Oklahoma had received a verbal commitment from a four-star recruit out of Texas. There had been some controversy when he’d been suspended from his high school football team for unspecified reasons. He’d convinced Oklahoma that he had everything under control, so in December, they’d signed him to a National Letter of Intent. From what Coach Riley had just said, his problems must be worse than anyone had let on.
I wasn’t naïve enough to ignore my potential competition at my position. His absence made my path to starting that much easier. It seemed like the football gods were looking down and showing me that Oklahoma might be the place I should pick.
“Tell us what happened with Michigan,” Coach Riley said.
I let Tim and Wolf explain why we pulled our commitment.
“If you commit again …?” Coach Bob Michaels asked.
“Then we are coming,” I said to reassure them.
“What will it take for you to pick Oklahoma?”
“We are here this weekend to confirm what we’ve learned so far. Next week, we have you and USC in for in-home visits. If need be, we’ll fly out to USC next weekend,” Dad explained.
The USC visit would have to be on Sunday because we had our annual baseball tournament on Saturday.
“To save time, we’d like to split you up and show you how you would fit in,” Coach Bob Michaels said.
Dad, Cassidy, Manaia, and I stayed with Head Coach Bob Michaels. It must get confusing around here when you said ‘Coach Michaels,’ given that the head coach and defensive coordinator were brothers. We were joined by one of the support staff who ran the video equipment.
For the next three hours, I was in football heaven. Coach Michaels broke down how they ran their offense, and we dug into the intricacies from correct reads to foot placement to all the rest. Coach Michaels wanted to see how I evaluated film by asking probing questions, which got us into the weeds sometimes. It was interesting to see Cassidy taking it all in, while my dad and Manaia tried their best not to look bored.
“The progression is wrong on that play,” I said.
“Exactly!” Coach Michaels said. “I wish Hayden was here because I have told him a hundred times that he wasn’t doing it right.”
I understood why Hayden would do it the way he did because they scored on the play each time, despite him doing it wrong. As if he knew we were talking about him, Hayden Walsh entered the room.
“Hey, David. Coach,” he said.
Coach Michaels shared with him that I’d picked up on his skipping reads in his progression.
“How would you evaluate Hayden? What does he need to work on this coming year?” Coach Michaels asked.
That caused me to raise my eyebrows because I didn’t want to come across as a know-it-all rookie.
“I’d like to hear that too,” Hayden said.
I gave them a little smile and decided to go ahead and tell them exactly what I thought.
“You have an NFL-ready arm. I’ve heard the knock that you can only perform out of a clean pocket. But the film showed you being elusive enough to move in the pocket, and that you can think on your feet. You have a knack for throwing an accurate ball so it leads your receivers to where they need to be,” I said.
“Sounds like you don’t think I’m fast enough,” Hayden said.
“I have no doubt that if you and I raced, I would beat you ten out of ten times,” I said.
Coach Michaels had a big smile on his face. Hayden gave me a look that said I was toast, and then he smiled, too.
“What else is wrong with my game?”
“I’m sure you’ve been told you aren’t tall enough, and you have small hands, both of which are nitpicky complaints you hear NFL scouts spouting. You’re the same height as Drew Brees, and he’s done all right.”
“Okay, what else?” Hayden asked.
“You’re overaggressive at times. I saw it more with your deep balls where you thought you could force it in for a score. Sometimes, it’s better to take what the defense gives you instead of trying for it all.”
I couldn’t believe I’d just said that. Bud Mason had hammered that into me since I started going to camp with him. Maybe I’d finally seen the light.
“Have you seen him for enough film work?” Hayden asked of the coach, who nodded.
“It has been helpful, but it looks like my entourage is done,” I admitted.
“It does feel like beer o’clock,” Dad agreed.
“Why don’t the dads do that, and we go out and toss a ball around?”
That sounded good to me. Coach Michaels turned me over to Hayden but held my dad back to talk for a minute. Hayden and I walked to the locker room to change into shorts and t-shirts.
◊◊◊
On a visit like this, you couldn’t any longer do ‘official’ workouts. Schools could only get away with that by doing camps and what they called ‘Junior Days’ for the younger players. They did allow unofficial workouts with team members as long as the coaches weren’t involved.
Another rule was that you couldn’t do the regular drills to measure you like I’d done at numerous camps.
I soon found they had figured out ways around that.
