Multi-sport stars are a dying breed. Even as far back as 2002, when Sports Illustrated profiled Michael Bush and Brian Brohm, specialization was rooting out multi-faceted athletes. Matt Ponatoski bucks that trend.
Before his senior season, he’s already won the Ohio Gatorade Player of the Year in baseball and football. He’s a Top 10 QB and a Top 20 baseball player in the 2026 recruiting class. It’s clear that Ponatoski has the talent to excel at both, but how will he manage his time at the highest level? There are plenty of recent success stories that illustrate it’s possible.
Austin Simmons
In week two of the 2025 college football season, Austin Simmons will make his first SEC start for Ole Miss. A college football wunderkind, he reclassified up two classes to join Lane Kiffin’s program ahead of the 2023 college football season. After redshirting in the fall, he made 13 appearances as a relief pitcher for Mike Bianco in the spring of 2024. He held opponents to a team low batting average of .173, allowing nine hits in 14 innings.
Near the end of his spring campaign, Simmons suffered a UCL strain. That’s when he turned his attention to football, announcing in January of 2025 that he was hanging up his baseball cleats for good.
Kyler Murray
Following Ponatoski’s commitment to Kentucky, he told Jacob Polacheck that his goal was to pull a Kyler Murray and get drafted in both sports. Murray might be the better comp, because like Ponatoski, he played in the field.
Murray batted .296 and had 47 RBIs in the spring of 2018. That summer, the Oakland A’s took him with the ninth overall pick in the MLB Draft. At that time, Murray had just been a backup for Baker Mayfield. Things changed that fall.
Murray threw for 4,361 yards and 42 touchdowns on his way to a Heisman Trophy. Oklahoma avenged a loss to Texas in the Big 12 title to earn a spot in the CFP, where the Sooners fell to top-seeded Alabama. Murray’s baseball signing bonus was worth $4.66 million. He turned it down for a $23.6 million signing bonus as the top pick in the NFL Draft by the Arizona Cardinals.
Jameis Winston
Jameis Winston had a 3.00 ERA and had an on-base percentage of .377 for a team that played in a Super Regional. That fall, he threw 40 touchdowns, won the Heisman Trophy, and led Florida State to a BCS National Championship. It’s safe to say that 2013 was a good year for Winston.
Despite his success on the gridiron, he continued playing baseball. The relief pitcher appeared in seven more games than the year prior and had an even better ERA of 1.09, allowing only 18 hits in 33.1 innings. His shenanigans off the field created headlines, but he was still pretty good for Jimbo Fisher in 2014. Winston threw for just shy of 4,000 yards and won the ACC title before falling to Oregon in the Rose Bowl after the most hilarious turnover of his career.
Russell Wilson
Long before he was a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, Russell Wilson had a tenuous relationship with N.C. State football coach Tom O’Brien because of his love of the game of baseball. He played second base and outfield for the Wolfpack from 2008-10. After leading N.C. State to a 9-win season in 2010, he reported to training camp with the Colorado Rockies. He spent the offseason playing Minor League Baseball, which eventually led to N.C. State relinquishing his scholarship, allowing him to play his final season of college football elsewhere.
That decision worked out great for Wisconsin. Wilson set the single-season FBS record for passer rating and led the Badgers to a Big Ten Title and an appearance in the Rose Bowl.
The moral of the story is clear: Playing two sports only works if the coaches and player are on the same page.
The post Ponatoski: How Other Two-Sport Stars Juggled Football and Baseball appeared first on On3.