It was one lousy week all around at Oklahoma State. It was bad on the field, off the field, in the heart, in the head.
First, All-America receiver Dez Bryant is suspended for allegedly lying to the NCAA about a bizarre contact with Deion Sanders. Then the grandfather of quarterback Zac Robinson dies in Oklahoma City on Wednesday. Then running back Kendall Hunter is ruled out again with a sprained ankle.
Topping it off, moments before kickoff at Texas A&M, uber booster T. Boone Pickens tells Oklahoma reporters: “We started off ranked five and that was the high point of the year. From there, everything went the wrong direction. Lost Kendall. Now Dez. Houston game was no fun. It’s got to get better.”
Thanks to Robinson, a Chatfield High School grad, it did.
He threw for 279 yards and two touchdowns and ran for another in the Cowboys’ desperately needed 36-31 win. Robinson had spent numerous nights in recent weeks visiting his grandfather in a hospital and said goodbye to him last Monday night.
“Believe it or not,” Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy told reporters Saturday, “there are a few more things more important than college football, and family is one of them.”
On Aug. 5, Frank Robinson had an MRI revealing a brain tumor, and he died barely two months later. A running back and kicker at Oklahoma City’s Classen High School, “Fleet- Foot Frankie” was a huge influence on the football lives of Zac and his father, Rusty, who kicked at Oklahoma.
“They were very close,” Rusty Robinson said Sunday. “Granddad was Zac’s biggest fan. Zac and his granddad were the main football players in my family.”
During the game, Zac Robinson wore the words “PRESS ON” in lamp black under his eyes.
“That was a saying of his,” Robinson said. “He’d say, ‘Press on’ every time I’d see him.”
Robinson’s two TD passes extended his career school mark to 59 and, with 8,969 yards in total offense, is about to become the eighth Big 12 player to reach 9,000. His 7,303 career passing yards are just short of Gundy’s school mark of 7,997.
End Tebow debate.
Since when did the media become medical experts? I purposely didn’t weigh in on the pluses and minuses of Tim Tebow playing two weeks after a concussion. I can barely understand the benefits of Tylenol, let alone diagnose a concussion 1,700 miles away.
Before Florida coach Urban Meyer gave Tebow the OK, he put him through two weeks of tests, had a team of five doctors examine him and had sitdowns with Tim and his father.
“Three days ago, I wasn’t going to play him,” Meyer said after the top- ranked Gators beat LSU 13-3. “I met with his father, Bob, and the doctors and they told me there was no risk factor.”
If you didn’t notice, Tebow managed just fine.
Rebels in tailspin.
New UNLV president Neal Smatresk said last Monday he would evaluate fifth-year coach Mike Sanford on a weekly basis. Sanford’s Rebels responded by giving up 59 points and 611 yards to BYU. The city responded with a crowd of only 25,597, the second smallest BYU- UNLV crowd since the Mountain West Conference was formed. Half of those 25,000 were BYU fans.
In two weeks, UNLV has given up 122 points and 1,384 yards, including 850 rushing. Nevada and BYU converted 15-of-18 third downs.
Said Sanford: “It’s going to get righted. No question.”
Hot seat of the week.
Sanford’s tail isn’t as charbroiled as Bobby Bowden’s at Florida State. His Seminoles walked onto their field arm in arm to show solidarity behind their embattled coach, then went out and gave up 532 yards in a 49-44 loss to Georgia Tech.
Florida State is 2-4 for the first time since 1976 and 0-3 in the Atlantic Coast Conference for the first time. It has lost five straight to FBS opponents at home. Defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews wouldn’t field questions.
Short stuff.
Bowling Green’s Freddie Barnes, who caught 22 passes against Kent State, has 75 receptions this season. The next most is Texas’ Jordan Shipley and SMU’s Emmanuel Sanders with 47. . . . Colorado is well-balanced offensively. It’s 112th in rushing (83.4 yards per game) and 110th in pass efficiency (100.79). . . . Sam Bradford’s arm apparently is OK. His 49 pass attempts were the second-most in his career. . . . Idaho, 3-21 the last two years but off to its best start since 1994 at 5-1, including a 31-29 victory against Colorado State two weekends ago, received a vote in the Associated Press poll.
