanan said. “I gave it all I got at the school I loved to play at.”
Though he has not discovered his next endeavor yet, Buchanan will find it, and accomplish it. Just as he has done with everything else in his life.
“God makes everything happen for a reason, and I’m just looking for my next chapter in life.”
