Adrian Peterson accomplished plenty during his three seasons at Oklahoma.
No running back has rushed for more yards in a season than his 1,925 as a freshman in 2004. His career total of 4,045 is just 73 yards behind all-time leader Billy Sims and 26 behind Joe Washington’s career total.
Yet Friday, he admitted he wrestles with some regrets.
“There’s some things when I look back now I wish I could have done,” he said Friday during a break from the three-day football camp he’s been hosting at the OU Intramural Fields since Thursday. “National championship: Didn’t accomplish that. We came close my freshman year, and I still don’t want to talk about it. I definitely wanted to win the Heisman Trophy. That didn’t work out.”
Peterson said he still has a hard time talking about OU’s 55-19 loss to USC in the 2004 BCS title game. He said it didn’t really dawn on him how bad he wanted to win the Heisman Trophy until he already turned pro.
He took a trip out to California and went to current New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush’s house. Bush was a member of the Trojan team that beat the Sooners and won the Heisman Trophy the following season.
“I was walking around the house, and I was walking up these steps and I looked down. This big Heisman Trophy was sitting in a real nice case,” Peterson said. “I was like ‘Awww!’ I wanted to ask him where Matt Leinart was so I could go over there and take mine. But it’s all good. It is what it is.”
Peterson finished second to Leinart in the 2004 balloting.
But those are old memories. Peterson’s trying to create new ones with the camp he’s hosting in Norman for the second time. It runs through today for kids age 7 to 14.
This year’s camp has drawn more than 400 to work on the fundamental skills of football. Participants go from station to station working on drills conducted by prep and college coaches.
Peterson also conducted a question-and-answer session with participants. He posed for more photos than he could count and ran through the drills himself.
“When I was younger I always wanted to be in a position to be able to give back to the community,” Peterson said. When I played here, there were a lot of guys that came back and did things like this. Now that I’m blessed enough to be in the this position, it feels good that I’m able to reach out and hopefully inspire some of these young kids.”
There were a ton of them running around wearing No. 28 Minnesota Vikings jerseys.
Since leaving OU, Peterson has moved on to a very successful NFL career, smashing the league record for most yards rushing in a single game his rookie season and helping the Minnesota Vikings reach the playoffs last season.
But all talk in Minnesota revolves around who could potentially be handing him the ball next season. The Vikings have been in an ongoing courtship with Brett Favre to see if the former All-Pro quarterback would be willing to come out retirement a second time.
“You’re talking about a Hall of Fame quarterback, a guy I grew up watching,” Peterson said about Favre. “If he’s a part of our team when training camp comes around, we’re going to welcome him. We’ll welcome him with open arms. We’ll see where the chips fall.”
Minnesota’s quarterback saga will continue into training camp, which begins next month. That didn’t seem to matter to any of the kids running around Friday morning.
“To be out here interacting with them and being able to teach them some of the fundamentals of football is something I definitely enjoy,” Peterson said.
John Shinn
366-3536
jshinn@normantranscript.com
OU Sports
Peterson confesses
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