Fowler and Uihlein

It’s been a tad too long since we’ve played a rousing rendition of Oklahoma State-themed “would you rather.” And as you can see by the graphic on your lower right sidebar, I intend on making this a bi-weekly, if not weekly event.

Oh, and just as a reminder, the first (and only) rule is that there aren’t any defined rules. When I say would you rather have John Lucas’ two-year career or Brandon Knight’s 2010-11 season you have to look at it from an Oklahoma State perspective (as it relates to OSU) but other than that no parameters exist. The answers are, essentially, whatever we want the questions to be. On to today’s participants…

Peter Uihlein’s life or Rickie Fowler’s life

First of all, this is like asking “would you rather be wealthy, good looking, and married to a Brazilian supermodel?” or “would you rather be wealthy, good looking, and married to a Peruvian supermodel?” Everyone wins. Well except the supermodel because she’s now married to a sports blogger, and nobody wants that.

I’m leaning towards Uihlein because, as one of my friends put it, “he doesn’t play golf for money.” For those of you who don’t know, Uihlein’s dad is the CEO of Acushnet (owners of Titleist) which essentially means his family didn’t have to consider buying the grocery store brand of salad dressing growing up.

As such, Uihlein doesn’t have the pressure of having to play well when he turns pro to make money to survive on. I’m not saying his parents have coddled him, only that his financial backing as a professional (often something that holds golfers back) is um…rather deep.

Of course Fowler has already experienced notable professional success, albeit sans a win. He’s played in a Ryder Cup and completed all the majors. He’s well on his way. But he doesn’t (and didn’t) have the opportunity to hoist one of those NCAA championship trophies for his alma mater. Something Uihlein could do twice in the next 14 months.

That combined with his U.S. Amateur title and the fact that he projects just as well as Fowler professionally pushes the Uihlein pick over the edge for me. Now if Fowler wins a major this year we’ll re-visit this. Oh, and I’d consider being Hosni Mubarak’s personal assistant to get to play Augusta nearly every year like Fowler does amd Uihlein probably will…

Justin Blackmon’s 2011 season or DMC and Felix Jones’ 2007 season at Arkansas

I’m probably going to get taken to the woodshed for this, but to me it’s not even close. I’m all in on DMC and Felix. Crap, we could put Randle in the slot and Jeremy Smith could play the role of Peyton Hillis (yes, Peyton Hillis, DMC, and Felix Jones all shared a collegiate backfield) and you could argue OSU’s offense would be more dangerous than it already is.

DMC and Felix put up a combined 2,990 rushing yards, 340 receiving yards, threw for 123 yards, and shared 34 TD. I love you and your hunk of marble-laden Biletnikoff greatness, Justin, but I’d trade whatever you’re about to do for that two-headed monster in a hurry. Plus, Weeden is about 392x better than Casey Dick so we wouldn’t be going 8-5 like Arkansas did that year.

CJ Guerrero’s career or John Lucas III for one year?

I think we tend to romanticize Lucas’ career for whatever reason. He averaged 15 points and 4.5 assists a game his senior year. Good numbers, but not great, and for reference’s sake, not as good as Byron Eaton’s senior year.

He was part of the Final Four team though, he was “the guy” for a stretch of OSU hoops when it seemed like there were a lot of “the guys.” So his stats probably don’t give credence to the narrative as a whole, I’m just trying to stay objective in this evaluation.

On the other hand I have less of an idea about what Guerrero’s going to be than I do LeBryan Nash (and Nash is someone I once wrote “could roll in the first practice, curse the ground Travis Ford walks on, punch Keiton in the face, and pee all over the 70-year old maple floor in GIA and I actually wouldn’t be completely surprised”).

Guerrero could be DJ Augustin 2.0 or he could transfer back to Cali after the non-conference portion of OSU’s schedule citing “irreconcilable differences” with Ford. His ceiling is lofty though, and I’d say that 15 and 4.5 is well within his reach.

Will he bring everything else that JLIII brought? I don’t know. Will he get in his superstar’s face and coerce the best out of him like Lucas did with Joey? Will he hit so many big threes you start to lose count halfway through conference play? Will he lose more than one home game in his tenure at GIA?

I’d say the latter is 100% likely, the others though, I’m not sure. But I’m willing to make that four-year bet. Give me Guerrero and make fun of me when he’s waving a white towel on the bench for Dowell the next two years…