Lamar Jackson responds to Donovan Mitchell’s recollection of his freshman year as a backup 

Lamar Jackson is a top NFL quarterback playing for the Baltimore Ravens. However, his career did not start like this.

Jackson attended college at Louisville and played college football with the Louisville Cardinals. His time in college, especially his freshman season in 2015, was recently brought up by a fellow Cardinals alumni.

Basketball star Donovan Mitchell, who also attended Louisville at the same time as Jackson, spoke about him in an interview with 7PM in Brooklyn on Thursday. He shared that his basketball team became one of Jackson biggest fans when he took the starters role. Jackson responded to Mitchell on X.

"Bra, we had some stars in our class freshman year. Even women basketball was legit #L1C4," he tweeted.

Jackson was originally the backup quarterback for the Louisville Cardinals, but he did make a good number of starts that year to a mixed amount of success. His first throw in the Cardinals' first game of the season was an interception, but Louisville lost that game by seven points.

Mitchell said in the interview that Jackson was the backup quarterback when "some guy named Kyle" got injured, promoting Jackson to the starting role. The Kyle in question is Kyle Bolin. Bolin would transfer to the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at the end of the season once the Cardinals were fully committed to Jackson.

Lamar Jackson's sophomore and junior years

After an eventful freshman season for the Louisville Cardinals, Lamar Jackson had two promising seasons as the quarterback for the Atlantic Coast Conference team. That is when he established himself as a dual-threat quarterback, something common in many quarterbacks today.

His 2016 season was one of major note. In the opening game, he scored eight touchdowns, setting a school record. Additionally, he scored all the TDs in the first half of the game.

Throughout the season, Jackson threw for 3,543 yards and scored 30 touchdowns. His rushing numbers were good, recording 1,571 yards and scoring 21 touchdowns with his feet. Although Jackson couldn't send the Cardinals to the ACC championship game, his performances that season won him the Heisman Trophy.

The year 2017 was similar for Jackson regarding stats, but his Cardinals team regressed and were never in contention for the ACC championship. This would be his final year in college football, as Jackson declared for the 2018 NFL draft.

In a strong quarterback class with Josh Allen, Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, and Saquon Barkley, Jackson was never in conversation to be a top pick. He was chosen as the 32nd pick of the first round by the Baltimore Ravens, and the rest is history.