Tales from the Oklahoma Sooner Sideline

by Barry Switzer

  OU coach Bob Stoops had scheduled a team meeting later in the week and Smith was sitting in the film room talking to quarterback Nate Hybl when this same kid comes walking in.

  “Nate keeps saying, ‘That’s Q, that’s Q.’ But I’m thinking there’s no way. This guy doesn’t look like Quentin in the face. He had the same build and hair, but that was it,” said Smith.

  The “new” kid walks over and sits down in the seat usually assigned to Griffin, and Smith is beside himself.

  “Quentin? Is that you?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” replied Griffin.

  “I’m sorry. I sat by you the entire game the other night and you didn’t say a word,” said Smith, noting that Griffin is one of the quietest guys on the team.

  “Trent had me convinced it wasn’t Q. And really, it didn’t look like him. His face was still badly swollen from the surgery, which we knew nothing about at the time,” added Hybl. “It was a weird deal, because I’m not sure many people recognized him for a while there.”

  Ninja Master

  Mike Leach may have played a small role in the overall history of Oklahoma football, but his impact is undeniable. The first offensive coordinator under head coach Bob Stoops, Leach arrived with his own version of the West Coast spread offense and turned the Big 12 upside-down.

  Opposing coaches either viewed Leach as either crazy or a genius, as he deployed an eccentric, shoot-from-the-hip style that pulled out all of the stops and kept the fans sitting on the edge of their seats.

  “Coach Leach was the oddest character I’ve ever met in my life,” confessed quarterback Nate Hybl. “But he was always the smartest dude in the building when it came to football. Unfortunately, not everybody got what he was trying to say because he was so out there.”

  Leach’s offensive stylings were built around the pass, and quarterback Josh Heupel was the beneficiary, as he rewrote almost every OU single-season passing record during the 1999 season. The Sooners’ multidimensional air attack included an unusual formation called the “Ninja,” which created chaos by spreading players all over the field.

  “Mike had no inhibitions when it came to calling plays. He wasn’t afraid to do anything at any time in a game, no matter what the situation was,” said tight end Trent Smith. “The fans loved it, but it was in contrast to a lot of coaches who are a lot more conventional and structured.”

  After only one season as OU’s offensive coordinator, Leach took the head job at Texas Tech.

  The Dentist

  A lot of college quarterbacks ignore the NCAA rule that states “all players must wear a protective mouthpiece.” Even though it is rarely flagged, failure to have one is a 15-yard penalty.

  OU’s Nate Hybl never wore one. He kept one on the sideline or stuck in his pants, but it made calling signals a bit awkward, so he opted to go without at the risk of getting a penalty.

  Early during the 2001 Oklahoma-Texas A&M game, the head official began conversing with Hybl during breaks in the action when OU’s offense was on the field. They chatted about a variety of things pertaining to the game before the official noticed Hybl was not using a mouthpiece.

  “He asked me where my mouthpiece was and I made up a story about how I had forgotten it that series, but I’d get it next time I was on the sideline,” recalled Hybl. “He looked at me and said, ‘You do that, because not only is it against the rules, but I’m a dentist.’”

  The official went on to explain why players should wear mouthpieces while Hybl listened intently. But that was the end of their conversation. The rest of the day, OU’s quarterback did his best to avoid his company.

  “Every time I ran by him I puffed out my mouth to make it look like I had a mouthpiece in,” said Hybl, flashing a big smile. “Hey, I like my teeth as much as the next guy, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”

  Lost in Lubbock

  The 1999 football season offered its share of twists and turns as Oklahoma ushered in a new era under first-year coach Bob Stoops. The biggest surprises came in the shape of a talented new quarterback and an offense that kept opponents on their heels with a wide-open, no-holds-barred mentality.

  But the young Sooners struggled to finish off opponents in some big games, chalking it up to lack of experience in those situations, one of which occurred in Lubbock, Texas, against Texas Tech.

  Oklahoma jumped out to a 21-13 halftime lead behind QB Josh Heupel, but could not put the Red Raiders away. The result was a 38-28 loss. But that was just the beginning of a very long night.

  In the aftermath, Stoops greeted his team with a high-energy speech that did not spare any feelings. The Sooners had previously failed to hold leads against Notre Dame, Texas and Colorado, and emotions were running high as a result.

  To make matters worse, as the players boarded the team bus, news came down that the charter flight scheduled to take them home that night was experiencing mechanical difficulties. The team ended back up at their hotel, waiting for news about the flight.

  Finally, Stoops announced the flight had been canceled and they were going to make the seven-hour ride home on the bus that night. It was, to say the least, a no-nonsense trip back to Norman.

  The capper came later when the team discovered receivers Curtis Fagan and Mike Jackson had been left behind at the hotel. The pair had fallen asleep in their room and missed the bus. Fagan had frantically tried to call several of his teammates via their cell phones—but no one was brave enough to have them turned on at that point.

  Fagan and Jackson eventually hitched a ride with the parents of OU player Ryan Allen.

  It turned out to be one of those forgettable trips that is hard to scrape from the memory.

  Black October 2000

  During the course of the last century, Oklahoma’s football program has produced dozens upon dozens of victories in big games. In the midst of their run to the national title, the 2000 edition of the Sooners added an impressive list of victims to the list.

  It was called “Black October” or “Red October,” depending which media source you relied on, and it included a stretch of three games against No. 11 Texas, No. 2 Kansas State and top-ranked Nebraska.

  Despite heading to Dallas with a 4-0 mark, Bob Stoops’ OU squad had, at times, been inconsistent on both sides of the ball. General wisdom was if the Sooners emerged from the gauntlet with a 5-2 mark, it would be a good springboard into the rest of the season.

  OU wasn’t buying it.

  The Sooners opened October with an amazing performance en route to a 63-14 thrashing of Texas. A week later, they stopped Kansas State’s home winning streak at 25 with a 41-31 victory and then capped the month by rallying from a 14-0 deficit to upset No. 1 Nebraska, 31-14.

  “That was as impressive of run as you’ll ever see,” said ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit. “They left little doubt about who the number-one team in the country was at that point.”

  Of course, the Sooners went on to win the 2000 national title, the seventh in their illustrious history.

  The Script

  OU offensive coordinator Mike Leach was always scheming in hopes of finding an edge over an opponent. During the 1999 season, the Sooners had opened with a 3-1 record and had a showdown with Texas next up on the schedule.

  Like most coordinators, Leach always scripted out the Sooners’ first dozen or so plays prior to the game and then used the list accordingly during the game. Well, he came up with an idea to plant a phony list of scripted plays where the Longhorns would find it.

  If Texas fell for it, the plan might be good for a handful of big plays for his offense early in the game.

  After Friday’s practice at the Cotton Bowl, Leach left a laminated copy of the “fake” script laying on the bench where someone Longhorn would find it. They wouldn’t know for sure until the opening series of the game.

  The first play on the list was a reverse. And when quarterback Josh Heupel brought the Sooners to the line of scrimmage, cries of “Reverse, reverse�
� rang out from the Texas side of the field.

  Of course, Leach had called for a fake reverse and OU racked up 20 yards on its initial snap. The phony script called for a run on the second play, but instead Heupel faked the handoff and hit Antwone Savage for a 44-yard touchdown pass.

  It is impossible to know for sure how much the fake list factored into the early portion of the game, but the Sooners led 17-3 by the end of the opening quarter.

  The Pick

  Kyle Field is a madhouse, normally stuffed with almost 90,000 fanatics known as “The 12th man.” Texas A&M opponents rarely play in a more hostile environment, and that is often a determining factor in the game’s outcome.

  Then again, nothing compares to “Sooner Magic,” which is what Oklahoma used to sneak out of College Station with a 35-31 victory. The win kept the Sooners undefeated and their hopes Trailing 24-10 early in the fourth quarter, the Sooners were looking for any kind of spark to flip the momentum switch in their favor. And with the offense struggling much of the day, linebacker Torrance Marshall decided to take matters into his own hands. He did so by intercepting an A&M pass and returning it 41 yards for a touchdown.

  OU eventually outscored the Aggies 22-7 in the final quarter and used a pair of spectacular defensive stands in the closing minutes to seal the victory.

  “During the course of a season, a lot of football teams find themselves in a game where they are not playing their best football, and you’ve got to find a way to win,” said quarterback Josh Heupel. “This football team found a way to win.”

  The Singing Quarterbacks

  At any point before or after practice, the song “Midnight Train to Georgia” could be heard ringing out from the back portion of the OU locker room facility. That’s where the singing trio was located.

  Quarterbacks Josh Heupel, Nate Hybl and Patrick Fletcher formed their impromptu choir in an attempt to break the humdrum of their daily routine and the pressures that go with it. If one of them was having a bad day, a song was the perfect remedy.

  “We’d get some serious tunes going back there. We had a lot of fun with it,” said Hybl, who along with Fletcher and Jason White were backups to Heupel in 1999 and 2000. “I might come in in a bad mood, or Hype might be having a bad day—but we’d always turn it around with a song. More than anything it helped break up the monotony of practice.”

  South Dakota Kid

  Aberdeen, South Dakota, is not known as a hotbed for collegiate football talent. But that’s where Josh Heupel grew up and developed his skills as a young quarterback. From there, Heupel made stops at Weber State, Snow Junior College and finally, Oklahoma.

  In his two seasons with the Sooners, the savvy southpaw blossomed from an unknown commodity into a Heisman Trophy candidate. He rewrote OU’s record book as far as passing was concerned, and in the process became one of the most popular players to ever wear the crimson and cream.

  “Josh Heupel is the complete package,” said coach Bob Stoops. “He can do things physically in a great way and there aren’t many quarterbacks out there with his instincts and overall intelligence.”

  After finishing second to Chris Weinke in the 2000 Heisman Trophy balloting, Heupel helped lead the Sooners to a victory over Florida State and Weinke. The 13-2 triumph earned OU its seventh national championship.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A New Millennium

  The Dance

  QUIRKY LITTLE TRADITIONS ARE nothing new to college football. Almost every program has some variation of high jinks in its repertoire, including all of the Oklahoma squads that have played for Bob Stoops over the last several seasons.

  While OU fans rarely get a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes fun, that doesn’t mean the Sooners aren’t getting their groove on every day in some way, shape, or form.

  Dancing has become a regular part of OU football practices under Stoops, when team members huddle up in a big circle just before stretching and daily warm-up drills. As the players gather, they begin to jump around and clap in unison, building the excitement and energy to a fever pitch.

  That’s when the fun starts and players are randomly picked to break ranks and dance their way into the middle of the pack.

  “Basically, we’re all circled up and bouncing around and clapping, and we start chanting someone’s name,” said former defensive back Lendy Holmes, looking back at his four seasons at OU (2005-08). “That player would have to dance. It is just a way to get everyone excited and ready for practice.”

  Sounds reasonable—players jumping about and finding ways to break the monotony of the daily routine. But the best part is when the team tries to get Coach Stoops involved.

  “Every once in a while, we’d start chanting for Coach Stoops to dance, and he’d do his best to try to sneak away and get out of it,” said Holmes. “But we’d all grab him and get him to go into the circle and dance. The funniest thing was when he would do a little pony dance. That was kind of his thing, and he was a pretty good sport about it.”

  Captain, Oh Captain

  Every player arrives on campus for the first time anxious to see what college football is all about and with all sorts of possibilities rolling around in his head. Some imagine themselves winning the Heisman Trophy, while others hope to crack the starting lineup at some point.

  While their ultimate goal is the same—to be a contributing factor in the program—they are manifested through different dreams.

  Lewis Baker was no different. Although undersized for a D-I linebacker—he weighed 198 pounds sopping wet as a true freshman in 2003—there was nothing small about his heart or desire, or his ambitions. More than anything, Baker wanted to be a team captain.

  “I told J.D. Runnels during a summer workout before my first season that I was going to be a captain at some point,” said Baker.

  Anyone who knew Baker knew he was going to do anything and everything in his power to make that a reality.

  Baker immediately earned a spot as a special teams player and even saw game action his first season with the Sooners. But size continued to be an issue, so he redshirted the following season in hopes of bulking up and eventually bounced back and forth between linebacker and safety over the next season and a half.

  Finally settled at linebacker, Baker played 14 games there as a junior while continuing to be a standout on special teams. His unselfish attitude and work ethic did not go unnoticed by his teammates and coaches, and when team captains for the 2007 season were announced, Baker was at the top of the list.

  “I wasn’t an All-American but I knew for a fact that I had gained the confidence and trust and belief of my teammates,” said Baker. “The fact that I was able to do something I had put my mind to was very rewarding and really indescribable. Being able to influence a large group of men in a positive way and have them recognize me as a leader on and off the field was one of the most rewarding memories I have from my time at OU.”

  An Unlikely Heisman

  When Sam Bradford arrived at OU in the fall of 2006, he did so as the No. 17-ranked prep quarterback in the nation, according to ESPN.com. But with Rhett Bomar, Paul Thompson, and Joey Halzle already vying for the starting job and the arrival of highly recruited Keith Nichol just around the corner, the consensus was that Bradford was destined to be a career backup during his stay at OU.

  Fate had other ideas, and so did the talented young kid from Putnam City North High School in Oklahoma City.

  Projected as a possible three-year starter, Bomar was dismissed from the team for violating NCAA rules prior to the 2006 season. After moving to wide receiver, Thompson was asked to replace Bomar and did so admirably—leading OU to an 11-3 record, a Big 12 title and an appearance in the BCS Fiesta Bowl.

  When Thompson graduated, the job was again up for grabs, with Halzle, Nichol and Bradford positioned as the main candidates. Although Nichol was considered the favorite, it was Bradford who looked the most impressive during spring practice. That effort earned him the starting nod from coach Bob Stoops in
the fall.

  Bradford wasted no time putting any possibility of a quarterback controversy to rest, throwing for 14 touchdowns in the Sooners’ 4-0 start. The redshirt-freshman erased any remaining doubt by leading OU to a 28-21 win over Texas, throwing for 244 yards and three touchdowns.

  By the end of that season, Bradford had thrown for an NCAA freshman-record 36 touchdowns and helped guide the Sooners to a second straight Big 12 championship. More importantly, his performance was a prelude to even bigger and better things to come.

  “Sam is so confident in what he does,” said OU quarterbacks coach Josh Heupel. “He prepares himself so well, and he’s very poised and makes good decisions, especially for such a young player.”

  Anyone expecting Bradford to suffer through a sophomore jinx in 2008 was sorely mistaken when he elevated his game to a whole new level that fall. By the time OU rolled into Dallas to face Texas on October 11, Bradford had thrown for 18 scores and three interceptions. While the Sooners lost that day 45-35, it had little to do with Bradford’s 387-yard, five-touchdown effort.

  OU went on to win the next seven games, including a 62-21 decision against Missouri in the Big 12 title game on December 6. A week later, Bradford was named the 74th recipient of the Heisman Trophy, making him the fifth Sooner to earn the prestigious award (following Billy Vessels ’52, Steve Owens ’69, Billy Sims ’78, and Jason White 2003).

  “This is an individual award, but I feel like I’m receiving it on behalf of my teammates,” a humbled Bradford said upon receiving the coveted bronze statue. “I feel like our whole offense bails me out every game. They make me look good.”

  While the Sooners eventually came up short in the BCS national title game against Florida, falling 24-14, Bradford was nothing short of amazing all season long. He broke almost every single-season passing record at OU while throwing for 50 TDs and 4,721 720 yards.