CATCH17
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OU castoff Bomar out to prove he still 'belongs'
January 22, 2009
Albert Breer
MOBILE, ALA.--It wasn't a hard-and-fast rule that the Bomar family set.
But there was an understanding. If the Oklahoma Sooners came on television last fall, Rhett Bomar would change the channel. His dad, Jerry, too.
When Rhett was a high school senior, he and Adrian Peterson were featured in a Sports Illustrated story spotlighting how OU had raided Texas for the state's two most heralded recruits. In 2005, Bomar, then a redshirt freshman, started 10 games, leading a youthful offense.
The Sooners went 8-4, their worst record this decade, but the future was bright: Six freshmen from that team started on 2008's record-breaking offense, and that's not counting Peterson, who left early for the NFL.
Bomar wasn't one of them, booted off the team in the summer of 2006 for accepting a reported $7,406.88 in payment from a Norman car dealership for work never rendered, before transferring to Sam Houston State. Bomar lost a year of eligibility, per the NCAA, before returning to start 19 games and become the school's all-time leading passer.
And now he's here, where he figured to be all along, at the Senior Bowl, showcasing his talents in front of hundreds of NFL scouts, coaches and GMs.
As for the road he took to make it to Mobile, there's still some pain lingering. That's why he decided not to watch OU games last fall and kept himself from wondering what he could've done on the platform that propelled Sooners quarterback Sam Bradford to the Heisman Trophy and the team to the BCS Championship Game. "You'll drive yourself nuts thinking, 'Oh, I should be there,' " said Bomar. "I'm friends with all those guys, I wish them the best, but I wasn't going to sit there and watch them."
Instead, he focused on what he could do to resurrect his promise in relative anonymity in Huntsville, Texas, home to a state prison known for its death row.
So it's been that the kid who still has the ability of the Golden Boy who won Holiday Bowl MVP honors in '05 has done just that.
Scouts in Mobile buzz about Bomar's practice sessions, the way the ball comes off his hand, how he can drive the ball into the deeper reaches of the field and toward the sideline and the poise he shows in operating an offense. At 6-2 and 224 pounds, he looks the part, too, standing tall in the pocket and displaying a classic release. But those, he knows, aren't the big questions he'll have to answer.
"You just tell them what happened," Bomar said. "You've got to be honest with everybody and up front about it, be a man and tell them you made a mistake. Once you get past that, they're fine with it and you talk about better stuff."
Going through it has been just as tough, maybe even tougher, on Jerry, Bomar's father, and also his high school coach. The dad couldn't bring himself to watch college football at all last fall. Part of it was that he saw Oklahoma growing. Another was how, as he watched other quarterbacks across the country, he felt his son was equal to any of them.
But perhaps biggest was the circumstances under which all this came to be.
It's in the past, it's gone, this is America, everybody deserves a second chance."
Father says he always knew, not thought, his son was a good kid. And he continually reminded him, "they may have taken you out of some of the publicity and the Heisman stuff, but they didn't take your talent away."
Then, he assured Rhett they would make it right.
"I told Rhett this: In the long run when this is over, someday, you're going to be a great story," Jerry says. "You're going to show people that you can be knocked down, but you gotta get up. More power to Sam Bradford and Oklahoma; we have nothing against them.
"Rhett's future is still good."
He overcame a knee injury, he graduated and now he's here--reunited with one of the guys he threw to at OU, Juaquin Iglesias.
"He handled adversity well, and he's out here now," said Iglesias, who was close with Bomar at OU. "You felt bad for him at first; he was young at the time and young people make mistakes, but he went through it and he's here now."
And Bomar is trying to prove, again, that he's every bit the blue-chipper he was once purported to be.
"Once you get past (the controversy), you get to the important stuff, which is football," said Bomar. "This week's been great; it's what I've been waiting for.
January 22, 2009
Albert Breer
MOBILE, ALA.--It wasn't a hard-and-fast rule that the Bomar family set.
But there was an understanding. If the Oklahoma Sooners came on television last fall, Rhett Bomar would change the channel. His dad, Jerry, too.
When Rhett was a high school senior, he and Adrian Peterson were featured in a Sports Illustrated story spotlighting how OU had raided Texas for the state's two most heralded recruits. In 2005, Bomar, then a redshirt freshman, started 10 games, leading a youthful offense.
The Sooners went 8-4, their worst record this decade, but the future was bright: Six freshmen from that team started on 2008's record-breaking offense, and that's not counting Peterson, who left early for the NFL.
Bomar wasn't one of them, booted off the team in the summer of 2006 for accepting a reported $7,406.88 in payment from a Norman car dealership for work never rendered, before transferring to Sam Houston State. Bomar lost a year of eligibility, per the NCAA, before returning to start 19 games and become the school's all-time leading passer.
And now he's here, where he figured to be all along, at the Senior Bowl, showcasing his talents in front of hundreds of NFL scouts, coaches and GMs.
As for the road he took to make it to Mobile, there's still some pain lingering. That's why he decided not to watch OU games last fall and kept himself from wondering what he could've done on the platform that propelled Sooners quarterback Sam Bradford to the Heisman Trophy and the team to the BCS Championship Game. "You'll drive yourself nuts thinking, 'Oh, I should be there,' " said Bomar. "I'm friends with all those guys, I wish them the best, but I wasn't going to sit there and watch them."
Instead, he focused on what he could do to resurrect his promise in relative anonymity in Huntsville, Texas, home to a state prison known for its death row.
So it's been that the kid who still has the ability of the Golden Boy who won Holiday Bowl MVP honors in '05 has done just that.
Scouts in Mobile buzz about Bomar's practice sessions, the way the ball comes off his hand, how he can drive the ball into the deeper reaches of the field and toward the sideline and the poise he shows in operating an offense. At 6-2 and 224 pounds, he looks the part, too, standing tall in the pocket and displaying a classic release. But those, he knows, aren't the big questions he'll have to answer.
"You just tell them what happened," Bomar said. "You've got to be honest with everybody and up front about it, be a man and tell them you made a mistake. Once you get past that, they're fine with it and you talk about better stuff."
Going through it has been just as tough, maybe even tougher, on Jerry, Bomar's father, and also his high school coach. The dad couldn't bring himself to watch college football at all last fall. Part of it was that he saw Oklahoma growing. Another was how, as he watched other quarterbacks across the country, he felt his son was equal to any of them.
But perhaps biggest was the circumstances under which all this came to be.
It's in the past, it's gone, this is America, everybody deserves a second chance."
Father says he always knew, not thought, his son was a good kid. And he continually reminded him, "they may have taken you out of some of the publicity and the Heisman stuff, but they didn't take your talent away."
Then, he assured Rhett they would make it right.
"I told Rhett this: In the long run when this is over, someday, you're going to be a great story," Jerry says. "You're going to show people that you can be knocked down, but you gotta get up. More power to Sam Bradford and Oklahoma; we have nothing against them.
"Rhett's future is still good."
He overcame a knee injury, he graduated and now he's here--reunited with one of the guys he threw to at OU, Juaquin Iglesias.
"He handled adversity well, and he's out here now," said Iglesias, who was close with Bomar at OU. "You felt bad for him at first; he was young at the time and young people make mistakes, but he went through it and he's here now."
And Bomar is trying to prove, again, that he's every bit the blue-chipper he was once purported to be.
"Once you get past (the controversy), you get to the important stuff, which is football," said Bomar. "This week's been great; it's what I've been waiting for.