Best Laid Plans: OU's Early Enrollees Finish Their First Semester Amid Layers of Uncertainty
PHOTOS: OU Athletics
At Oklahoma, it’s Finals Week.
This is supposed to be the last week of college classwork for 10 new Sooners.
Joshua Ellison, Davon Graham, Mikey Henderson, Seth McGowan, Marvin Mims, Noah Nelson, Andrew Raym, Bryson Washington, Shane Whitter and Perrion Winfrey all decided to leave high school or junior college and enroll at OU early so they could kickstart their college football careers.
Instead, they’ve been back in their hometowns, getting in a workout wherever they can, taking online courses, giving Zoom presentations and wishing they knew where they stood on the Sooners’ spring depth chart.
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Of course, it’s not like anything would be much different if they hadn’t enrolled early at OU. Their decisions to become college students early didn’t cost them a trip to the prom or didn’t prevent them from enjoying one final semester with high school friends.
The Coronavirus pandemic took care of that — for everyone.
Still, the best laid plans of mice and young men. …
“Yeah, their heads are spinning a little bit, probably,” head coach Lincoln Riley said in a conference call on March 31. “Probably a little more than the others. It’s been different. I’m proud of our group; they’ve definitely handled it well.”
Consider how this recruiting class — and the early enrollees, especially — made extensive plans to reroute their lives, and now have had those plans shot down.
As March dawned and spring football practice opened as usual at Oklahoma — one day before the World Health Organization formally declared a pandemic — defensive coordinator Alex Grinch talked about what an important spring it would be for the Sooners’ two junior college transfer defensive tackles, Joshua Ellison and Perrion Winfrey.
“It’s been good,” Grinch said at the end of the Sooners’ first — and only — practice. “Obviously, the junior college guys you bring in, there’s anticipation they help you right away. Otherwise you’d sign a young guy and get him in the program for a few years.”
Marvin Mims set all kinds of receiving records in high school, but he needs to get up to speed on Riley’s terminology and get some face time with Spencer Rattler and Tanner Mordecai. With news last month that sophomore Jadon Haselwood had sustained a knee injury in training and could be out for an extended time, this spring could have been especially important for Mims’ growth and contributions in the fall.
With Trey Sermon transferring and Kennedy Brooks not scheduled for many spring practice carries going into his junior season, Seth McGowan could have really stepped up and proven himself at the running back position.
And with the OU secondary seemingly in a state of constant flux, defensive back Bryson Washington — who chose OU over offers from Alabama, Texas and others — could have made an early impression on Grinch and defensive backs coach Roy Manning.
Those players and others among the early enrollees were hoping to compete for playing time this spring, or at least get a headstart on learning how to be a big-time college football player.
Instead, whatever learning curve everyone hoped to get a jump on for the 2020 college football season — if there is a 2020 college football season, that is — will be largely pushed back to the fall.
Or whenever.
“I think the biggest thing for them has just been a little bit more disappointment than anything,” Riley said. “For an early enrollee, to get here in January, things are moving quick, you’re into a full load of classes, you know, coaches are out on the road recruiting, you go straight into the offseason, straight into conditioning, and you go straight into our coaching stations, which are all pretty tough.
“And you get kinda the eye on the prize. … spring ball, and everyone looks forward to it. And you only get one practice of it, and have to get off the field. I know it’s disappointing.”
It’s not been ideal, obviously, but Riley believes the newcomers have experienced some level of benefit. They got two months of classes. They got two months of offseason workouts. They did get a little work in football-wise.
“I think our guys have done well,” he said. “Those guys have done a good job academically, and they’ve done a great job staying connected with us through this time. So as I said, I think more disappointment from missing that part of it. But proud of the way that group’s responded as a whole.”
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