Ten years ago, in a small classroom in Montpellier, France, an 11-year-old boy’s life was changed forever when a local French coach walked into the room with a collection of baseball bats, gloves and balls.
KU junior Mathis Nayral had no idea the coach was coming that day and had only a slightly better idea of what baseball was in the first place.
But when he picked up that aluminum bat for the first time, something inside of him clicked.
“Right away, I was like this is what I want,” the KU starting pitcher told R1S1 Sports during a conversation this week in the KU dugout. “I had tried other sports, but this was the one.”
Like all little kids, Nayral wanted to become a star with the bat. As he said, hitting is just fun. But as he grew in the game — both in terms of his understanding and physical size — it became clearer and clearer that he had real potential as a pitcher.
“I didn’t want to hear about pitching,” he said in clear English with the accompanying classic French accent. “When people would tell me, ‘I think you’re better at pitching.’ I would say, ‘No. You don’t know me. You’re wrong.’”
For a while he did both, playing at the academy in Montpellier for three years from age 13-16, before relocating to Toulouse — 2 hours from his hometown — to enroll at one of two national training centers, a university-style campus where all of the country’s best players and top prospects go to develop.
It was there, early on in his 3-year stay, that he made the move to full-time pitcher. He became convinced it was the right move when he threw and held his own against a group of older French baseball players during a tournament.
From the minute he first picked up that bat at age 11, he knew this was the sport for him. But he said that outing against the older guys was the first time he really thought the game could take him places.
“That was a big one for me as a pitcher,” he said. “I was like, ‘I’m actually pretty legit. If I really want to make it, I’m gonna have to become a pitcher.’”
“At 11, you don’t know much. And I definitely didn’t know anything about baseball then. I got lucky when the coach came to my school because I probably would’ve never known about the sport if that didn’t happen.”
— KU junior Mathis Nayral, of Montpellier, France on his start in baseball
The last time Nayral even had an at-bat did not end well. He doesn’t remember the exact date, but he does remember the result.
“I hit into a double-play,” he recalled. “And that was it for me.”
While it took a while to pull the pitcher out of him, Nayral said it, too, was a perfect fit for him because he always struggled with accepting failure as a hitter.
“When you’re pitching, it’s a lot easier to deal with because you control the game and the pace,” he said. “I realized I loved that way more than hitting.”
He stayed in Toulouse until he was 19 and then found his way to America, first to Florida for a baseball showcase and then to a recruiting camp in Phoenix put on by Major League Baseball for the top European prospects.
While there, the coaching staff at Cochise College, a juco in Sierra Vista, Arizona, saw him and signed him. Just like that, he had a permanent address in the United States.
During the next two years, he made 24 appearances with the Apaches, including 22 starts. He won 12 games, owned a 3.48 ERA and struck out 116 batters in 116.1 innings.
By the time Kansas found him, his days at the plate were long gone.
“Yeah, Mathis is a pitcher. And he’s a good one,” KU pitching coach Brandon Scott told R1S1 Sports this week. “To my knowledge, he doesn’t even know what a bat is.”
Knowing he was ready to move on, Nayral connected with KU when recruiting coordinator Jon Coyne found him and asked him if he wanted to come to the Midwest.
Former Jayhawk Evan Shaw, who was drafted into the Los Angeles Dodgers organization in Round 16 of the 2024 MLB draft, had attended Cochise before Nayral. So, when KU showed interest he reached out to Shaw to ask him about the program and coaches.
“He said you should go, no question about it,” Nayral recalled. “So, I was like, ‘All right. I’m all-in.’ He made it easy.”
So easy, in fact, that he committed to KU in January of 2025, before his second and final season at Cochise. He said he did that so he could focus fully on his sophomore season, but he often thought about what it would be like to make the move to Kansas.
In many ways, just the thought of what was to come was still surreal for him.
“Back in France, all we know about is the Major Leagues,” he said. “Like, D-1, I didn’t even know that was a thing.”
There was no real plan for Nayral when he arrived in Lawrence, other than to find as many ways as possible to take advantage of his 6-foot-5, 210-pound frame and great command and control.
“The guy just competes,” Scott said. “And he can do whatever you need him to do.”
Of late, KU’s needs have expanded to include moving Nayral into the role of Friday night starter. There have been some big-time names and future MLB stars who held that role in the past, but neither Nayral nor Scott wanted to make too much of it when Nayral first got the ball for a Friday night start last week against first-place UCF.
“I don’t think we try to oversell the Friday night thing too much,” Scott said. “And it just works out for him because of how he competes. You know, he’s not gonna walk anybody and that’s what we need on Friday nights.”
Added Nayral: “When I go out there, I try not to think about that because that’s like extra pressure.”
So, what did he think after last week's outing vs. UCF in which he went 4.2 innings and struck out four without giving up an earned run in a no decision?
“Yeah, I loved it,” he said with a grin.
He’s slated to start again this Friday night at Oklahoma State and will be laser-focused on that job when he hits the mound in Stillwater.
On the days he’s not throwing, though, Nayral is not afraid to think big.
He said he and Arizona shortstop Mathis Meurant are the first two Frenchmen to ever play power conference college baseball in the United States, and the two have known each other since they were 12 years old.
What’s more, Baseball Almanac shows that there have only been seven Major League Baseball players who were born in France. And many, if not all, of them did not grow up in Nayral’s home country.
One-time All-Star Charlie Lea was born in Orléans, France but moved to the U.S. at 3 months old and grew up in Memphis. Bruce Bochy, who won four World Series titles as a player and manager, was born in Bussac-Forét, France but moved around a lot with his military father and went to high school in Melbourne, Florida. Bochy’s son, Brett, pitched at KU. And Steve Jeltz, another military brat who was born in Paris, moved to Lawrence for his childhood years before attending KU and going on to play with the Philadelphia Phillies and Kansas City Royals during an 8-year MLB career.
Nayral and Meurant will square off in Tucson for a three-game series in a couple of weeks, and Nayral’s goal in that one will be to be the best Frenchman on the field.
His goals beyond that are much bigger.
“Nobody from France has played in the big leagues,” he said. “I hope to be the first one. I’m doing all this for that. That’s my goal. There is no Plan B.”
Given the way the Jayhawks have seen him improve since arriving in Lawrence, there’s little doubt in the KU dugout that big things are ahead.
“He’s still young in this pitching thing,” Scott said. “He’s not a 10-year veteran on the mound. So he’s learning new stuff all the time. He didn’t know how to hold runners (on base) when he got here. And now he hasn’t given up a stolen base in 4 weeks, and we’ve played Cincinnati, UCF and Utah — the teams that steal the most.”
“He’s learned so much about pitching, other than just throwing the baseball,” Scott added. “So, he’ll have a chance. I think he’s a for-sure pro. He’s a draft prospect. Someone will take him and he will sign.”
Images from KU junior Mathis Nayral pitching during Kansas baseball home games at Hoglund Ballpark. [Kansas Athletics photos]
That, of course, is only the first step toward Nayral achieving his ultimate goal of climbing a Major League mound. And the rest of the road may be long and full of different stops. But finishing strong for the Jayhawks and positioning himself well for this summer's MLB draft are significant steps and something he believes people throughout his homeland are tracking, especially those at the French Federation for Baseball and Softball.
“Back in France, everybody knows,” he said. “There are only like a few (Frenchmen) who are actually in the U.S. playing right now. There are more playing in junior college, but I’d say it’s a pretty big deal for the federation, which is cool. I love that. I want to be part of the reason people say that France actually does produce good baseball players.”
And none of it would’ve ever been possible without that man with the baseball equipment back in Nayral’s 11-year-old classroom.
“At 11, you don’t know much,” he said. “And I definitely didn’t know anything about baseball then. I got lucky when the coach came to my school because I probably would’ve never known about the sport if that didn’t happen.”
Nayral, who is currently 4-1 in 9 appearances this season (all starts), owns a 4.23 ERA with 46 strikeouts and 14 walks in 44.2 innings. He will make his second consecutive Friday night start tonight at Oklahoma State. First pitch for Game 1 of a 3-game series versus the Cowboys is slated for 6 p.m.
The Jayhawks (27-10 overall, 12-3 Big 12) have won 11 in a row and enter teh weekend sitting in first place in the Big 12 Conference.
— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com
