Fall Practice Thoughts

The other day I was emailing with some friends about this season and what we’re looking forward to and how we think it will play out and one of them made a point that I’d thought of but never really let materialize in my head. He said:

You basically hit the jackpot. The genesis of this blog coincides specifically with what will more than likely be the most exciting season in school history.

I think I muttered something about 2009 with an expletive in it somewhere but proceeded to agree with him.

We live in a time in which it seems no stone is unturned and no story untold, yet I feel like I have this abundance of information and stats and anecdotes and quotes and storylines at my disposal, all of which will unfold by the day as our little 2011 narrative plays itself out.

It’s going to be unequivocally the most fun I’ve ever had writing (except for all those essays I wrote about Durant’s freshman year at Texas and never showed anyone). So let’s get to it with a few thoughts I’ve had so far about two days of practice:

• When did Markelle Martin steal Jevon Kearse’s arms? Did he do it this summer or are they on loan and he has to return them after the year?
• I think this might be the first time in a while where we can definitively say the incumbent QB is absolutely without-a-doubt 100% better than his successor. You couldn’t say it with Donovan, Pena, Bobby, or even Zac really. That position has gotten progressively better over the last nine years. I don’t think the same will be true of 2012.
• You can’t tell it in this picture (well, you kind of can) but Jeremy Smith is scary big.
•  Gundy after the first practice, “Very pleased with day one. Great effort and commitment today.” – Translation: “I am so happy nobody was caught racing up I-35 last night trying to make it here on time.”
• “Joseph Randle on a wheel route” is the new “counter pitch to Tatum.”
• The “Gundy skipping media day to watch his kid play baseball” story is a non-story. Or should be a non-story. Of course the Bobby Reid to Zac Robinson transition should have been a non-story too…
• Herschel Sims wears the Adrian Peterson face mask.

I remember sitting on the north side of the yet-to-be-fully-renovated Boone Pickens Stadium some six years ago watching this team squeak past Montana State 15-10 and wondering, “is this just how it’s always going to be?” I went home that night and watched SC murder Hawaii and just wished we could be where they were: running it up on teams, a chance to run the table every year, a shot at a national title.

Well…here we are.

Photo Attribution: KT King