Kevin Durant plays intramural flag football at Oklahoma State
So, Kevin Durant tweets Monday night that he’s bored with the NBA lockout and asks if there are any flag football games going on in Oklahoma City. Kid tweets back at him about a game on the Oklahoma State campus. And this is the result:
Kevin Durant plays intramural flag football at Oklahoma State University, Oct. 31, 2011. Photo by KT King, with permission. (@shuttrking)
Yep, that’s one of the NBA’s biggest stars spending his Halloween night playing intramural flag football with a bunch of OSU students.
The power of Twitter/social media continues to amaze me. It’s how KD put out to the world that he was looking for something to do, and it’s how George Overbey invited him to play. Here’s a rundown of their Twitter exchange:
@KDTrey5: This lockout is really boring…anybody playing flag football in Okc…
@groverbey: Got a game tonight in Stillwater!! I need a deep threat!!
@KDTrey5: can I play
@groverbey: Can you catch?? Weve won the ‘ship for 3 years! Tonight @ 10
@KDTrey5: forreal?
@groverbey: Only if you bring your A game. Yes for real! Come up early and hangout, go over some plays.
And Twitter is how word spread that he was in town. Shoot, it’s how I knew he was in town. When I arrived at the field, there were probably about 1,000 people there, maybe more. I’m terrible at estimating crowd size.
I only caught the last few minutes of the game. But in the short time I was there, I saw a Durant pick, a Durant deep ball and a Durant touchdown pass. Not to mention some KD dance moves.
After the game, Durant was swarmed but signed autographs as he was escorted back to his van.
Durant tweeted after the game: “I had soooo much fun at Oklahoma st playing flag football! Shoutout to my new buddy @groverbey for inviting me! I threw 4 tds and had 3 ints!!”
That’s one way to spend Halloween…
Darnell Mayberry’s Thunder Rumblings: Kevin Durant plays flag football at Oklahoma State
Kevin Durant’s Blog: Flag Football at Oklahoma State
Tailgate Blog: Sweet ride
This was once an ambulance.
Now it’s quite possibly the coolest tailgate-mobile I’ve ever seen.
Terry Stewart, who owns the vehicle, admits his idea wasn’t totally original. He saw another OSU tailgating group using an ambulance to store all its tailgating needs and decided he’d like to try the same thing. He found one on Ebay in New York for about $20,000 and little-by-little turned it into the perfect ride for a Cowboy fanatic and debuted it for the last two home games of last season. They hope to take it on the road soon, where I’m sure they’d get plenty of interesting looks!
Tim Jessell, who did the artwork inside Gallagher-Iba Arena and Boone Pickens Stadium when the facilities were renovated, was hired to paint the vehicle. Check out the details on the inside and outside.
Yes, that’s a keg connected to the vehicle.
Stewart said he expects between 30 and 40 people to show up to his tailgate at some point, which started at 9:15 and will go until 7 or 8 p.m. after the game. They will be doing a shrimp boil tonight. They’re in the BPS parking lot on the east side of the stadium if you want to swing by.
Here are some other photos that I snapped during my walk to the stadium.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to take in the Friday night festivities of Homecoming due to a prior commitment (girl’s got to have a life outside of work every once in a while, right?). I’m already looking forward to that next year.
Jamie Blatnick: Best defensive end during Mike Gundy era?
My piece in Friday’s paper is about the connection between Jamie Blatnick and Caleb Lavey, who both come from the tiny town of Celina, Texas that is home to one of the state’s biggest football powerhouses.
I enjoyed hearing stories about Blatnick’s and Lavey’s childhoods from both players and their high school coach, Butch Ford. And you could hear in Ford’s voice just how excited the folks of Celina are about two of their favorite sons starting for the No. 3 college football team in the nation and contributing at a high level.
What that story did not allow me to do, however, was really zero in on the season Blatnick is having.
Blatnick is tied for third in the Big 12 with six sacks and ranks fourth in the conference with 8.5 tackles for loss. He also has an interception, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery and three pass break-ups—and all of those have come over the Cowboys’ last three games.
Mike Gundy said Monday that Blatnick is “very worthy of strong consideration” for the All-Big 12 team and called him the most consistent defensive end at OSU since Antonio Smith.
During Smith’s senior season in 2003, he had 29 tackles and five sacks. Blatnick has already passed Smith in both of those categories with five games to play.
And since Smith played under Les Miles, that means Gundy indirectly called Blatnick the best defensive end he’s ever had as a head coach.
Blatnick has obviously had his ups and downs on and off the field at OSU, but he is playing the best football of his career right now.
Power Lunch: Chat with John Helsley
OSU-Mizzou Chat Recap
Pokes Preview: Missouri
No. 4 OSU (6-0, 3-0 Big 12) vs. Missouri (3-3, 1-2 Big 12)
11 a.m. at Faurot Field
The skinny on Missouri
The Tigers’ 3-3 record is misleading, as all three of Mizzou’s losses have come on the road by 10 points or less to ranked teams that are a combined 17-2. MU features the best rushing attack in the Big 12, averaging 236.5 yards per game. Sophomore James Franklin is a dual-threat quarterback, accounting for 1,488 passing yards and 10 touchdowns to go along with 390 rushing yards and seven touchdowns.
Figures to know
10: The number of games in a row Mizzou has won at home
8: The number of games in a row OSU has won on the road
OSU player to watch: Jamie Blatnick
The senior defensive end has been a monster over the Cowboys’ last two games, tallying 13 tackles (five for loss), three sacks, two quarterback hurries, one fumble recovery, one interception and one pass break-up. Defensive line play will be huge again today with MU’s running game and Franklin’s mobility.
MU player to watch: Michael Egnew
Fanklin discovered the tight end against Iowa State, as he recorded six catches for 105 yards and a touchdown. He’ll line up in the slot and is a tall target for Franklin.
Matchups to watch
OSU front seven vs. MU running game
This has been a very consistent “matchup to watch” all season, but it really will be important today given MU’s productive running game. The Cowboys gave up 231 rushing yards against Texas, including 135 to Malcolm Brown, and Henry Josey is the Big 12’s leading rusher (119.5 yards per game).
OSU passing attack vs. MU secondary
Todd Monken and Brandon Weeden both mentioned this week that MU likes to mix up coverages on defense to try to disrupt the quarterback’s rhythm. Will the Tigers routinely triple-cover Justin Blackmon like Texas did last week?
Uniform prediction: All white
OK, I’ve cheated. I’m sitting in the press box and the team is already out on the field warming up. And the storm trooper uniforms look solid. I’d give them an A.
Final score prediction: OSU 35, MU 24
Power Lunch: Chat with John Helsley
Catching Up, Sort Of, With Kendall Hunter
By John Helsley
follow on twitter @jjhelsley
The revelation that Cowgirls point guard Tiffany Bias and former Cowboys running back Kendall Hunter are an item is nothing short of fascinating.
Not that they don’t make a fine pair; wouldn’t begin to know.
It’s just that they’re so, well, different.
Bias is outgoing and inviting of conversation, while Hunter is as quiet and humble as they come, to the point he avoids interaction as well as he avoids contact in the open field.
So I asked Bias, did you have to approach him?
“A little bit,” she said. “I’m mean, I’m loud and I’ll go talk to anyone. We’re kind of totally opposite, he’s quiet and I’m loud. But once he opens up, he’s actually loud. He will laugh loud and tell jokes. He’s really great.”
The two met at a frozen yogurt shack last fall in Stillwater when Bias, then a freshman, had only been on campus a few months.
“We exchanged numbers and after that we talked,” Bias said. “I was taken right off the market after that.”
Even though Hunter is in San Francisco and Bias is in Stillwater, the romance continues.
“It’s really difficult,” Bias said. “He’s my best friend and now he’s 15,000 miles away.”
She’s been out there and he’s coming home this week, with the 49ers on their bye week in the NFL.
So they manage.
“It’s hard, but at the same time, it’s time management,” Bias said. “I’m really busy. He’s really busy with football. So it kind of works out. We have to keep our main focuses, which is sports right now. It’s good that he understands my time and I understand his.”
Bias reports that Hunter hasn’t gotten the big head with his big job and big paycheck. No trip to the Mercedes lot.
“No, he’s actually really good with his money,” she said. “He hasn’t done anything over the top, gone and bought a huge car or anything like that. He’s very conservative with money. He’s very humble about everything.”
Same old Kendall, although he did allow himself one purchase.
“Well, he loves electronics,” she said. “That big flat screen TV, he went and got something like that. It’s a man thing.”
Something for her, perhaps?
“He always gets me little gifts here and there,” Bias said. “That’s just who he is, he’s always done stuff like that.”
More on Todd Monken’s profanity during “Depth Chart”
Monday was the first time Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Todd Monken was made available to respond to the high amount of profanity that came out of his mouth during ESPN’s “Depth Chart” special about Oklahoma State football that premiered last week. Actually, he was available after the game Saturday, but that obviously was not an appropriate time to bring that subject up.
Monken welcomed the questions and said plenty that I could not fit into one story. So here are some more of his quotes:
“It affects you more when it’s you. If that was someone else, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. If that was Mike Gundy ranting or someone else…but when it’s you, you wouldn’t want your players to see that. They wouldn’t see it as that—they would see me as being excited—but I was embarrassed over it.”
“I’m confident in my ability to coach and motivate and all those things, but I wouldn’t have figured that out of five weeks of filming, that’s what they came up with.”
“I thought they took liberties at turning the show into about reality TV and me being the swearing idiot, goofy, son-of-a-gun and took away from our university and our players, and I think that’s sad. But I think (the show) was well-done. I thought they had the best intentions.”
“I just didn’t want it to take away from the university, because you’re no longer just representing yourself. It’s one thing if I’m ranting at my house. It’s another when it’s a show on Oklahoma State University. I thought it showed a negative light on it.”
“The hardest part is when you’re trying to communicate and coach, if you’re not careful, the moment that you need them to be listening the most, they’ve tuned you out. That’s what I never want to have happen—that if I’m swearing and I’m ranting and raving, that the point I’m trying to get across, they’re now defending themselves and not listening because you’re M-F’ing them, and you’re not getting across the point.”
“First of all, it was me saying it, so it’s no one’s fault but my own. But the bottom line is that I want to make sure that our guys understand that in order to be great, you’ve got to be pushed. We’re going to push our guys, we’re going to coach ‘em hard. I just wish I had done it in a different way.”
I was “prepped” for the bleeps by our media writer, Mel Bracht, who got to watch the show before it aired so he could review it for last Wednesday’s paper. But I didn’t really need to be prepped…I’ve been to enough practices and have spoken to Monken enough to know his personality and vocabulary. And I didn’t think much of it while watching the show, because it’s not exactly uncommon to hear curse words on a football practice field. Gregg Smith, Arizona State’s offensive line coach, swears just as frequently as Monken. You can hear him screaming all kinds of creative forms of profanity from the parking lot.
But after the show aired, that was absolutely the No. 1 thing people were talking about. My dad, who has no connection to OSU besides the fact that his daughter covers the school, sent me numerous text messages about it. It was one of the first things I was asked about in Thursday’s Power Lunch chat. Folks in the OSU media relations office brought it up to me as well and wanted to know what fan reaction was like on my end.
I found it interesting that Monken is trying to change. And cutting out the curse words obviously was not a straight-up reaction to the show, because his 17 consecutive days of no swearing at practice dates back to before it aired. It was a group decision, and players and coaches have definitely noticed the effort. And it will also help Monken in the future if he desires to become a head coach in college football.
Gundy was asked about how often he’s used profanity during his coaching career, and he said he’s never felt the need to swear. He estimated he curses about three times during a week of practice, and that he only directs them at a group, not an individual.
“The approach you want to take is, if there was a fan or someone who was close to our program that was (at practice) and had their kid there with them, how would you coach?” Gundy said. “That’s really the way you want to do it, and then you won’t ever have any problems.”
I’ve touched on this before, but I like Monken. He’s an intense, colorful guy that will openly and honestly answer every question you ask. I appreciate that as a reporter. I’ve never taken him for a “bad guy” because he swears more than I do. His fiery personality is a big part of what makes him an effective coach, but if he feels toning it down will make him even better and he wants to work on that, good for him.
Power Lunch: Chat with Gina Mizell
