Bomar still an NFL prospect
Rhett Bomar has been out of sight and out of mind for the past few years.
Many in the Sooner Nation would say that’s good news.
Booted from the Oklahoma football team for taking money for work he didn’t do at Big Red Sports and Imports, the quarterback became Public Enemy No. 1 for many a Sooner fan. He transferred to Sam Houston State. The division was lower. The stage was smaller. But Bomar just wanted to get his football career back on track.
Looks like he’s done it.
Looks like he might not be out of sight, out of mind much longer, either.
Bomar is expected to be drafted in the middle rounds of the NFL Draft later this spring. So says a story on FoxSports.com. He is strutting his stuff this week at the NFL Combine. That means he’s being poked and prodded. It also means he’s being asked about what happened at OU.
And according to the FoxSports.com story, that won’t be much of an issue come draft day. NFL scouts, apparently, are more concerned about his arm strength than they are about his NCAA rules violation.
It’s hard to blame them.
For starters, the infractions might have been major in the eyes of the NCAA and college football types everywhere, but they are small potatoes compared to some of the issues that NFL teams must grapple with on draft day. There are prospects with arrests and convictions. There are resumes that include assaults and DUIs right beside 40 times and bench press reps.
Bomar’s offenses are minor compared to that.
Then, there is his ability.
I had a chance to meet Bomar when he was still a high school senior in Grand Prairie, Texas. I went down there to work on a story about him and had a chance to see one of his workouts with his personal trainer. He was doing drills specific to the quarterback positions, things with drops and such that I can’t imagine many high school quarterbacks are doing.
And it showed.
Everyone saw the results while he was at OU. He could throw. He could run. He could do just about everything. He has an NFL skill set.
Now, I’m not saying he’s a first-day guy in the draft. I’m not saying he’s going to start right away or become some great NFL quarterback because, frankly, such things are rare even with the most talented players. But Bomar has always shown abilities that could one day take him to the NFL.
Looks like that day will come soon.
More from The Q&A: Charlie Johnson
Like millions of Americans, Charlie Johnson will watch the Super Bowl this weekend.
But unlike most of us, he’ll watch it after having played in the game.
The former Oklahoma State Cowboy was only a rookie two years ago when the Indianapolis Colts made the big game. He was a reserve offensive lineman, but when one of the starters was injured, he was called into duty. He played the last three quarters and helped the Colts to victory.
Jenni Carlson: Is watching the Super Bowl different after you’ve played in it?
Charlie Johnson: It gives you a different perspective. You see the things the guys go through during the week, and then you watch the game … and I can watch and say, “I know what he’s feeling. I can understand maybe what’s going through his head.” Seeing all the lights, seeing all the cameras, seeing all that stuff, I can kind of get a perspective on what they’re going through.
Before, I would watch it and root for a team, but now I watch it and it’s kind of bittersweet. I’ve been there. I want to go again. Like this year, with
JC: Did you have a “Welcome to the Super Bowl” moment?
CJ: Probably when we went to our media day. Just the amount of people that were at the media day was unbelievable. I think I heard somewhere that this year they gave out 633 credentials, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was close to that and it may have been more. There are sports people there who work ESPN and all that stuff, but then you see people from “Entertainment Tonight,” “Inside Edition.” You even see guest hosts for “The Jay Leno Show.” You see all these outside people. When you see that, you’re like, “This is big.”
JC: So, those type of folks aren’t usually there after practice on, say, a Tuesday in Indy?
CJ: (Chuckles.) No, you don’t see “E! Entertainment.”
JC: If you ever get back to the Super Bowl, is there anything you would do different?
CJ: Hmm, I don’t know. I’m a creature of habit and kind of superstitious. If something works, I’m going to try to stick to it. If I do something during the week and we win a game, I’m gonna do it the next week. Or if I do something and we lose, I’m not going to do it anymore. It’s easy to say I wouldn’t change anything, but I don’t know.
JC: What are you up to this off-season?
CJ: I’m in Indy. Just taking care of some stuff around the house because me and my wife are expecting the first part of April.
JC: Congrats.
CJ: Yeah, we are getting everything ready.
JC: So, does that mean you’re spending the off-season building a crib and things like that?
CJ: Some what. (Laughs.)
JC: Talk about this past season. Do you feel like you’ve found a permanent home on the offensive line?
CJ: I guess individually (the season) went well. I didn’t have any injuries. I started all 16 games, and then the playoff game. Individually, it went well, but as a whole, it’s disappointing. You feel like you have a team that has a chance … a team that could go all the way and win the championship. And when you lose, it hurts. I took it real hard there for probably about a week to two weeks. This was my first year that I played. I played a lot last year, but there was injury and I didn’t play in the playoffs, but this year, pretty much from camp, I was a starter. I went through a whole year. I put a lot more time in because I knew I was going to be playing a lot, so for the season to end like that … it was tough.
JC: What about next season? Change is on the horizon for the franchise, so have you started to think about what’s next?
CJ: Last year, the preseason was kind of weird. I was going to play one spot, and then, I moved over and I stayed there, but it was kind of back and forth. We’re getting some guys back and healthy that were former starters, so I really don’t know what’s going to happen with me. I would hope that last year proved a point that I can play a whole year and play well. Hopefully, I have a spot, but we’ll see.
Team-wise, I’m going to feel like any other guy and think that we have a good team, we have a good core in place. We’ve won a lot of games for a lot of years now, and I really don’t see that changing. A lot of people are going to say, “New head coach. New routine.” But I really don’t see a lot changing. Even with a new coach, things will probably stay how it’s been. I see us winning a lot of games and hopefully being in contention in January.
What if Texas had finished higher?
There has been an excessive amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth since the BCS standings were announced Sunday afternoon.
As everyone knows, Oklahoma finished ahead of Texas, and that broke the three-way tie in the Big 12 South.
Since then, college football has been in a tizzy. Fans are up in arms. Regional and national pundits have almost unanimously decried what happened. Some argued that the Big 12 tiebreaker system is flawed. Others asserted that the Longhorns got jobbed.
But what if it went the other way?
What if Texas had stayed ahead of OU? What if the Longhorns were the ones getting ready for this weekend’s Big 12 title game in Kansas City?
My guess — college football would still be in a twist over what happened.
Think about it. Mack Brown and Texas spent more than a week politicking. They told anyone who would listen that they beat OU, that that should be the only criteria that matter and that they should be going to Kansas City.
Listen, I’m not saying what the Longhorns did is right or wrong.
What I am saying is that if Texas would’ve managed to sway enough pollsters to switch their vote thereby swinging the BCS number in their favor, would that have made all of college football feel better? The politicking of one powerful program would’ve swayed the outcome of the season.
Would that have been an outcome everyone could’ve lived with?
Something tells me that would’ve caused its own wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Formula for OSU upset
In the pages of The Oklahoman today, I went on the record saying Texas Tech will win Saturday.
It’s a big game in Lubbock, as everyone knows. Both Tech and Oklahoma State are going after a conference crown and perhaps even a national title, and frankly, the teams are pretty evenly matched.
Why do I give Tech the edge?
Location, location, location. Playing this game in Lubbock will put the Red Raiders over the top.
But still, I think there’s a way for the Cowboys to win. I even believe there’s a tell-tale stat that could spell victory — Kendall Hunter’s rushing yards.
The Cowboy running back has been spectacular this season. He’s already run for over 1,200 yards, and he averages 6.7 yards per touch. Even more impressive is the fact that he went over 150 yards in OSU’s two biggest games of the season. Hunter had 154 yards at Missouri and 161 yards at Texas.
If Hunter runs for 150 yards or more against Tech, I think OSU will win.
The Red Raiders, after all, have one of the stingiest rush defenses in the country. They’re allowing less than a 100 yards rushing a game. That hurts opponents not only offensively but also defensively. Them not being able to rush the ball much means that Tech’s high-powered offense gets back on the field a lot more.
A big day from Hunter would change that and give the Cowboys a great chance of proving yours truly absolutely wrong.
Could Bradford leave? You betcha
When word broke last week that Sam Bradford might be the top prospect in the next NFL Draft, plenty of folks waved a dismissive hand.
“Not Sam,” they said. “He just doesn’t seem like a guy who’d leave school early.”
I tend to think the same thing about the Oklahoma quarterback. Then again, I thought that last fall about another Sooner.
Check out my latest video commentary or continue reading below:
Last winter a couple days after OU won the Big 12 championship game, Curtis Lofton sat at a table with several media types. Talk of the NFL came up.
My first thought — Curtis leaving early for the NFL? No way.
Sure, he’d just had an amazing junior season. He’s shown himself the best defensive player around. But the NFL?
Lofton seemed as unbelieving as I did. He admitted that he’d thought about playing in the league, but still, as reporters asked about submitting video to be evaluated by NFL draft types, Lofton had this bemused look on his face. It was a look that said, “Me leaving early for the NFL? Whodathunk it?”
I surely didn’t think it would happen.
Then within a month, Lofton had decided he was leaving for the NFL. His choice stunned many, and yet, Lofton is now starting for the Atlanta Falcons.
Could Bradford be starting for the Lions or Bengals or Chiefs next season?
My gut says no, but it said the same thing about Lofton. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that these are local guys, Lofton from Kingfisher, Bradford from Oklahoma City. Maybe when you’ve seen them playing Berryhill and PC West in the not so distant past, it’s hard to think about them facing the Minnesota Vikings or the New York Giants.
Listen, I’m not saying Bradford will leave OU after this season. But to think there’s absolutely no way it could happen, well, I’m going to wave a dismissive hand at that.
Ryan Reynolds, hockey star?
Sometimes, reporters start working on a story and discover an unexpected tale along the way.
So it was this week for me while working on a story about Ryan Reynolds.
You’ve likely heard his story — the Oklahoma linebacker recovered from two major knee surgeries and was having an amazing season for the Sooners when he suffered another knee injury. He tore his anterior cruciate ligament in the Texas game and will miss the rest of the season.
You can read the story about Reynolds and his continuing role on this OU team in today’s Oklahoman or on NewsOK.com
In talking to his father, Craig, I discovered that Reynolds was quite the hockey player. He was a member of several Arizona state championship teams in roller hockey as a kid, then around the age of 7, he decided to give ice hockey a try.
Trouble was, the family lived in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., which had no ice rinks.
More trouble was, the closest ice rink was either in Phoenix or Las Vegas. Both cities were a three-hour drive from Lake Havasu City.
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday after Reynolds finished school, his parents would make the three-hour drive to Phoenix for an hour and a half practice, then drive three hours back. Reynolds would do his homework in the car.
“And we did that for five years,” Craig Reynolds said.
The younger Reynolds praised his parents for making the sacrifice, but he made it pay off. He played on the under-12 national team, even traveling to Canada for an international tournament.
Reynolds eventually gave up hockey; he disliked the drive not the sport.
“If he lived in an area where there were closer rinks and he didn’t burn out on the drive,” his father said, “he would’ve been playing ice hockey and not football.”
Texas on top again
A crazy day of college football brought upheaval in the polls.
Ditto for the Heisman polls.
My ballot for the HeismanPundit.com/Orlando Sentinel straw poll changed as much this week as it has all season. Chase Daniel, who had moved to the top for a couple weeks, fell like a rock. Colt McCoy, who wasn’t even on my ballot until a week ago, zoomed to the top.
The Texas quarterback took over the top spot in the overall balloting, too, receiving nine of the 10 first-place votes.
Four of the top five spots are held by Big 12 players, including Sam Bradford at No. 2, and eight of the dozen players who received votes are from the conference, too. That includes Oklahoma State running back Kendall Hunter and wide receiver Dez Bryant.
You can see all of the poll at www.HeismanPundit.com.
Here’s a look at my ballot:
1. McCoy: He had a huge game on an even bigger stage, going 28 of 35 for 277 yards against Oklahoma. He looks like the real McCoy.
2. Bradford: Can’t pin the Sooners’ loss on him. He threw five touchdown passes against the Longhorns. If the Sooners can get back on the winning track, his Heisman hopes will remain alive and well.
3. Graham Harrell: I can’t ignore the Texas Tech quarterback anymore. He threw for two touchdowns and ran for a third against Nebraska. He also hit a big pass in overtime that moved the Red Raiders to the 1-yard line, where they punched it in and scored the game-winner.
4. Hunter: The OSU tailback had a big game against No. 3 Missouri. With 154 yards, he put himself square in the Heisman cross-hairs. Have another big game next week at Texas, and who knows how high the little man could climb.
5. Daniel: Can’t ignore his three interceptions against the Cowboys. A couple of them looked like poor decisions, and Heisman Trophies are won and lost by what you do at crunch time.
OSU victory gets better with time
More than 24 hours have passed since Oklahoma State’s stunning upset of Missouri, and frankly, it’s still pretty stunning.
Not that the Cowboys won. That part has definitely sunk in. No, the thing that gets me is how they won.
Watch my latest video commentary or continue reading below:
If you’d have asked anyone before the game for an upset formula, just about everyone would’ve said that the offense needed to have a big day. And even more than that, one of the Cowboy stars would’ve needed to have a career day. Surely, Dez Bryant or Kendall Hunter or Zac Robinson needed to do something spectacular. Maybe Bryant needed 200 yards receiving or Hunter needed 300 yards rushing. Perhaps Robinson needed to throw for 300 or rush for 100 or both. Or maybe another Cowboy needed to do something out of this world. Maybe it would be Keith Toston or Damian Davis.
But in the end, OSU didn’t have anyone do anything super special. Sure, Hunter had 154 yards rushing and Robinson threw for 215 yards. Yes, Davis had a couple touchdown catches.
Plenty of guys had nice days, but no one had an eye-popping, jaw-dropping day. And still, the Cowboys beat the Tigers.
OSU didn’t need that career day from someone to pull the Saturday shocker.
The reason? The Cowboys are stout.
They could’ve gone to Missouri and won because they used a bunch of trickery or because the Tigers made a bunch of unforced errors, but that isn’t what happened. OSU won by simply doing what it does. It ran its offense and played its defense.
No more.
No less.
That makes what the Cowboys did Saturday all the more telling. They didn’t need to do something spectacular to beat the No. 3 team in the country. They just needed to do what they do.
And right now, what they can do is pretty darn impressive.
Is that really Les Miles?
Just saw the strangest thing — Les Miles in a low hat.
Everyone in these parts knows the former Oklahoma State coach’s signature look. Whether in his old job with the Cowboys or his new gig at LSU, he always seemed to wear those ball caps with extremely flat, high fronts.
Around headquarters, those lids spawned a nickname for Miles.
The High Hat.
In any event, I happened to catch some footage of Miles’ post-practice interview Thursday, and I did a double take. Seeing Miles in the more, um, well, normal hat made him look a bit like a football coach from the 50s. He looked a little bit what I imagine Bo Schembechler looked like in his early days at Michigan.
I almost expected the camera to pan down and catch of glimpse of old-school canvas Chuck Taylor’s or something.
You can check out video of Miles here.
He happened to be talking , by the way, about some comments that stirred controversy earlier this week. LSU defensive tackle Ricky Jean-Francois said the Tigers would be going after Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, trying to knock the Gator gunslinger out of the game in their big showdown Saturday.
“The idea that he would hit him and hit him hard is something that every quarterback in this league, including ours, is going to have to deal with when it comes to Saturday,” Miles said.
He continued, “We want to get to the quarterback, but we want to get to the quarterback every week. It doesn’t make a difference if it’s Florida’s quarterback or Auburn’s quarterback or whoever we play.”
Listen, I didn’t have a problem with Jean-Francois’s comments. Of course the Tigers want to get to Tebow. Every defensive player wants that every week, every play. Most just don’t say it.
Jean-Francois was being honest, saying what every defensive player is thinking.
Hard to criticize a guy for that.
Shadows of the 2000 Sooners
There’s been lots of talk lately about this Oklahoma football team resembling the Sooners of yesteryear.
The 2003 and 2004 teams are the most popular comparisons. Thing is, there’s a team looking a lot like the 2000 Sooners. And it’s not OU.
Watch my latest video commentary or continue reading below:
Alabama has many of the same ear-markings of the 2000 team that won the national championship. Some of the similarities, frankly, are so close that they’re eerie.
In 2000, the Sooners had a hot coach in his second season in Bob Stoops. Now, the Crimson Tide has Nick Saban, a hot coach in his second season.
In 2000, the Sooners relied heavily a bunch of youngsters, guys like Derrick Strait and Brandon Everage among them. Now, the Crimson Tide are doing the same. It has a bunch of first- and second-year guys leading the charge.
In 2000, the Sooners scored a big-time beatdown of their hated rival. OU throttled Texas that season, a defining win that resonates even now. Last weekend, the Crimson Tide notched a defining victory of its own, going to Georgia and smacking around the Bulldogs. At one point, the Crimson Tide rolled up a huge lead in the first half.
Told you the similarities were striking.
Nate Hybl saw them for himself last weekend. Earlier this week, I had a chance to talk to the former OU quarterback who now lives in Atlanta, and he told me he was actually at the Alabama-Georgia game. He had the same feeling then as he did in 2000 at the Texas game. Hybl said there was a moment in that game eight years ago where everyone looked around and said, “Wow, how good could we be?”
Hybl felt like Alabama types had a similar moment against Georgia, that realization that they might be even better than they thought.
Now, I’m here to tell you that Alabama has a tougher row to hoe than OU did in 2000. The SEC is deeper now than the Big 12 was then. But the Sooners did have perhaps the toughest three-game stretch college football has ever seen. Top five Texas. No. 1 Kansas State. No. 1 Nebraska.
Having to maneuver through a rough road isn’t the only thing that the 2008 Crimson Tide and the 2000 Sooners have in common.
Only time will tell, though, how far the similarities will go.
