RJ Esq
Prick Since 1974
From SI:
Oklahoma bombshell
Bomar scandal will rock Sooners in 2006 and beyond
Posted: Wednesday August 2, 2006 10:50PM; Updated: Wednesday August 2, 2006 11:49PM
Rhett Bomar was expected to lead the Sooners to the Big 12 title this season.
Bob Rosato/SI
Usually, August is about the most upbeat month of the year on a college football fan's calendar. The start of practice is here, the first game is now so close you can smell it and every team in the country is still in the hunt for a championship.
This August, however, is off to a Debbie Downer-style start for fans of several of the nation's powerhouses. It's only been two days, and already the headlines section of this Web site's college football page reads like a horror novel. Alleged steroid use at USC. Arrests at Tennessee. Key players suspended for big games at Miami and Auburn.
While I don't want to make light of any of these situations, it's safe to say that none come close to matching the magnitude of Oklahoma quarterback Rhett Bomar's stunning dismissal Wednesday. Not since the infamous Maurice Clarett's suspension on the eve of the 2003 season has such an important player on such a high-profile team suddenly vanished from the landscape. And as the details of Bomar and banished teammate J.D. Quinn's transgressions have begun to leak, it's clear that this scandal is every bit as seedy, if not more so, than Clarett's.
According to reports, Bomar had an arrangement with an OU-friendly car dealership that paid him thousands of dollars for performing little-to-no work. It's the kind of thing so brazen in its stupidity that you wonder how on Earth the involved parties thought they could get away with it, and yet, none of us are naïve enough to think there aren't plenty of others who do.
As long as there are college football boosters, there will be booster scandals. It comes with the territory. By their very definition, these are the people most zealous about their favorite team, and that eagerness motivates them to do whatever they can to help the cause. Unfortunately, however, the misguided ones often wind up doing far more harm to their cherished team than any benefit they could have provided.
In this case, if the allegations are true, the former proprietors of Big Red Sports/Imports (which has since been sold to an Oklahoma City conglomerate), not to mention Bomar himself, have directly jeopardized the future of their beloved Sooners. We don't know at this point whether the program will face NCAA sanctions. We do know it has lost its projected quarterback for not only this coming season but the next two as well. Not just any quarterback, mind you -- the top-rated high school quarterback in the country three years ago, a guy who figured to shatter nearly every school passing record by the time his playing days were done.
In the short term, Oklahoma might not suffer as badly as you'd think. As luck would have it, the Sooners happen to have a veteran quarterback on their roster, fifth-year senior Paul Thompson, though he's been practicing and playing at receiver for the past year. Thompson saw considerable action in 2003 and '04 in relief of Jason White back when OU was beating people 53-7 and 52-9 and was originally the starter coming out of fall camp last season before Bomar supplanted him.
Paul Thompson played quarterback for the Sooners in the spring of 2005 (above) but had since moved to wide receiver.
Darren Carroll/SI
While it's hardly ideal to have to rejigger your entire offense on three weeks' notice, one could easily see offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson employing the more mobile Thompson out of spread formations the way he did with Zak Kustok at Northwestern in 2000-01. And it's not like OU was going to be passing the ball 35 times a game what with Adrian Peterson lining up in its backfield. So long as the Sooners can regroup from the shock of this, they can still contend for the Big 12 title in 2006.
What every OU fan should be frightened about right now, however, is 2007 and beyond. If things had gone according to plan, Bomar by then would have had two years of experience under his belt and the Sooners' cast of talented young receivers, led by Malcolm Kelly, would have established themselves as veterans. In the likely event that Peterson turns pro early, OU would have been able to naturally morph back into a passing team.
Because of Bomar's presence, however, quarterback had not been a big recruiting priority for Oklahoma. After Thompson, the Sooners are down to unimpressive juco transfer Joey Halzle and incoming true freshman Sam Bradford, Scout.com's 17th-rated QB in last year's class. The guy that would have taken over, former stud recruit Tommy Grady, bailed out following Bomar's ascension last year and is currently battling for Utah's QB job. Barring a big-name transfer or heralded blue-chipper arriving between now and then, either Halzle or Bradford will be the starting quarterback next season. (OU is not currently listed among the favorites of any current top-25 QB prospects, though that may change now.)
But the real impact of Bomar's folly is the irreparable stain it will leave on Bob Stoops' previously squeaky-clean program, though you have to give the guy props for reacting the way he did. Stoops didn't have to throw his star player off the team. Normal protocol in such situations is suspension and restitution, a la Troy Smith's two-game ban at Ohio State last year. Whether it was the ludicrous amount of money involved, the fact that Bomar has run afoul of his coach twice before with a pair of possession-of-alcohol arrests or just wanting to send a message, Stoops went ahead and booted one of his most valuable players. "I firmly believe that our program is stronger than any individual player, and that a championship program cannot compromise its values," he said in a statement.
But the program isn't without blame in this mess, either. One has to wonder how such a thing was able to go on in the first place. This wasn't a case of Bomar receiving secret handouts from some nefarious mystery figure. If the reports are to believed, he was an actual salaried employee of the car dealership. And not just any car dealership -- the same one that provides free rides to OU coaches and athletics staff (most schools have similar arrangements). And the same one that raised eyebrows in April when it was revealed that Peterson had been allowed to "return" a pre-owned Lexus from there after driving it for several weeks (Peterson was cleared of any wrong-doing because then-owner Brad McRae deemed the arrangement a "standard operating business practice.")
Schools like Oklahoma employ compliance people for the sole purpose of monitoring ticking time bombs like this one. While it's unreasonable to expect them to know every intimate detail of every athlete in their department, the star quarterback working at the shady car dealership should have raised red flags from day one.
Ultimately, Stoops and his program will have to deal with the fallout for years to come. NCAA sanctions are possible, but not likely, unless an investigation uncovers university involvement and/or a repeated pattern of such abuses. (The Wisconsin "Shoe Box" scandal of a few years back comes to mind -- the school received five years' probation.) Rival coaches will use it against him in recruiting. And media outlets will draw inevitable, albeit ludicrous comparisons to the Barry Switzer/Charles Thompson/Brian Bosworth-era "bad boy" Sooners.
Stoops has a far more pressing concern than any of those, however. Fall camp starts Thursday, and two expected offensive starters -- including the quarterback -- won't be there. So much for the happy vibes of August.
Oklahoma bombshell
Bomar scandal will rock Sooners in 2006 and beyond
Posted: Wednesday August 2, 2006 10:50PM; Updated: Wednesday August 2, 2006 11:49PM
Rhett Bomar was expected to lead the Sooners to the Big 12 title this season.
Bob Rosato/SI
Usually, August is about the most upbeat month of the year on a college football fan's calendar. The start of practice is here, the first game is now so close you can smell it and every team in the country is still in the hunt for a championship.
This August, however, is off to a Debbie Downer-style start for fans of several of the nation's powerhouses. It's only been two days, and already the headlines section of this Web site's college football page reads like a horror novel. Alleged steroid use at USC. Arrests at Tennessee. Key players suspended for big games at Miami and Auburn.
While I don't want to make light of any of these situations, it's safe to say that none come close to matching the magnitude of Oklahoma quarterback Rhett Bomar's stunning dismissal Wednesday. Not since the infamous Maurice Clarett's suspension on the eve of the 2003 season has such an important player on such a high-profile team suddenly vanished from the landscape. And as the details of Bomar and banished teammate J.D. Quinn's transgressions have begun to leak, it's clear that this scandal is every bit as seedy, if not more so, than Clarett's.
According to reports, Bomar had an arrangement with an OU-friendly car dealership that paid him thousands of dollars for performing little-to-no work. It's the kind of thing so brazen in its stupidity that you wonder how on Earth the involved parties thought they could get away with it, and yet, none of us are naïve enough to think there aren't plenty of others who do.
As long as there are college football boosters, there will be booster scandals. It comes with the territory. By their very definition, these are the people most zealous about their favorite team, and that eagerness motivates them to do whatever they can to help the cause. Unfortunately, however, the misguided ones often wind up doing far more harm to their cherished team than any benefit they could have provided.
In this case, if the allegations are true, the former proprietors of Big Red Sports/Imports (which has since been sold to an Oklahoma City conglomerate), not to mention Bomar himself, have directly jeopardized the future of their beloved Sooners. We don't know at this point whether the program will face NCAA sanctions. We do know it has lost its projected quarterback for not only this coming season but the next two as well. Not just any quarterback, mind you -- the top-rated high school quarterback in the country three years ago, a guy who figured to shatter nearly every school passing record by the time his playing days were done.
In the short term, Oklahoma might not suffer as badly as you'd think. As luck would have it, the Sooners happen to have a veteran quarterback on their roster, fifth-year senior Paul Thompson, though he's been practicing and playing at receiver for the past year. Thompson saw considerable action in 2003 and '04 in relief of Jason White back when OU was beating people 53-7 and 52-9 and was originally the starter coming out of fall camp last season before Bomar supplanted him.
Paul Thompson played quarterback for the Sooners in the spring of 2005 (above) but had since moved to wide receiver.
Darren Carroll/SI
While it's hardly ideal to have to rejigger your entire offense on three weeks' notice, one could easily see offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson employing the more mobile Thompson out of spread formations the way he did with Zak Kustok at Northwestern in 2000-01. And it's not like OU was going to be passing the ball 35 times a game what with Adrian Peterson lining up in its backfield. So long as the Sooners can regroup from the shock of this, they can still contend for the Big 12 title in 2006.
What every OU fan should be frightened about right now, however, is 2007 and beyond. If things had gone according to plan, Bomar by then would have had two years of experience under his belt and the Sooners' cast of talented young receivers, led by Malcolm Kelly, would have established themselves as veterans. In the likely event that Peterson turns pro early, OU would have been able to naturally morph back into a passing team.
Because of Bomar's presence, however, quarterback had not been a big recruiting priority for Oklahoma. After Thompson, the Sooners are down to unimpressive juco transfer Joey Halzle and incoming true freshman Sam Bradford, Scout.com's 17th-rated QB in last year's class. The guy that would have taken over, former stud recruit Tommy Grady, bailed out following Bomar's ascension last year and is currently battling for Utah's QB job. Barring a big-name transfer or heralded blue-chipper arriving between now and then, either Halzle or Bradford will be the starting quarterback next season. (OU is not currently listed among the favorites of any current top-25 QB prospects, though that may change now.)
But the real impact of Bomar's folly is the irreparable stain it will leave on Bob Stoops' previously squeaky-clean program, though you have to give the guy props for reacting the way he did. Stoops didn't have to throw his star player off the team. Normal protocol in such situations is suspension and restitution, a la Troy Smith's two-game ban at Ohio State last year. Whether it was the ludicrous amount of money involved, the fact that Bomar has run afoul of his coach twice before with a pair of possession-of-alcohol arrests or just wanting to send a message, Stoops went ahead and booted one of his most valuable players. "I firmly believe that our program is stronger than any individual player, and that a championship program cannot compromise its values," he said in a statement.
But the program isn't without blame in this mess, either. One has to wonder how such a thing was able to go on in the first place. This wasn't a case of Bomar receiving secret handouts from some nefarious mystery figure. If the reports are to believed, he was an actual salaried employee of the car dealership. And not just any car dealership -- the same one that provides free rides to OU coaches and athletics staff (most schools have similar arrangements). And the same one that raised eyebrows in April when it was revealed that Peterson had been allowed to "return" a pre-owned Lexus from there after driving it for several weeks (Peterson was cleared of any wrong-doing because then-owner Brad McRae deemed the arrangement a "standard operating business practice.")
Schools like Oklahoma employ compliance people for the sole purpose of monitoring ticking time bombs like this one. While it's unreasonable to expect them to know every intimate detail of every athlete in their department, the star quarterback working at the shady car dealership should have raised red flags from day one.
Ultimately, Stoops and his program will have to deal with the fallout for years to come. NCAA sanctions are possible, but not likely, unless an investigation uncovers university involvement and/or a repeated pattern of such abuses. (The Wisconsin "Shoe Box" scandal of a few years back comes to mind -- the school received five years' probation.) Rival coaches will use it against him in recruiting. And media outlets will draw inevitable, albeit ludicrous comparisons to the Barry Switzer/Charles Thompson/Brian Bosworth-era "bad boy" Sooners.
Stoops has a far more pressing concern than any of those, however. Fall camp starts Thursday, and two expected offensive starters -- including the quarterback -- won't be there. So much for the happy vibes of August.
