Oklahoman Preview – What You Need to Know

The Oklahoman came out with its 104-page football preview on Sunday and I read the whole thing*. The theme this year was “dynamic duos” and they grouped up players from each unit (RBs, WRs, DBs, etc.).

I’ve put together a mini OSU fan’s guide to what we learned from the preview in case you don’t have time to go through the whole thing (I believe it was print only, nothing online):

• Berry Tramel taught us that only once in the last 10 years have two teams from the same state finished in the top 10 in the AP and that was Auburn and Bama last year.
• Brandon Weeden and Justin Blackmon took a pretty weird picture.
• I love quotes from assistants about why they love coaching at OSU, “I feel good about coming to work, so why mess with it?” (Wickline) and “after being here, it’s an even better opportunity than I thought it was.” (Young). Why not just say, “I make 2x as much money here as I would anywhere else”?
• Weeden said, “[last year in camp] when Dana would walk by me he’d say ‘if it was me, I’d throw it to 81.’ He just kept repeating that.” – Such a Dana thing to do.
• The Oklahoman tabbed Tom Brady and Bill Belichick as the duo Weeden and Monken most resemble. Might be a liiiiiiittttle strong, but okay.
• Randle on first meeting Jeremy Smith; “I was like, this dude is ripped up. And he drank too much.”
• One of the questions the paper consistently asked every “dynamic duo” they interviewed was, “what do you find most annoying about [other person]” – I thought that was strange
• The Oklahoman said Adarius Bowman and D’Juan Woods were the most dynamic receiving duo in OSU’s history. And they kind of have a point. Even though Blackmon surpassed their total production by himself last year
• Richetti thinks Blatnick “cooks like a girl.
• Caleb Lavey and Shaun Lewis met at a Whataburger. Do people who didn’t go to OSU know what that implies
• Lewis, “I like thicker girls, Caleb likes them a little bit slender.” – Wow
• Justin Gilbert said, “I respect that [Sharp] is the best punter in the country, in my opinion.
• The Oklahoman staff made their picks for most dangerous and most thrilling player on the team (Blackmon, Randle, Martin, Weeden, and Gilbert were the picks). My question: what exactly is the difference
• 8 writers picked OSU’s bowl game: 3 Cottons, 3 Fiestas, 2 Oranges, 0 Sugars, 0 Title Games.
• Also Berry Tramel picked Jamell Fleming as his “best player in the Big 12.”
• I found it interesting that they had Weeden as their offensive POY/1st team All-Big 12 QB. Seems like you could keep the hate mail/email down by just throwing Landry on there but I appreciate the nod towards Stillwater.
• 7 of the 8 writers said the Big 12 would not be around in 2015.

Overall it was a solid preview, well thought out, well put together, and entertaining to read.

*I read until my wife told me to stop reading.