Slingin’ Sam: Will he play or not?
A.D. and Co. know how to have fun
Hurricane warning in South Florida
Heisman Trophy talk
How can the Heisman Trophy race be so clear, yet so muddled at the same time?
Yours truly is a voter in the HeismanPundit.com/Orlando Sentinel straw poll. Every week, myself and about a dozen other voters submit our top five picks for the Heisman Trophy, and over the past few weeks, a pattern has emerged. The players among the top three are clear cut, but everything else is anyone’s guess.
Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, Texas quarterback Colt McCoy and Cal running back Jahvid Best are the top guys at this point in the season.
After that, who knows?
Even the order of the top three guys has shuffled around a bit. I’ve kept Tebow, McCoy and Best in the same order on my ballot since we voted after the opening week of the season. (Sam Bradford dropped off after his shoulder injury.) But the poll changed this week when Best traded places with McCoy, moving into second place behind Tebow.
As for other contenders, I think I’ve changed my No. 4 and No. 5 vote-getters every week. I haven’t had the same two in consecutive weeks yet. I’ve had everyone from Mississippi quarterback Jevon Snead to Oklahoma State receiver Dez Bryant to Houston quarterback Case Keenum to Miami quarterback Jacory Harris.
It’s been a rotating door.
But then, that’s probably how it should be this time of year. Thing is, with the top three finalists returning this year, everyone thought this would be a pretty stable Heisman race. It would be Bradford, McCoy and Tebow, and that would be the end of the story.
Bradford’s injury has changed that. Ditto for Best’s performances, which have been stellar thus far.
So, here’s my ballot, and be sure to check out the entire poll at www.HeismanPundit.com.
1. Tebow
2. McCoy
3. Best
4. Snead
5. Harris
Tulsa will test OU coverage teams
Bradford lucky to return vs. Miami?
Bradford needs line, time
Sam Bradford looks a lot like you remember him.
Smooth. Accurate. Composed.
Unless he’s running for his life.
The Oklahoma quarterback was hurried more in the first couple series of the Red-White game Saturday than he was all of last year. Oh, that might be a bit overblown, a smidgen of hyperbole, but not by very much. Bradford clearly didn’t have the time that he had a year ago when he led the Sooners to the national championship game and won the Heisman Trophy.
Offensive line was one of the biggest questions after the Sooners lost four big-time players from last year’s starting unit. Out are Jon Cooper, Phil Loadholt, Duke Robinson and Brandon Walker. In are Ben Habern, Cory Brandon, Brian Simmons and Stephen Good. Trent Williams is the only holdover.
Everyone knew it would take time for this new group to come together.
Clearly, that time has yet to arrive.
Did the Sooner offensive line do some nice things in the Red-White Game? Sure, but Bradford was “sacked” twice in the first possession. (Being “sacked” in the spring game means that a defender got to him and would’ve lit him up in a full-contact situation, but being the spring, full contact is a no-no where quarterbacks are concerned.) Slingin’ Sam was sacked an average of once a game last season.
He wasn’t just sacked. He was rushed, too. Bradford missed a couple throws because he just didn’t have time. Several other times, he went with a hot read or a quick out or a dump off to get simply get rid of the ball.
It was a positive play, a smart play, but it wasn’t the play it might have been.
Bradford looks like he’s every bit as good as he was a year ago, but it might not look like it come the fall unless the offensive line improves.
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.
