Make no mistake.If it were Joey Halzle stepping into the Sooner backfield, the story would be similar. Ditto for Sam Bradford, who may be the real winner in the pay-for-no-work sweepstakes. Maybe he’ll be the first three-year starter at quarterback at Oklahoma in forever.
Anyway, if it were Halzle, Bradford or good old Hays McEachern, the story would be the same. The troops would be rallied, the wagons would be circled and we’d all have a nice story heading into Alabama-Birmingham blazing its trail into Owen Field.
What do you want to bet Watson Brown would tell everybody the Sooners might even be better with Halzle, Bradford or our man Hays? Because everybody knows when somebody goes down, everybody else steps up.
One of sports’ oldest clichés.
So it would all be very similar to what really is going on with Oklahoma football, two days into summer practices at the rugby fields south of Lloyd Noble Center.
I guess if the rugby team wants to practice the fields south of Owen Field are open.
But it would only be similar.
Because this is Paul Thompson we’re talking about.
Maybe it all would have been different if Thompson doesn’t overthrow a wide open Travis Wilson against TCU last season. And here’s to agreeing it would have been different because there’s no way the three or so quarters he was allowed to take snaps last season could possibly tell the whole tale of his ability to play the position.
Those three or so quarters were much more in line with yours and my ability to play the position.
So here we go again and as soon as Thompson opened his mouth at media day Friday morning, it was easy to understand again why it was so easy to believe in him a year ago and it was just as easy to believe this time around he gets it right.
So certain.
Confident, but hardly brash.
So serious.
“It wasn’t easy,” he said of the decision to return to quarterback, “But I’m happy I made it.”
As for his first practice …
“It came back pretty quick,” Thompson said. “I’m just relaxed. That’s the best way to put it.”
This football thing can be an awful lot of fun when you know where you stand. And even better when you know where everybody else stands, because Thompson had this telling quote, too.
“I’m definitely looking forward to proving everybody right.”
Not wrong.
Apparently, nobody that really matters ever quit believing in Paul Thompson.
And if you’re looking for reasons why this could all work out, it doesn’t end there.
“As soon as we heard it,” tight end Joe Jon Finley said of the team meeting it was announced Thompson was coming back, “everybody put a smile on their face. We knew he deserved it.”
Everybody else, they would have been rallying around out of necessity. This way, they’re rallying around because they want to for reasons bigger than winning or being a good teammate. They’re doing it because it’s Paul Thompson.
“He’ll be a leader,” linebacker Rufus Alexander said. “He’s been a leader for this team for a long time.”
Malcolm Kelly, Juaquin Iglesias and Manuel Johnson may have three seasons left, but Thompson has one. Duke Robinson and Branndon Braxton may have three more seasons left, by Thompson has only one.
The smart money says Thompson gets it right the second time around. And if there’s any teetering, it says he’s got a team full of mates that won’t let him fail. Their success is tied up in his success on a personal level.
“Yesterday, he didn’t look like a guy who hadn’t played quarterback for a while,” offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson said.
Sounds good.
Clay Horning366-3526cfhorning@normantranscript.com
OU Sports
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