The Football Brainiacs

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I don’t know about the rest of you, but if I never read another ‘Can Trevor Knight Live Up To The Sugar Bowl Hype?’ type article again it will be too soon. There was another one out just today from Grantland as though they were going to offer us some fresh new #HotSportsTake on the already beaten into the ground topic. It’s been written about over and over and over and over again ever since that night in early January.

Well, today was the last one I’m ever going to read. I’m making a promise to myself and all of you. Instead I’ll just wait until the season starts and all these same writers, be it national or local, start second guessing Knight about some other thing/s he did or didn’t do. But back to these “hype” articles, in all those that I’ve read — and I, much like you I presume, have read way too many of them — you know what I never see referenced?

Josh Heupel’s track record of developing quarterbacks.

There are plenty of references to Knight’s early struggles last year, all the while ignoring (in most cases) that he was a redshirt freshman making his first two career starts. But you never see a reference to how Heupel took a converted wide receiver and help mold him into a Big 12 Championship winning quarterback. Much like you never see a reference to the jump Sam Bradford made from his freshman to sophomore season which saw him throw for nearly 1,600 more yards and 50 TDs (compared to 36 as a freshman). Or a reference to how Landry Jones made a similar type of jump statistically going from 3,198-26/14-58% as his first year to 4,718-38/12-65% in his second.

No before you say it, let me do it for you. Yes, Paul Thompson has AD. And, yes, Bradford was freaky accurate. And, yes, we’re all familiar with Bad Landry. But the inarguable fact remains every single quarterback under the tutelage of Josh Heupel has made positive strides from year-to-year. The only expectation here should be for Knight to do the exact same. And with a now approaching nine year track record coaching the quarterbacks in Norman, I’m not sure why anyone would question Heupel’s ability to help Knight make that second year jump.

Again, Knight is a guy entering his second season in which he’ll actually see the field and on August 30th be starting the sixth game of his career and playing just his ninth. Yes, in some ways he’s a victim of his own success that night in New Orleans. But if the media is looking for someone to blame as to why, seemingly in their eyes based on the umpteen hundreds of different ways they’ve written a slightly different version of the exact same article all spring/summer, Trevor Knight is undeserving of said ‘hype’, then they should probably look in the mirror.

Trevor Knight wasn’t the one putting himself on preseason Heisman lists. Trevor Knight wasn’t the one putting himself on the cover of Sports Illustrated. By all accounts all Trevor Knight has been doing since the Sugar Bowl is working to live up to the hype that has been bestowed upon him.

If we’re going to hold Knight to a different standard than every other second year quarterback in the country because he had a fantastic bowl game, then I suppose that’s one way to go about things. Seems a little harsh, but then again I’m just a simpleminded fan.

Look, I can’t sit here and tell you Trevor Knight is going to be the next great Oklahoma quarterback. But what I can tell you is I trust in the near decade long track record of developing quarterbacks of the guy that’s going to play a significant role in whether or not Knight does become that next great one.

So the next time you want to write one of these “hype” articles on Trevor Knight, you might want toss in the occasional reference to one of the top quarterback coaches in the country. I won’t read it, because I’ve made a promise I intend to keep, but at least it will show those who do you actually know what you’re talking about.