Phred_53, Stillwater (12/4/2008 6:51:41 AM)

Can you say SOUR Grapes? So he always wanted to be a Cowboy and now it took a "payoff" to get him to come to OSU? Pathetic post jsj999

iflyfast, Tulsa (12/4/2008 7:41:07 AM)

It sucks for TU (even though they are loaded at QB for the next couple of years), but it does make you wonder if he would have kept his verbal commitment to TU if OSU was having one of there typical (until this season) .500 season....

iflyfast, Tulsa (12/4/2008 7:41:38 AM)

whoops...there = their

Dave in Houston, Houston (12/4/2008 8:04:07 AM)

Nah...he probably realized the TU coaching carousel was going to continue and TU would be back to it's typical sub-.500 season. ;)

shaw411, Scottsdale, AZ (12/4/2008 8:15:55 AM)

Amen jsj1999

RK, (12/4/2008 8:30:53 AM)

jsj1999: What's pathetic is how dumb OU fans are. Did you know it's a fact they are least educated college fans in the country? I can't believe what I saw at Saturday's game. OU fans clapping when OSU players were hurt on the field; throwing drinks on OSU fans; calling women nasty names. Man, and I thought LSU had disgusting fans. I am surprised to see you all even post, didnt think trailer parks had interent access yet.

48miniRacer, (12/4/2008 8:31:34 AM)

Nothing wrong w/ his decision. He probably grew up wanting to play for the Cowboys and they offered late so he took it. Can't blame a kid for following his heart.

48miniRacer, (12/4/2008 8:33:13 AM)

RK, although jsj1999's comment was out of line it makes no sense for you to bash Oklahoma over it. The Oklahoma fans were just fine during the game.

Seppo, Adelaide, Australia (12/4/2008 8:49:07 AM)

Well let's hope he can really play football and gets an NFL career because something tells me he will get the typical OSU jock education. No offense to OSU or any other big school, but I went to both OSU and TU, and the jocks at OSU certainly had a cakewalk compared to the TU ones...OK let the fur fly because I am sure I just irritated some poke fans and alumni.

NNN, Tulsa (12/4/2008 9:24:51 AM)

Oklahoma State Football Graduation Success Ranking 2008 - 40 (62%)

OU Ranking: 65 (46%)

Big 12 Avg: 63%

Looks to me like the OSU players are getting it done in the classroom a lot better than the OU players.

Also, the following comes from a press release from December 2007: "Darnell Smith graduated from OSU with a degree in economics in December 2006. A four-year letterman as a defensive lineman on the Cowboy football team, the San Antonio native is pursuing his master's degree in sports administration/management.

A member of the student-athlete advisory committee and a four-time, first team Academic All-Big 12 selection, he was also named to the Big 12 Commissioner's Honor Roll nine times, the OSU Dean’s Honor roll five times and the OSU President's honor roll twice.

In addition, Smith was named the OSU Male Student-Athlete of the Year for 2006-07, was a five-time OSU Academic Achievement Award winner and a three-time Arthur Ashe, Jr. Sports Scholar award recipient. He is also a National Football Foundation Honor Society and Hall of Fame inductee, which is given to student-athletes that have show consistency in academics, athletics, community service and good works throughout their collegiate career.

Aside from his academic achievements, Smith also earned the OSU Community Outreach Award and was a two-time winner of the Big 12/Chick-fil-a "Community of Champions." He was heavily involved in volunteer programs at OSU including, UNICEF, Hurricane Katrina Relief, Kids-Across-America, YMCA, and numerous other activities."

That is what OSU student athletes are all about.

DrewTU, (12/4/2008 9:29:33 AM)

Why is this front page news?

Seppo, Adelaide, Australia (12/4/2008 9:44:39 AM)

NNN, good point, and there are certainly exceptions to every rule, and to them I think the world should applaud. I do think your example is a rare exception to the rule and in general I wonder how many jocks get higher degrees. I also wonder how many go on to high paying powerful jobs or even academic jobs as professors. My point is the kid is most likely giving up an exceptional academic opportunity at T.U., and if he is not strong willed and pushes himself academically, I wonder what he will actually achieve at O.S.U? Obviously it can be done, but when the program is weaker, the numbers are larger and you have "special privileges" it makes it tough for any young teenager to keep focused on a career outside of athletics. I attended one semester at O.S.U, and I left due to the academic situation at that school. I can tell you when that when I went to OSU, I had a foreigner teaching me English (who had to look up words in a dictionary regularly), Mathematics courses with several hundred people in them, assorted courses which were graded on bell curve regardless of the actual result you may have achieved. I was not an athlete and did not get a special tutor to attempt to make sure I passed already simple classes, as some of my jock classmates had. However I never experienced any of this nonsense at T.U. At T.U., I had a very focused academic staff that were truly interested in me as a student, not as a number. More importantly, they placed the bar quite high, but made sure as good academics that I was taught properly and could achieve high results.
Once again, no offense to O.S.U., and I know there are exceptional academics that come from that school, but as a whole, the kid is giving up something which he can use for life by choosing a school based on a game, and not what he could possibly learn.

NNN, Tulsa (12/4/2008 10:15:35 AM)

Seppo, you are obviously biased because you enjoyed TU and had a rough one semester at OSU. Chelf is a 4.0 student and by all accounts will do well at OSU academically. TU is a small private school, the smallest in D-1 football, so of course the classes are smaller. But OSU is no slouch of a university, despite what your bias makes you want to believe. We have many well respected programs in Business (you should see the Dynegy trading floor), Architecture, Engineering, Vet-Med, etc. You TU folks like to try to paint our classes as huge an impersonal, but that is not the case 95% of the time. There is a reason OSU grads are so "loyal and true" to our university and that is because it is such a wonderful place to attend college and get an education.

Ignatz, Broken Bow (12/4/2008 10:21:21 AM)

As a TU fan I am sure we will survive. Good luck to this fine athlete.

oak, (12/4/2008 10:38:48 AM)

jsj1999 do you need some cheese along with your whine

sodypoke, (12/4/2008 10:43:22 AM)

If you want a lesson in class, look to Ignatz as an example. As a OSU Finance/Spanish/International Business degree holder and a TU Graduate Degree holder, I can honestly say I believe the level of Academic success you achieve at each of these fine Universities depends on the program you choose and the individual students commitment to achieve. Seppo, something you didn't get to experience at OSU is the smaller upper level classes that are available in just about every course of study at OSU. The access a large university can provide to industry leading experts and execs is difficult to duplicate. TU does have excellent academic possibilities; however, it is limited in scope because of its size. Yes, there are cake classes at OSU, just like there are at Harvard, the London School of Economics, and any other top university in the country. Again, it is my belief that you can't truly judge a school's commitment to educational excellence until you attend the upper level classes and base your opinion on the entire program, not just entry level courses.

Dr. Strangelove, Tulsa (12/4/2008 10:57:20 AM)

Agreed jsj- I doubt OSU will ever be able to beat OU under Gundy (they haven't so far), but at least they're getting better.

Non-BUBBA, (12/4/2008 12:23:24 PM)

When bragging about OSU Athletes' graduation rate, you should consider one Dexter Manley, who graduated (I believe), and then acknowledged later while in the NFL that he couldn't read. So I guess graduation rate is a bit misleading.

Lance-a-lot, Tulsa (12/4/2008 4:59:37 PM)

Who cares, he can't be that great. Only hardcore recruiting followers have heard of him.

TU has Jacob Bower and GJ Kinne anyway, we are set at QB.

MexiMike, tulsa (12/4/2008 9:07:57 PM)

jsj, which team again are you a fan of? Or do you merely post on articles for the attention? A follow up question: Are you a 14 year old girl? Did daddy not give you enough hugs...or did he give you too many, maybe?

Non-bubba (which I find ironic since Bubba probably suits your appearance), I'd like to ask you the same question. Which school do you root for? I'm fairly sure that EVERY school has had athletes that should have never attended college in the first place...but way to bring up the one example that has nothing to do with this article or the student athlete in it. Keep making the best of those two brain cells.

Lance-a-lot, you are a silly fool. "...he can't be that great. Only hardcore recruiting followers have heard of him."

Jerry Rice, Terrel Owens, Tom Brady, Barry Sanders, etc. I hope you can catch onto what I'm getting at. If you can't, your lack of football IQ is even more astounding than originally suspected. (By the way, weren't you the guy who said OSU would get blown off the field by TU only a couple of weeks before TU lost by 40 points to the same Houston team that OSU smashed? Hmmm...)

baro, (12/5/2008 3:00:19 PM)

i am sure TBOONE can let go again of some money....in the future i am sure we will learn of the money that he has paid to football players.

of course many of the OU players leave before they graduate because they go to the pros....not so much with OSU...........

i have been to stillwater in the past during a OU-OSU game and will never go back to stillwater. the OSU fans were mean and violent, i was actually scared walking back to our car..........

MexiMike, tulsa (12/5/2008 10:27:47 PM)

Bilbo, I wasn't comparing him to any of those players. I was merely pointing out that just because a player isn't on many coaches' radars doesn't mean that he can't turn out to be something great.