Tulsa World: Up close: Patrick Lavine

TULSA WORLD HOMEPAGE | Tuesday, February 09, 2010 | WIRELESS

OU | OSU | TU | ORU | HIGH SCHOOLS | COLLEGE FOOTBALL | COLLEGE BASKETBALL | NFL | FANTASY | OUTDOORS | GOLF | PROS | ALL

HOMEPAGES

SPORTS EXTRA BLOGS

		Sports Editor Mike Strain
		Sports Columnist Dave Sittler
		The Picker Entertaining & Infuriating

LOCAL PROS

ALL SPORTS

PHOTOS & VIDEOS

OUTDOORS

FIND A STORY

Search the World's archives

EMAIL ALERTS

SOCIAL MEDIA

RSS FEEDS

CONTACT US

BUY PHOTOS & PAGES

Buy a published photo by clicking the "Order this Picture" link on the photo. For a full-color page reprint, call 732-8198 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday or order online.

TULSA WORLD

ADVERTISE ON SPORTS EXTRA

Learn more about the site.

Newspaper View Print this story

Bookmark

Up close: Patrick Lavine

Linebacker Patrick Lavine pressures Texas A&M quarterback Johnathan Batson during OSU's win last Saturday. Lavine played safety in high school, but has made a solid transition to linebacker. DARYL WILSON / Tulsa World

By MATT DOYLE World Sports Writer
Published: 10/8/2008 2:07 AM
Last Modified: 10/8/2008 3:23 AM

STILLWATER — If Patrick Lavine had entered the Oklahoma State football program in either 2007 or 2008, he probably would have redshirted.

However, when Lavine arrived in '06, the Cowboys were short on depth and needed an immediate influx of young talent.

Despite being a bit undersized and needing to adjust to a new position, Lavine came through for the Cowboys.

He earned first-team Freshman All-America honors from Rivals.com and Scout.com.

Now a mainstay on the Cowboys' defense, Lavine is expected to make his 27th career start at linebacker on Saturday against Missouri.

In high school, you mainly played safety. When you came to OSU, the coaching staff moved you to linebacker even though you weighed 205 pounds. Was the adjustment tougher than you thought?

It was tougher. This is a more physical game. At safety, you are doing more covering. At linebacker, you're more in the box (near the line of scrimmage) with the linemen. It's a whole different thing going on.

Looking back now, did you benefit from playing in 2006, or would you have benefited from a redshirt season?

Redshirting is always a good thing. It gives you an additional year to get faster and stronger. Everything is beneficial from redshirting. That would have been a good thing for me.

But you had to play that year and were ready when the team needed you.

You have to be ready. The team is going to look upon you like they do the other 10 players on the field. You have no choice but to be ready.

Against Texas A&M last week, you returned an interception for a touchdown. How nice was that feeling?

Very nice. I haven't had that feeling in a while. It was good to make a big play. I've been a little slow to contribute this season.

You are one of 16 players on the team who are from the Houston area. Is that a good support group for you and those Houston-area players?

It definitely is. Some players can get homesick easily, and that's hard to do when you have 15 players from your hometown. You can sort of make it feel like home here. There is a connection where you can always look back in the past and talk about when we played against each other. That's a conversation you can always bring up.

If a teammate was asked to describe Patrick Lavine, what would they say?

Energetic and very confident.

LAVINE FACTS

Position: Linebacker
Class: Junior
Height: 6-3
Weight: 225
Hometown: Houston

Matt Doyle 581-8316
matt.doyle@tulsaworld.com By MATT DOYLE World Sports Writer

Newspaper View Print this story

Bookmark

COMMENTS

Add your comment

Show: Most Recent Comment First

0 comments have been made for this team so far. Tell us what you think below!

Reporting Comments

If you see a comment that violates our terms and conditions, please help us by clicking the "Report this Comment" link next to a comment. That will alert the web staff to review the comment. Thank you. -- Web Editor Jason Collington

Add Your Comment
In order to post a comment on this article, you must sign in to Tulsaworld.com. If you do not have a site account, you can create an account for free.