Super Bowl Sooners: How They Feel About Their Triumphs and Tribulations at Oklahoma

That Oklahoma has more players in Super Bowl LVII than any other school is no surprise to the Sooners who are actually in Phoenix playing in Sunday’s game.

“OU has a standard,” said Philadelphia right tackle Lane Johnson. “They have a legacy of putting guys in the pros, and guys having long, storied careers.”

“Yeah man, at OU I played with so much talent,” said Kansas City left tackle Orlando Brown. “I think we had eight guys in our o-line room that made it to this level — and are still on this level.”

Among Sooner alumni, the Chiefs have four — Brown, center Creed Humphrey, long snapper James Winchester and tight end Blake Bell — while the Eagles have two — Johnson and quarterback Jalen Hurts. Also on the Eagles’ roster are running back Trey Sermon and tight end Grant Calcaterra, who played at OU and transferred away. Running back Kennedy Brooks was recently signed to a future/reserve contract.

“Obviously both of our quarterbacks were No. 1 picks,” Brown said. “Joe (Mixon), Samaje Perine. … Rodney Anderson, Trey Sermon. Wide receivers, we had Hollywood (Brown), CeeDee Lamb. Playing with all that talent, man, made my job a lot easier. Just seeing the way they work was something that stuck out to me.

“My mindset at OU was to be the most dominant player on the field at all times. It was very competitive, even amongst ourselves, amongst our peers. Just the way those guys worked really motivated me at that time, too.”

There’s a common thread running through most of those names — and certainly most of the Eagles and Chiefs competing Sunday for the Lombardi Trophy.

And his name is Jerry Schmidt.

Oklahoma’s strength and conditioning coach has attained legend status for his ability to forge flesh into steel and take elite athletes and help them become professionals.

“I got a lot of Schmitty stories,” Brown said. “There’s so many I could go to, but I don’t know how many he’d want me to tell.

“One of ‘em — so we ran ramps in college in the summers. And obviously I’m probably the slowest person to come through that university — ever. And every week, our time would increase by two seconds to make it up this ramp (at) the stadium. So it’s the second week and I didn’t make my times. So I’m fighting with him and I’m like, ‘Come on coach, come on man, let me finish the workout.’ And he’s like, ‘No.’ So I come back later, and I didn’t make the time again. So like, 3 o’clock, I ran with the receivers, I still didn’t make my time. He’s like ‘All right big dog, we’re gonna have you come in on Saturday.’ I didn’t make my time on Saturday. Yeah. It was a crazy story. Coach (Bob) Stoops got involved. I can’t get more specific. But it was a crazy story. That’s one of the crazy stories that put me here.”

Failure is not an option when it comes to Schmidt’s standards — no matter who you are or what position you play.

“I think Sam Bradford was trying to get in the workout one time,” Johnson recalled, “and I think he was running a little bit late, and I think as soon as Schmitty saw him, he closed the garage door. As he was right there on the line, it closed on him. So he had to come back in the afternoon group.”

There’s another driving force at OU behind this year’s Sooners in the Super Bowl: offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh. Bedenbaugh didn’t coach Johnson, as he finished in 2012 and Bedenbaugh arrived in 2013. But he did coach both Brown and Humphrey.

“I think for sure Coach B is probably the best college football offensive line coach in America,” Humphrey said. “I just learned so much from him, and he prepared me to be able to make a good contribution in this league right away. So definitely prepared on the mental side, the technique side, everything. It was definitely a blessing having him.”

“Coach B stayed on my ass from Day One,” said Brown. “That’s something that I didn’t take lightly. I took that very serious, and it allowed me to get to this point. Coach B is an amazing coach, but he’s an even better man. He was able to motivate everyone in that room and like I said, helped me get here.”

Hurts is sort of the odd man out in this group, in that most of his collegiate work was performed at Alabama, before he transferred to OU for his senior year. He didn’t work with Jerry Schmidt, and his position coach (and head coach) is now at USC.

But Hurts set numerous records in his one season there, and essentially saved the Sooners’ season by picking OU over Maryland and Miami.

“Being at Oklahoma, that’s a unique situation,” Humphrey said. “Because you’re obviously one of those top colleges in the country, things like that. So him coming in, it was a big help for us mainly because it was just another guy that could be a leader around the team. Oklahoma has always been kind of a player-led team, so just getting another guy in there that does that, it was really cool.”

Three years into his pro career, Hurts absolutely owes his early NFL success to his brief time at OU.

“I think everything you go through, there’s an opportunity to learn from it,” Hurts said. “Everything. Good, bad or indifferent. I hold a lot of respect for Coach (Nick) Saban at the University of Alabama, as well as coach (Lincoln) Riley at the University of Oklahoma. Being able to play for two of the best programs in the country, I think that is a big part of who I am right now. So I have a lot of respect for both those schools.”

The NCAA Transfer Portal wasn’t put in place until fall of 2018, meaning Hurts didn’t have it at his disposal after he lost his staring job to Tua Tagovailoa during the 2017-18 national title game. He stayed another season in Tuscaloosa as a backup, and didn’t leave for Norman until January 2019 — after the portal opened.

But Hurts said leaving Bama in 2018 wouldn’t have served his best interests. Once he finished that fall semester, he had his degree in hand.

“I think portal or no portal, I was staying at Alabama (in 2018),” he said. “ … I left with my degree. That was very important to me. Going to Oklahoma to have an opportunity to play for Coach Riley, that was fun. It was a great experience for me, and I learned a lot from him.”

Johnson, who hails from the East Texas burg of Groveton, had just one junior college offer as a quarterback. But at Kilgore Junior College, he switched to tight end, added muscle, and college football coaches began to take notice.

Johnson takes great pride in his roots — from Groveton to Kilgore to Norman. So much so that in 2019, Johnson donated $500,000 to Kilgore’s athletic department facilities.

“I’d do it 10 times over,” Johnson said. “It serves the football program, it serves the women’s programs. A lot of kids are getting to use it, and I think it helps them when they’re going to the next level they’re trying to get to.

“You always draw inspiration from people, but when I was going to Kilgore, it was Kevin Everett that made it out. Dez Bryant out of Lufkin. So anybody that made it out of where we came from — Adrian Peterson — they just brought a lot of pride to the hometown.”

Johnson is just the latest Sooner from East Texas who went on to NFL stardom.

“I look at the guys ahead of me — Adrian Peterson, Trent Williams — guys like that have really represented the university well,” he said.

Hurts this season finished runner-up (to KC’s Patrick Mahomes) for the NFL’s MVP award. Johnson is widely considered the NFL’s best right tackle. Williams (whose 49ers lost to the Eagles in the NFC title game) is the NFL’s best left tackle. Peterson, now retired, is the best running back of his generation.

One of Johnson’s OU teammates — Winchester — has been called the NFL’s best long-snapper.

“Yeah, James was a receiver at OU,” Johnson said,” and he could have, I feel like, if they would have let him play, he would have been a great, All-Big 12-type (receiver). He could have played anywhere in the Big 12. You know, he’s a 4.5 guy, could broad jump 11-something. But whenever that didn’t work out, he tried the NFL for a couple years, but he was still like 205. Long story short, he gains weight and I had my workout for scouts at my high school. So I was like ‘Hey, my buddy here, who’s with me, he deep snaps.’ I said, ‘He’s very good; can you get him on film?’ So a few weeks later he’s in a preseason game and after that he got a shot with Kansas City. And he’ll be in the league longer than I am.”

Whether it’s Winchester or Bell, Humphrey or Hurts, Johnson or Brown, this year’s Super Bowl Sooners are proud of their time at Oklahoma and are eager to see where Brent Venables takes it OU the future.

“Yeah man, it was so much fun,” Brown said. “Obviously, going to a prestigious university like that and everything that football program has produced, that’s been a part of it. Jerry Schmidt, all the hard work put in with him, time spent with those guys, camaraderie that I built with those guys that I came into college and still have relationships now, man, it’s truly special.”

“I’m really excited,” Humphrey said, “about where they’re headed. I know it was a tough year for them this year, but I’ve met with the coaching staff, I’ve talked to them over the offseason and stuff, and you can tell they’re heading in the right direction. You can tell they’re turning that program into what it needs to be. So I’m really excited to see it. I have full faith in them.”

“Yeah,” Johnson agreed, “we had a little setback this year, but I feel like we’re on the rise.

“This year is really the first year (Venables) gets to recruit the players he wants, that fit the style he wants. Nothing happens overnight. I remember Bob Stoops had a similar type year his first year at Oklahoma before he turned it around. So I feel like this year will be a lot better.”

Somebody who wore the Crimson and Cream is going to win a Super Bowl this year, and Hurts best summed up how that could change the perspective of a player who once thought the mountaintop was in the college game. Fans in Tuscaloosa and Norman put him on a pedestal — as long as he was winning.

“I think going to Alabama, seeing how passionate that fan base was, it was something different,” Hurts said. “Going to Oklahoma, seeing something so passionate as well, was different. But I think being in Philly — whole different animal. Whole different animal.

“I love it though.”