HELLO, AGAIN!
By Danny Reagan / Abilene, Texas
Everyone wants to talk about OU redshirt freshman Sam Bradford. More about him later. I have a better story.
On the last weekend in November 2004, two 12-0 Texas high school teams lined up against each other in the Class 2A playoffs. One was Jim Ned, and the other was Canadian.
The offensive star for the Jim Ned Indians was Colt McCoy. The defensive star for the Canadian Wildcats was Auston English. One is now the starting quarterback for the Texas Longhorns, and one is now the sack leader for the Oklahoma Sooners.
English (No. 33) is the sophomore defensive end for the Sooners who has 4 sacks. The 6-3, 253-pounder has a vertical leap of 32.5 inches - third best on the team. In high school he led the Wildcats with 11 sacks during his senior year.
"Yeah, I remember him (English)," said Colt's dad Brad who was the Jim Ned coach at the time. "He was a great player, and we played him a couple of times. He was the backbone of Canadian's team, not just as linebacker and defensive end, but running back as well."
I can't find the stats for that game, so I don't know if English had a sack on McCoy or not. He'll be looking for one or two this Saturday, that's for sure, and Colt will be looking for him.
BTW, Colt's Indians almost pulled out a come-from-behind victory on that day back in 2004, but the Wildcats won 32-27.
Dad's Take: "Colt is lot better today than Saturday, of course," said
Brad. "It was a mild concussion. Colt's not concerned about his head, but we are." Colt had a concussion in high school and one last year.
Colt's normal brain activity after the injury on Saturday was just the same as his "baseline scan" taken earlier in the summer, according to Brad. That means no more than a mild concusision at the worst - and there was no memory loss or unconsciousness, just some nausea.
"Colt is more concerned about his sore knee, arm and other different places where he got beat up," said Brad.
Brad will be in the stands again on the 45-yard line right next to the rest of the UT and OU parents.
Stoops' Take: In his press conference, OU head coach Bob Stoops was asked about Colt's 4 interceptions: “You want to get pressure on the quarterback and Kansas State was able to do that. Colt McCoy is a great quarterback. He’s probably one of the best.�
The Dallas Morning News was able to get Stoops to expound upon that when they asked him what was wrong with Colt. The OU coach repeated what a number of UT fans have been saying this week: "There's nothing wrong with him, he just needs some protection in the backfield."
Sam Bradford: On paper, the new OU signal-caller is off to a better start than either Colt (last year's or this year's).
Bradford is 83-of-115 (72.2%) for 15 TDs and only 4 picks for 1,179 yards. Colt's numbers last year after 5 games were much better than this year after five games. Needless to say, they are both going to put on a show.
The thing I like about the 6-4, 214-pound Bradford is that he is from Oklahoma City - as in he's not a kid from Texas who should've stayed in the Lone Star State to play for either UT or Texas Tech (but not A&M). ;-P~