PITTSBURGH —Former Penn Hills quarterback and versatile William & Mary offensive weapon Hollis Mathis is grateful to be at the Pittsburgh Steelers rookie minicamp on a tryout basis this weekend. In just a few days, he's learned that everything that he's heard about the hometown team growing up is true.
"I learned that this organization is pretty much what it looks like from the outside. It's a great organization," Mathis said at the Steelers rookie minicamp on Saturday. "A lot of very smart people teaching a great game. I'm just blessed and honored to even be around. So I'm just happy to get better every day and try to learn what I can"
Mathis started at William & Mary in 2019 as a quarterback, and became just the third quarterback in Tribe program history to start a game as a true freshman. He passed for 976 yards and four touchdowns and ran for another 546 yards and eight touchdowns over 11 games that season.
Mathis started two games in the COVID-19-shortened 2020-21 season, and with the departure of offensive coordinator Brennan Marion, he lost his starting job the following fall. After two seasons as a backup quarterback, Mathis made the switch to wide receiver in 2023. He appeared in 10 games as a redshirt junior, making 27 catches for 373 yards and two touchdowns.
In 2024, he had 52 receptions for 602 yards, to lead the Tribe, and scored three touchdowns. He also rushed 17 times for 105 yards and one touchdown, and threw four passes for 54 yards and two more scores.
"That's my team," Mathis said when asked why he didn't transfer after being moved to wide receiver at William & Mary. "I wanted to find ways to help the team get better.I just wanted to help us win, so I was doing whatever I could to help the team win. I had an opportunity to have an interesting role within the team. It's a great program, great school down there at the college of William & Mary. It would've been hard to find another great combination of academics and athletics. We send a lot of guys to the League. … Those are my guys down there. I'm all about faith, family and football. That brotherhood kept me around."
Hollis Mathis, William & Mary Athletics
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was a star wide receiver at William & Mary in the early 1990s, but that's not the only connection that Mathis has with Tomlin. Mathis grew up with Tomlin's oldest son, Dino. The two played middle school basketball against each other and were teammates on Evolve, which is a 7-on-7 football team at the high school level in Pittsburgh.
"His oldest, Dino, we played sports against each other for a very long time. I always seen Coach Tomlin as Mr. Tomlin. Dino's dad. It was very cool to finally be in a space to see him and call him 'Coach' and have that kind of relationship with him," Mathis said.
The 6-foot-1, 174-pound Mathis ran a 4.59-second 40-yard dash in pre-draft testing and posted a 36.5-inch vertical, 10-foot-10 broad jump, 4.43-second shuttle and 6.9-second three-cone drill. That gave him an 8.68 Relative Athletic Score as a quarterback and a 6.7 RAS as a wide receiver.
As a high school senior , Mathis threw for 2,800 yards and 40 touchdowns on 268 attempts while leading Penn Hills to the program's first state title in 23 years. Mathis followed fellow Pittsburgh native Brennan Marion to William & Mary, where he starred in Marion's Go-Go offense.
Nothing is guaranteed as a rookie tryout, but Mathis is grateful for the opportunity with his hometown team.
"It's always been a dream of mine. This is definitely dream come true, pretty much in every way imaginable," Hollis said. "I'm soaking it all in. Trying to learn as much as I can and trying to get a lot better in these few days."
Alan Saunders and Brendan Howe contributed reporting from Pittsburgh.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now : Pittsburgh Native Honored to Receive Tryout with Steelers: 'It's Always Been a Dream of Mine'
