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Oklahoma Legend Adrian Peterson: Texans Can 'Be Mad at Coach Mack Brown'

The Sooners running back legend said "I was Texas all the way," but that changed when he asked the Longhorns coach a pivotal question.
John E. Hoover|
Oklahoma Legend Adrian Peterson: Texans Can 'Be Mad at Coach Mack Brown'
Oklahoma Legend Adrian Peterson: Texans Can 'Be Mad at Coach Mack Brown'

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Oklahoma Sooners

Adrian Peterson has told the story before.

But the Oklahoma Sooners legend still gets the question all the time, so he felt he needed to clear the air.

Why did he leave the Lone Star State to play college football at OU?

“Be mad at coach Mack Brown,” Peterson said Saturday.

During his acceptance speech upon induction into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in Waco on Saturday night, Peterson explained why he matriculated from Palestine, TX, to Norman, OK, and spent three years breaking records at OU before launching a pro career that will ultimately land him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“I know there’s a lot of Longhorns and Aggies in here, and Bears,” Peterson said. “But the No. 1 question I get is, ‘Why did you go to Oklahoma? Why did you leave the state?’ ”

Peterson said he remembers going to Texas games as a kid to watch his uncle play for the Longhorns, and he told himself, one day he would be back on the Forty Acres wearing burnt orange.

“I was Texas all the way,” he said.

But when the time came and he was on an official visit, it was Brown who changed his thinking on being a Longhorn.

“If you’re gonna be mad at anybody,” he said, “be mad at coach Mack Brown.”

Peterson said he asked all the coaches who recruited him — Bob Stoops, Pete Carroll, Nick Saban, and Brown — if he would be allowed to compete for the starting job as a true freshman.

All told him he would. Except Brown.

“He was like, ‘Well Adrian, you know, I’m not gonna lie to you. Cedric Benson, he decided to come back for his senior year and we’re gonna be loyal to him. We’re gonna let him ride it out. But after that, you can compete for it.

“I said, “OK. I appreciate it.’ And that was it.”

Benson won the Doak Walker Award as a Texas senior in 2004, while Peterson set the NCAA record with 1,925 rushing yards, scored 15 touchdowns, and helped lead OU to the national championship game.

Of course, it worked out for both programs. The following year, Brown and the Longhorns rode the magic of Vince Young to the 2005 national championship.

“That was the decision I made based off that,” Peterson said.

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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