Speedy and small, Barrington’s Scotty Miller keeps coming up big

Buccaneers wide receiver Scotty Miller thought he was lining up for a Hail Mary pass with the odds of a winning Powerball ticket. With eight seconds to play in the first half of the NFC Championship Game and the ball at the Packers’ 39, he expected to face prevent defense. If he was lucky, the 5-9 Miller thought, he might try to catch the ball after it was tipped by a taller player.

Instead, the Packers showed a single high safety, playing the Buccaneers close to try to keep them out of field-goal range. Cornerback Kevin King lined up about eight yards across from Miller. That’s when Miller first thought the play, in which he used his sprinter’s speed on a “go” route, might actually work.

Three receivers were bunched left. Miller was the farthest out but still tight to the line of scrimmage — barely outside the hash marks. At the snap, he angled toward the sideline, stepping on the 3 in the 30-yard line stencil and turning upfield, just outside of King.

Miller flew so far past King that he actually had to slow down to catch Tom Brady’s touchdown pass as it careened down toward earth two yards inside the goal line. The Buccaneers ran to the locker room with a 21-10 lead in a game they’d win by five.

How does a little receiver from Barrington High School — one who got recruited by one FBS college, then couldn’t score a Senior Bowl or NFL Scouting Combine invitation two years ago — make a game-changing catch to help his team get to the Super Bowl?

Like the touchdown itself, it was a long shot.

“It’s crazy, an underdog story,” Miller said this week. “I’ve kinda been doubted my whole life because of my size and other things, as well. But I’ve just fought for, I’ve earned, everything I’ve gotten. It’s been like that ever since youth football.”

When he first started playing Barrington Youth Football, he was stuck to the bench. He was fast but small.

“Coach didn’t wanna put me in,” he said. “But every time I got an opportunity, I was able to make a play. It’s really been that way my whole life.”

Bears rookie tight end Cole Kmet remembers. He was a year and a half younger than Miller but played alongside him — as a lineman — because of his outsize build.

“He was always a giant growing up,” Miller said.

For four years — before Kmet went to St. Viator and Miller went to Barrington — they were in the same Pee Wee program.

“Scotty was the speedster on the team,” said Kmet, who took a picture with Miller at Soldier Field when the Buccaneers and Bears played this season. “He was always a great player. In Pee Wee, you don’t have great quarterbacks to throw you the football all the time, but whenever he got the ball in his hands, he was dynamic.

“It’s been pretty cool to see how both of us have taken our paths to get to the next level.”

Miller started off as a fourth-string running back at Barrington High School, then moved to defense before eventually using his track-star speed to become an offensive playmaker. Still, he got only one FBS scholarship offer — and that didn’t come until the playoffs of his senior season. Bowling Green saw him return a kickoff for a touchdown — he still calls it one of the biggest plays of his life — and made him an offer. He said yes.

He had only seven catches for 29 yards in 2015 but became a star his sophomore year at BGSU, catching 74 balls for 968 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Over his last three seasons, he caught 208 passes for 2,838 yards and 23 touchdowns. As a senior in 2018, he had 13 catches for 166 yards against mighty Oregon.

Respect eluded him. When he wasn’t named first-team All-MAC his senior year, he wrote down the names of the four players who were and saved it to the background of his phone. He didn’t get invited to the Senior Bowl or to the NFL Scouting Combine. Only two agents were interested in him. At his pro day, Miller ran a 4.39 40-yard dash.

Buccaneers offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich was there. And he was secretly thrilled.

“I remember watching the tape of Scotty, and I loved it — loved the tape,” Leftwich said. “I remember being at his pro day and hoping he’d run slow. I was in the corner, wanting him to run a 4.41. I knew if he ran as fast as I thought he would, he’d open the eyes of a lot of people because I didn’t know if everybody saw the tape.

“I was like, ‘Yes! That [4.39] won’t trigger anything. That won’t trigger people to look this guy up and see who he is.’ ”

The Buccaneers drafted him in the sixth round — No. 208 overall — in 2019. As a rookie, he caught 13 passes for 200 yards. This season, he emerged as one of Brady’s favorite weapons with 33 catches for 501 yards.

His NFC title-game touchdown vaulted him into celebrity. Last week, during an appearance on “The Dan Patrick Show,” he was asked if he was faster than Tyreek Hill, the Chiefs star considered the swiftest player in the NFL. Miller called himself the fastest player in the league.

This week, Hill said Miller gave the right answer — the same one any self-confident athlete would.

“But do I think he’s faster than me? I don’t know,” Hill said this week. “Maybe we can do something at halftime. Line it up.”

Miller will have bigger priorities Sunday. Just ask the Packers.

“After 20 weeks, you would think there would be some respect about his speed,” Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians said. “I’m sure there will be Sunday.”