How two Sooners can draw from a couple Super Bowl champions
Published: 2/4/2013 3:30 PM
Last Modified: 2/4/2013 3:30 PM
Baltimore Ravens Joe Flacco and Ray Lewis are the latest examples of what's called "changing the narrative." A player's back story is written over time, until something dramatic happens to alter it. A season, or even a game, arrives and the narrative changes.
For Flacco and Lewis, the 2013 playoffs happened. Flacco went from being a good quarterback capable of getting his team into the postseason to an elite Super Bowl winner. Lewis went from being a Hall of Fame player with questionable (at best) character to a man of God seeking personal redemption before calling it a career.
Both feel-good stories that fans, and reporters, lapped up like Saint Bernards at a water dish.
In another year, you can bet we'll be putting different players from different teams in a similarly new light. No profession does makeovers like sports. It doesn't even have to be in the pros.
This time next year, we could be reconsidering a couple Oklahoma Sooners. I'll give you two possibilities: Jaz Reynolds and Quentin Hayes.
Both players vanished from sight in 2012 after they were suspended, along with Trey Franks, last spring. They returned to workouts in the fall, but didn't get into any games.
A couple weeks after the season ended, Bob Stoops made it clear the suspended players "don't have much room for error" in terms of future involvement with the program. But all three are still around. In fact, OU sent them to a Norman elementary school recently for a Sooner Junior youth promotion. If the door isn't at least cracked for their return, why bother to trot them out in the community?
I sort of believe it is, especially for Reynolds and Hayes.
Reynolds is a wide receiver who, when steering clear of trouble, has proven himself in the past. The number of proven OU wide receivers entering the 2013 season is thin. Jalen Saunders and Sterling Shepard for sure. Trey Metoyer, Durron Neal and Lacoltan Bester are maybe/maybe nots.
Reynolds can sure Blake Bell's transition to starting QB a whole lot easier if he behaves himself and proves his worth between now and the start of preseason camp next August.
Position coach Jay Norvell hasn't given up on him, saying back in December: "Jaz has to keep pushing and plugging and sawing wood. He'll get his chance to get back out there."
Hayes' position coach sounded hopeful as well during a recent radio interview. Mike Stoops told The Sports Animal's Al Eschbach: "I was disappointed that he was suspended. It kind of hurt his development at the strong safety position. He's got great athleticism, great size and range back there."
That position is up for grabs now that Tony Jefferson and Javon Harris have moved on. There's no reason that Hayes can't seize the moment, assuming he learns from his mistakes and stays in the Stoops' good graces.
The two brothers should be tearing down and starting over based on the Sooners' defense the last six weeks of 2012. And that should only favor Hayes as he looks to do some rebuilding of his own.
There are other OU candidates to change their narratives in 2013. I think of players like Metoyer, who struggled to live up to his hype as a freshman; Corey Nelson, the rising star who fell to earth with the rest of OU's linebackers last season; and Tyler Evans, on the rebound from his season-ending knee injury of last August. All their stories need is tweaking, though, a subtle change of plot.
Reynolds and Hayes could both use a complete rewrite. Wouldn't it be interesting if they got one?
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
