Official newspaper of The University of Texas at Austin

The Daily Texan

Official newspaper of The University of Texas at Austin

The Daily Texan

Official newspaper of The University of Texas at Austin

The Daily Texan

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October 4, 2022
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Oklahoma doesn’t rebuild at QB, it reloads

One of these days, we presume, Oklahoma will be led by a bad quarterback.

It’s becoming apparent, however, that our grandkids will be the only ones to see that come to fruition.

Seriously, when will the Sooners’ reign of quarterback dominance end? It’s like Bob Stoops made some deal with the devil — “Give me the best gun-slingers in the nation and, as a sacrifice, I’ll throw every bowl game unless we’re playing UCONN.”


The quality of Oklahoma quarterbacks keeps improving. And we’re not sure how. Last I checked, winning a Heisman Trophy and taking your team to the National Championship was as good as it gets.

The Sooners had two quarterbacks do that over the span of five years — Jason White in 2004 and Sam Bradford in 2008.

Now, they’re close to having another one, Landry Jones, do it again.

“When I played them as a freshman, they had a Heisman Trophy winner [Bradford] and now they have another one in contention,” said senior safety Blake Gideon. “They just reload every year, there’s never a bad year for them.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

This all started in 2000. Josh Heupel directed the Sooners to a 63-14 mauling of the Longhorns and then won the national championship over Florida State.

So then Nate Hybl takes over and everything is going smoothly until he gets hurt against Texas.

Longhorn fans rejoiced! Here comes Oklahoma’s backup quarterback!

Some guy named Jason White comes off the bench and completes 16 passes as OU wins 14-3.

Remember that.

Things go back to normal after Hybl comes back from injury and he leads the Sooners to a Rose Bowl win at the end of the 2002 season and is named the Rose Bowl MVP (because it was played on Jan. 1, 2003, he’s considered the MVP of the 2003 Rose Bowl. Just to clear things up.)

So Hybl finally graduates and then, to nobody’s relief, White makes Oklahoma nearly unstoppable. He won the Heisman in 2003 and beat Texas 65-13. White finished off the Longhorns again in 2004. Then he graduated.

The next two seasons resulted in a slight dip in production for Oklahoma quarterbacks. Rhett Bomar had some promise but never got to show it after being kicked off the team one week before he was set to begin his sophomore season for accepting payment at a car dealership that he did not technically do any work at. Paul Thompson, a wide receiver who hadn’t practiced at quarterback in a year, was forced to take over. All he did was quarterback the team to the Fiesta Bowl.

We’re not done with this predictable timeline just yet.

Some guy named Sam Bradford — who, if we’re keeping score, was a three-star quarterback coming out of high school — wins the job of starter before the 2007 season.

We know what he did.

There’s one specific moment of Bradford’s celebrated college career that ties this whole quarterback legacy back together. In 2009, in the Red River Rivalry, Texas cornerback Aaron Williams blitzed off the edge and crunched Bradford into the turf, reinjuring the same right shoulder that Bradford had hurt earlier in the season.

Texas hurts one Oklahoma quarterback, prompting the emergence of one who might be even better? Where have I heard that one before?

So be careful when you wish for an injury to Jones on Saturday, Texas fans. One of OU’s backups, Blake Bell, was a top quarterback in the 2010 recruiting class.

And you know how this story goes.

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Oklahoma doesn’t rebuild at QB, it reloads