Tag: kennedy brooks

Report: Oklahoma star RB Kennedy Brooks opting-out of 2020 season

Oklahoma star running back Kennedy Brooks will opt-out of the 2020 college football season, according to a report

This weekend Coach Lincoln Riley revealed nine Oklahoma players had tested positive for COVID-19. The impact of the pandemic is going to hit the Sooners in another fashion, too, as star running back Kennedy Brooks is opting out of the 2020 season, according to a report.

The Big 12 is one of the few conferences — ACC and SEC — continuing with plans to play in 2020 despite the impact of the pandemic.

Kennedy Brooks is a redshirt junior who has 2,067 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns over the last two seasons. He is from Mansfield, Tx.

Some of the highlights of his career in Norman, which appears to be over.

2019
A second-team All-Big 12 honoree by league’s coaches and media … played in 13 contests and started each of the last 10 in which he appeared (missed the game at Kansas [10/5] due to injury) … rushed for 1,011 yards and six touchdowns on 155 carries … ranked ninth nationally and first in Big 12 by averaging 6.5 yards per carry … recorded four 100-yard rushing games …

2018
A USA Today Freshman All-American … a Pro Football Focus Second-Team All-American … an All-Big 12 Honorable Mention choice by league’s coaches … ranked third nationally with 8.9 yards per rush (minimum 9.0 carries per game) …  eclipsed 100-yard rushing mark in five games … rushed for over 165 yards in four of last six games of regular season … rushed for a career-high 182 yards and a score on 21 carries in regular season finale at West Virginia …

HIGH SCHOOL
A four-star recruit by ESPN, Rivals and Scout and a three-star prospect by 247Sports … rated as the No. 122 recruit in the country by Scout, No. 183 by Rivals and No. 311 by 247Sports … touted as the 12th-best running back by Scout, 13th-best by Rivals, 20th-best by 247Sports and 27th-best by ESPN … 23rd-ranked player in the state of Texas by Rivals, 42nd by 247Sports and 47th by ESPN … finished his career with 7,658 rushing yards and 96 touchdowns on 885 carries (8.7 yards per rush) …

Oklahoma starting RB Kennedy Brooks opts-out of playing 2020 season, per report

For the first time prior to the 2020 season, Oklahoma has its first player who has chosen to opt-out and it’s a big loss.

For the first time prior to the 2020 season, Oklahoma has its first player who has chosen to opt-out.

College football programs like Syracuse, Vanderbilt and others are seeing a rash of players opt-out of playing the college football season due to concerns about COVID-19 or preparing for the 2021 NFL draft. The Sooners have not had a single player or a rumor of a single player opt out.

Until Sunday.

According to a report from Jason Kersey of the Athletic, star Oklahoma running back Kennedy Brooks.

Brooks has been a key figure of Oklahoma’s offense for the last two years. He has rushed for over 1,000 yards in each season and was on pace to be one of the best statistical running backs in Sooners’ history. Brooks’ 7.5 yards per carry at Oklahoma is good for a tie at No. 1 (Greg Pruitt) of running backs with at least 200 carries.

He came to Oklahoma in the 2017 recruiting class as a four-star running back from Mansfield, Texas.

The Sooners nor Lincoln Riley have made an announcement on Brooks’ opting out. Here is what the University of Oklahoma said in regards to players opting-out on June 26:

If at any time during the 2020-21 season a student-athlete feels uncomfortable returning or continuing any activities due to COVID-19, they may withdraw themselves without negative impact regarding their standing with the team or athletics department financial aid.

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Oklahoma tight end Austin Stogner named to Mackey Award watch list

Sophomore tight end Austin Stogner was named to the Mackey Award preseason watch list on Friday.

The John Mackey Award, which annually honors the nation’s best tight end, released its preseason watch list on Friday.

The list included sophomore tight end Austin Stogner, one of only three sophomores to make the cut.

Stogner played in seven games last season, recording seven catches for 66 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Notably, both of Stogner’s touchdowns came on back-to-back offensive drives in the midst of OU’s 25-point comeback against Baylor on Nov. 16.

Stogner’s red-zone capabilities were vital to that comeback, and there’s good reason to believe that trend will continue into next season.

Lincoln Riley’s offense favors strong tight end play, setting up Stogner to follow in the footsteps of former Sooner tight ends Grant Calcaterra and Mark Andrews.

But Stogner is not the only Sooner receiving preseason accolades.

WR Charleston Rambo was named to the Biletnikoff Award watch list. RB Kennedy Brooks made the Doak Walker Award watch list.

And QB Spencer Rattler was named Big 12 preseason Newcomer of the Year.

It’s looking like OU’s offense is primed for yet another historic season.

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Oklahoma’s Kennedy Brooks named to Doak Walker Award watch list

Oklahoma running back Kennedy Brooks was added to the Doak Walker Award watch list on Wednesday

Oklahoma running back Kennedy Brooks was added to the Doak Walker Award watch list on Wednesday. The award is presented to the top running back in college football.

A junior out of Mansfield, Texas, Brooks has finished with back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons with the Sooners.

 As a freshman in 2018, he amassed 1,056 yards and 12 touchdowns. Last season, despite QB Jalen Hurts leading the team in rushing yards, he still finished with 1,011 and six touchdowns. He averaged 8.9 yards per carry as a freshman and 6.5 as a sophomore. 

Brooks will be Oklahoma’s most experience running back, and will have to carry the load early in the season. Trey Sermon transferred to Ohio State and Jalen Hurts is now with the Eagles. Senior Rhamondre Stevenson will have to sit out some games due to suspension, but that could change with any cancellations or postponements.

In total, 72 running backs were added to the watchlist. Others in the conference included Texas Tech’s Sarodorick Thompson, Texas’ Keaontay Ingram, Iowa State’s Breece Hall and Oklahoma State’s Chuba Hubbard. 

Wednesday Big 12 morning rush: Top stories from the conference

The top stories from around the Big 12 conference in the Wednesday morning rush. 247Sports and Arizona Sports provide the headlines.

Each morning Longhorns Wire shares the top stories from around the Big 12 Conference. Here are today’s top articles provided by 247Sports and Arizona Sports.

Continue reading “Wednesday Big 12 morning rush: Top stories from the conference”

Oklahoma 2020 player card: No. 26 Kennedy Brooks

Sooners Wire will be creating player cards for readers to be introduced to the 2020 roster. Here is No. 26 Kennedy Brooks.

There is a ton of momentum to having a 2020 college football season these days. No definite signs, yet, but the season would start less than 100 days from now.

Sooners Wire will be creating player cards for readers to be introduced to the 2020 roster.

Here is No. 26 for Oklahoma.

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Name: Kennedy Brooks

Number: No. 26

Year: Redshirt junior

Position: Running back

Hometown: Mansfield, TX

Height/Weight: 5-foot-11, 214 pounds

Kennedy Brooks is destined for a big year.

A four-star recruit out of the 2017 Oklahoma class, Brooks took only one unofficial visit to Baylor before committing to Oklahoma in early October of 2016. He amassed 7,658 yards and 96 touchdowns at Mansfield high school in Texas.

As a Sooner, Brooks has had to share the spotlight year after year, and has still managed to produce. A 1,000-yard rusher last season, Brooks finished with the second most rushing yards on the team behind quarterback Jalen Hurts.

In 2020, Brooks is destined to have the spotlight. Hurts was an anomaly, and Brooks will almost surely not have to give up that much of the rushing workload to his quarterback the rest of his career, be it Spencer Rattler or Tanner Mordecai. Backup Trey Sermon, who carried a significant amount of the workload the past couple years, has now transferred to Ohio State. Rhamondre Stevenson will more than likely miss the first five games of the season due to a 2019 suspension, leaving the experienced Brooks, as well as TJ Pledger and Marcus Major, who have seen little action. A big season could propel Brooks into early round draft talk.

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Top five running backs Texas will face in 2020

To truly be considered an elite offense in the Big 12, you also need a great ground game. Here are the top five RBs Texas will face in 2020:

After looking at the top five quarterbacks the Longhorns will play in 2020, we move on to the running game. Five out of the top six leading rushers in the Big 12 are returning next season, with Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts leaving for the NFL.

While Texas’ Keaontay Johnson cannot make the list, he should be considered up there atop the Big 12 in running backs. Despite dealing with injuries and the surprise help of Roschon Johnson, Ingram finished sixth in the conference.

For the rest of the pack, this will not be their first time running over, through, and around defenses on a week to week basis. To truly be considered an elite offense in the Big 12, you also need a great ground game.

Related: Game-by-game prediction for the 2020 Texas Longhorns football season

Here are the top five running backs Texas will face in 2020:

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6

OPINION Kennedy Brooks is Oklahoma’s present day Landry Jones

There has been much talk about Oklahoma’s running backs since Trey Sermon transferred. But no need to fear, Kennedy Brooks is still here.

There’s not another player since Bob Stoops took over to be more under-appreciated than Landry Jones.

Following Sam Bradford’s two-year reign on college football that culminated in a Heisman Trophy doesn’t help. Nor does the Lincoln Riley Era bombs-away style offense that saw Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray take the tops off of defenses on a weekly basis.

Landry Jones is statistically the greatest quarterback to ever play at Oklahoma. Yes, his flaws in big games and the eye test tell a different story, but the numbers and team success can’t be denied.

Now?

The same can be said for Kennedy Brooks, who is on pace to become one of the greatest statistical running backs in Oklahoma history.

There was a national narrative about how big of a loss Trey Sermon was to Ohio State, but many forget what Brooks has been able to accomplish in his first two seasons for Riley and the Sooners.

The Mansfield, Texas, product has eclipsed the 1,000 yard rushing total in both seasons despite not becoming the feature back until late in the 2018 season. In 2020, Brooks could tie Adrian Peterson, De’Mond Parker and Samaje Perine as the only Oklahoma running backs to have three 1,000 yard rushing seasons.

His running style has been described by Riley as if he was walking a dog in a park. Brooks is smooth. He anticipates rushing lanes by setting up blocks. His patience, vision and one cut-and-go running style has allowed Brooks to average 7.5 yards a carry in his first two seasons. That number is good for a tie at No. 1 in Oklahoma history with Greg Pruitt among rushers with at least 200 attempts.

For a moment, it appeared as if Brooks may move on to the NFL after his redshirt sophomore season, but he’s back. Thus far in his career, he has shared a backfield with another top running back whether it was Sermon and Rodney Anderson in 2017 or Sermon and Rhamondre Stevenson in 2019. With Sermon’s transfer and Stevenson’s pending suspension for the first five games of 2020, the workload just increased for Brooks in his redshirt junior season.

At his current rate, Brooks will need a fourth season to catch any of the Oklahoma running backs in the top-8 of all-time rushing yards. At 137 attempts a season in his first two years, only Billy Sims would have less attempts a season (136) to get into the top-10 of the Sooners’ all-time rushing leaders. Pruitt averaged 131 attempts a season from 1970-72 and currently stands at tenth.

Surely Brooks’ carries will increase from 11.4 a game in 2020 with all the factors heading into the season. With Oklahoma playing 14 games his first two years, if Brooks carries increase to 15 a game, he will rush for 1,575 yards at a 7.5 yards per attempt. That would give him 3,642 rushing yards for his three-year career and the eighth spot on Oklahoma’s all-time rushing list right behind DeMarco Murray (3,685).

In four years with Jones as the quarterback from 2009-12, Oklahoma had the NCAA leader in pass attempts, pass completions and third all-time in passing yards with 16,646 yards—one of the all-time best to ever do it.

In two years with Brooks at running back, Oklahoma has one of its greatest running backs in its storied program history. College football will either appreciate him now or they will later.

Sources:

sports-reference.com
soonerstats.com

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PODCAST: Way-too-early Bills’ 7-round mock draft

Kyle Silagyi is joined by Justin DiLoro and McKenna Middlebrook to lead the Buffalo Bills through a 7-round 2020 NFL mock draft.

In markets that house an NFL franchise, there is a fifth season, a sometimes-annoying but ever-interesting period that complements spring, summer, fall, and winter.

In Buffalo, NY, this enigmatic fifth season perhaps outlasts spring.

This mysterious period – known affectionally as ‘mock draft season’ – is now upon us.

On this episode of The Kyle Silagyi Variety Hour, host Kyle Silagyi and BillsWire staff writers Justin DiLoro and McKenna Middlebrook take the reins of the Buffalo Bills, leading the team through a seven-round 2020 NFL mock draft.

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Oklahoma’s Kennedy Brooks to return for junior year, per report

Some good news has hit Oklahoma after its big loss in the College Football Playoff. 

Some good news has hit Oklahoma after its big loss in the College Football Playoff.

Starting running back Kennedy Brooks, who was draft eligible after his redshirt sophomore season, will return to Norman, Oklahoma for his redshirt junior year, according to The Athletic’s Jason Kersey.

Brooks, who got off to a slow start in the 2019 season, finished with 1011 yards on the ground with six touchdowns. The 2019 season was his second 1,000-yard rushing season in two years of playing at Oklahoma.

It is unclear how much Brooks was looking towards leaving after this season.

Oklahoma has already lost one player to the NFL Draft as CeeDee Lamb announced his intentions on Sunday. The Sooners are still awaiting announcements on junior running back Trey Sermon and redshirt sophomore center Creed Humphrey.

Joining Brooks, as of now, in 2020 will be T.J. Pledger, Marcus Major, Rhamondre Stevenson (still uncertain when due to his suspension) and incoming freshman Seth McGowan.

The 2020 NFL Draft will begin on April 23 from Paradise, Nevada.

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