Bedlam QBs with Eerily Similar Backgrounds

JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU KNOW SOMEONE...

Just when you thought you knew everything about Sam Bradford, comes this: "He's really shy. It's not that he doesn't want to do interviews-and he's obviously a natural and good at it-it's really that he is just shy...shy in a good way...he's not looking for the spotlight...that's for sure," OU Sports Information Director Kenny Mossman said. Being shy does not mean one can't be extraordinarily competitive and an effective leader.

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BOND....JAMES  BOND...

Word I get from a reliable source who is close to the day in day out situations at OU is that one of the things that is making this team special is the fact that they have a special "bond" with one another. .. "Even though they all don't live in the dorms, they hang out there a lot after practice and stuff, and it's obvious that this is a different group....a unique kind of bond I've not seen around here the five years I've been close to the situation...they know what they want and they know where they've screwed up in the past...they seem to have a plan and several leaders, of course including Sam."

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WANNA FEEL LIKE A GOAT?

If you want to feel like you were basically a worthless, immature, selfish, undisciplined, dumb... an unproductive inadequate goat and a complete failure when you were 21, just compare yourself to the QBs the maturity of the Bedlam QB rivals. Sam Bradford and Zac Robinson are humble, polite, grounded, smart....and all that other stuff that makes them too good to believe.

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BRADFORD AND ROBINSON EERILY SIMILAR

I played at OU with Sam's father Kent. Great guy, a tad quiet unless he knows you and one of those people who doesn't have enemies. His son did tell me he couldn't understand why his dad was strict with him growing up but that now he sees why and is thankful.

My wife was a very good friend with Kent when they went to Putnam City HS. She attests to his character and to that of his wife and Martha, also a PC graduate.

Bob Stoops told me a few weeks ago that he is so amazed at everything about Bradford (he calls him The Big Easy and told me "everything Sam does is natural and he makes it look so easy") that he felt compelled to call his parents. Told them to forget how great a QB he is. "I just wanted them to know that I saw it every day...that they'd done something right...that they'd done a fabulous job of parenting."

But mama and papa better keep an eye on their lone child. Grades are slipping: 4.0 GPA last year...now shamefully slumping to a 3.95 GPA in finance. SBradford was just named Academic All Big12 and All-American. Who could be better than those kinds of grades to go along with being the Heisman frontrunner leading a red-hot record-setting offense on a team with a realistic chance of playing for a national championship?

Coincidentally, guess whose background and resume' are eerily similar to Sudden Sam? OSU QB Zac Robinson.

Like Sam, Zac is Academic All Big 12, of impeccable character, humble, not a 5-star recruit and a lead-by-example kind of player you'll find with all winning teams.

And get this. The background of the Zac's parents is almost identical to that of Sam's:  

Rusty Robinson was a walk-on kicker at OU at the same time Kent was in Norman. Like Martha Bradford, Myra Robinson is an OSU graduate.

Predictably, the Robinson clan is full of stand-up folks. I go way back with some of the Robinsons-mid-seventies--and currently attend church with Zac's wonderful grandparents on his father's side (Gratuitous plug for our fabulous church in OKC-Crossings).

Zac was lucky to be brought up in a positive and supportive home whose foundation and values are similar to those of the Bradford's.  

Sam was born in OKC and Zac not far away in Edmond. Each a Sooner fan growing up...and even though Zac attended the OU massacre of TTech he is anything but a Sooner fan these days.

Great kids. Yes, born on first base in an age when many college athletes were born at the plate with two strikes against them before they ever have a chance. But credit this pair. They are clearly making the most of their God-given ability and invaluable examples to many kids searching for stars to emulate.  

About the only differences are that one is a better passer, one a better runner and one wears crimson and the other wears orange.

And Sam's doesn't have an uncle who wears a head weighing forty pounds.  Zac has an uncle who is a former Pistol Pete. The only Pistol Pete the Bradford's would let in the door was the one with the last name of Maravich.

Knowing Kent, there might just be a shootout if OSU's Pistol Pete showed up for Turkey Day dressing and pumpkin pie at the Bradford household. ....which is only apropos for the shootout this tandem is destined for Saturday night in Stillwater....

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LOFTON-LESS LUCKY

Happiest person former OU MLB left for the NFL a year early? Zac. He was beat to a pulp by Lofton in Bedlam 07. It will be a big, big chore for rookie MLB Austin Box to come close to duplicating what Lofton did on Owen Field a year ago when OSU could have played OU 100 times and lost 99 of them. Trust me; this Bedlam is much closer to 50/50 if the two played 100 times at The Boone.

STEERING VOTERS

Happy Thanksgiving....and if you want to make money just sitting around watching TV I suggest you take a long hard look at Texas hosting a go through the motions bunch of Aggies from College Station. By this time tomorrow night you'll be hearing that the 70-7 route Texas will slapped on A/M is more than enough for voters to put them back on top of OU in the polls. UT is after blood and looking for those two sickening words we hear too often these days: style points.

A/M hung it up weeks ago. OU could have easily hung 70-80 on them but called off the dogs (OU has scored ten fourth quarter points in the past five games). Look for Texas to push the score as close to the limit as possible without taking heat from the media for running it up-something that rarely happens with Mack Brown and his program.

But wouldn't you do just as I think Texas will? Sure you would. And you'd argue just as loud and long as Texas has if OU had beaten Texas on a neutral field by ten points. FYI. OU would be a 4 point favorite of they played Texas tomorrow on a neutral field. I know some guys in Norman who are dying for the chance to meet Texas again in a national championship game. I'm sure Texas feels the same way.

This BCS talk should not be in the heads of the Sooners. Easier said than done. If they are distracted at all, these hungry and dangerous Cowboys have a chance to make it one of the most memorable nights in Stillwater history.