QB signee Cody Thomas has some Bradford in him, but will OU fans ever see it?
Published: 2/7/2013 6:52 AM
Last Modified: 2/7/2013 6:52 AM
I thought I heard an Oklahoma coach compare quarterback signee Cody Thomas to Sam Bradford Wednesday morning, so I asked Bob Stoops about it Wednesday afternoon.
"Just in that with Sam it seemed so effortless, how quick he was with his release. Cody's got a great release, a great arm," Stoops replied. "He's just so athletic. With Sam, he picks up a golf club he shoots even par. Throw him on a basketball court, he'd be among the top three guys picked in this room with our team. Whatever he did, he did it well. And Cody's like that.
"Everything he does, he does it well. He's athletic enough, too, to pull the ball and run it. He's not quite as tall as Sam, which I think gives him the ability to run it."
At this point, we could choose to throw the hype machine into overdrive. But since Thomas has a semester left at Heritage High School in Colleyville, Texas… And since that machine is already cranked up over redshirt freshman QB Trevor Knight… We'll calm down and instead consider whether Thomas will actually ever play football for the Sooners.
The kid is a terrific baseball prospect who might just get drafted too high to say "no" come June.
And what did Stoops have to say about that?
"Talking with Cody and his family throughout this whole recruiting process, he is adamant that he truly wants to play football, unless he was picked so high that he couldn't turn away from it."
That at least cracks the door to the possibility.
"Most indications are that football is important enough to him that he's going to want to pursue that," Stoops said. "We wouldn't have pursued this and gone down this road if we didn't feel there was a great chance that Cody would be with us."
Thomas spoke with my tag-team partner Eric Bailey about this a couple weeks ago, saying: "Right now, I plan on going to college. What's see what happens when (the MLB draft) comes, but I am focused on going to college."
In OU's perfect world, Thomas doubles up for the Sooners. Stoops has already given him the green light to play baseball in his spare time, figuring with just 15 football practices each spring it's not too big a deal to turn Thomas over to Sunny Golloway.
"We can make it work," Stoops said. "He's too talented not to play. If God gives you that kind of talent you need to use it. We can work around that."
"I'm definitely pumped for that," Thomas said of the football/baseball double. "When picking the college I planned on going to, one of the top priorities was playing baseball. I've been playing baseball my whole life and can't see going somewhere without it.
"But I am going to Oklahoma for football. My scholarship is for football and that's the main priority."
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
