Oklahoma Sooners

For the last four years, quarterback Drew Allen has worn crimson. Soon, he’ll don the orange of Syracuse.

Allen, who will earn his degree from Oklahoma this month, will be eligible for the Orange immediately, and will compete to replace Syracuse quarterback Ryan Nassib, who was taken in the fourth round of the NFL draft last weekend.

Before he heads off to his new school, Allen checked in with SoonerNation to talk about his new school, the decision to transfer and what he thinks of OU’s three-way quarterback competition:

SoonerNation: When are you getting up to Syracuse?

Drew Allen: It depends. I’m just now applying. They just sent me applications to get into graduate school. It depends on which graduate school I use or get into, and when that school offers classes. With NCAA rules, you have to be enrolled and taking courses in order to be participating with the team. I imagine though it would be in June.

SN: What are you going to get your Master's in?

Allen: No, I don’t know yet. I met with admissions when I went up there for my visit, and found three, four of them that would be good. If I can get into one that’s good for me, that’s all I can really ask for.

SN: What other schools did you look at?

Allen: Throughout the process, I didn’t really focus on schools, I was looking more so at what schools were looking at me, that would be willing to give me an opportunity and privilege to be able to use my last year to come play for them. Once I figured out who those schools were, I was able to narrow it down.

SN: Who did you narrow it down to?

Allen: It really came down to Syracuse and N.C. State. I visited both schools. In the end I chose Syracuse. I really liked what (Ryan) Nassib did, the direction of the program. They’re moving from the Big East to the ACC, the strength of schedule is favorable for exposure. If we win those games, we put ourselves in a good position to be a nationally-ranked team. The coaches were great. The schemes and type of offense (Orange offensive coordinator George McDonald) is going to run there really fits me, and is pretty much a carryover from what we’ve done at OU. The same kind of stuff.

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ENID, Okla. – Friends and family of Austin Box continue to find ways to remember him.

Saturday, more than 100 volunteers gathered at 10^th and Chestnut in Enid, Okla., to help build “Champions Park,” a playground in honor of Box, the former Oklahoma linebacker who passed away from a prescription medication overdose in 2011.

“Austin was loved by so many,” said his sister, Whitney Box, who is also the director of strategic and long-range planning for the city, and designed the park. “It’s gratifying to see this all come together.”

The park won’t officially open until the ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 19, which will be the two-year anniversary of Box’s death. On Saturday, most of the park’s infrastructure was built thanks to the help of several volunteers, including former Sooners baseball player Tyson Seng and Oklahoma State quarterback Clint Chelf, who both attended Enid High with Box.

Members from the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control were also on hand. Whitney Box said her family, as well as the Austin Box Foundation, has plans to work with the bureau beginning this year on getting the word out about the dangers of prescription drug use.

“It’s becoming an epidemic; it’s been an epidemic,” said a special agent of the bureau who asked that his name to not be used because he works undercover. “With Austin, he’s not a classic example of someone you would expect to die from a prescription drug overdose.

“Kids don’t realize how dangerous prescription drugs can be. We want to raise awareness that this is something that can put your life in danger.”

The Centers for Disease Control rank Oklahoma as one of the top states for both prescription painkiller sales and drug overdose death rates. Prescription drugs cause more than 80 percent of drug-related deaths in Oklahoma.

Midlands recruiting coordinator Damon Sayles stops by to talk about Josh Pelzel's commitment to Baylor, the strong crop of defensive backs in the state of Texas, and a small Texas high school that's providing several Big 12 recruits.

When quarterback Landry Jones was selected on the final day of the 2013 NFL draft, Trent Dilfer pulled no punches when it came to the Sooners' offense.

Among other things, the ESPN analyst and former NFL quarterback called Oklahoma’s offense “a joke” and its receivers “brutal.”

In a phone interview with SoonerNation, Dilfer stood by his sharp comments.

“I was talking in the context of developing a quarterback to be ready to play at next level -- and it was very hard for me to stomach,” Dilfer said. “That’s the context. The context of quarterback development, the context of a draftable quarterback and an evaluation of him. You can’t evaluate a quarterback without an understanding of what he’s asked he to do, and how that’s going to allow him to flourish or somewhat stunt his development.

“As I studied Landry Jones’ 2012 film, it was constant frustration with him being asked to do something that’s not realistic. It wasn’t conducive to quarterback development.”

While Dilfer was focused on evaluating Jones, who was drafted in the fourth round by the Pittsburgh Steelers, he also pointed out Oklahoma’s offense wasn’t conducive to scoring against tougher defenses, either.

“They can do whatever they want to do. I have no right to tell them what they should or shouldn’t do. Bob Stoops makes a lot of money, he’s won a lot of games. However they justify it being successful, go for it,” Dilfer said. “I stand by what I said. And if the answer is, ‘We don’t care, we’re trying to score points, and we think that’s the best way to do it,’ keep doing it. But in games against good defenses, that formula did not work.”

Dilfer has a point.

With Jones at the helm last season, Oklahoma ranked 15^th nationally in points and 12^th in yards on the way to a 10-win season. But the Sooners sputtered offensively when facing the better defenses on their schedule. Against Kansas State, Notre Dame, TCU and Texas A&M, Oklahoma averaged just 17 points -- three touchdowns less than its season average.

“That’s all that matters. All that matters is how you play against good teams,” Dilfer said. “The same thing showed up against the poorer defenses, but you get away with it against those defenses.

“If they think it’s the best way of playing, they get to choose that. I’m simply coming from a quarterback developmental context. People get so sensitive when their paradigm is challenged. What were they, 10-2? 10-3 with the bowl game? That’s a really good record. A lot of teams wished they had that record. And I understand that. My job is to thoroughly evaluate the quarterbacks at every level. And I know you can’t possibly do it if they’re not asking them to do to things that translate to the next level of where they’re trying to get to.”

While evaluating Jones, Dilfer said three things stood out that he believes stemmed Jones’ growth: the lack of tight ends in the Oklahoma offense, the use of the “Belldozer” package in the red zone, and the Sooners’ skill players, whom Dilfer termed “incredibly undisciplined.”

“From a talent standpoint, they’re talented kids,” Dilfer said of the Oklahoma receivers. “The word I would use is 'unorganized.' They lacked the crispness, the discipline, the precision it takes to trust where they’re going to be and when a quarterback can cut it loose.”

The Sooners did have two receivers taken in last week’s draft in Kenny Stills and Justin Brown, who combined for 155 receptions and more than 1,800 yards last season. Fresno State transfer Jalen Saunders also had a big year statistically with 62 catches and 829 yards receiving.

Dilfer, however, said those numbers masked several flaws.

“Statistics, that’s what we reduce everything to; because they put a lot of yards up and are productive, that they’re good,” Dilfer countered. “I talked to a couple of NFL personnel guys that I really trust to see if I was missing something with (Oklahoma’s) receivers, and they said, 'No.' "

Jones was also hurt, Dilfer said, by not having a tight end to work with.

“When you don’t have the presence of an inline tight end, your quarterback is not being developed,” Dilfer said. “Thirty-five percent of how NFL football is played is tight end-centric. Whether it’s working the middle of field, whether it’s play-action. You’re just not learning a type of football from a quarterback’s perspective that’s transferrable to the NFL.”

Dilfer believes Jones didn’t properly develop his skills in the red zone, either, a critical part of NFL quarterbacking.

“That was the biggest thing that me drove nuts, taking him out inside the 20-yard line,” Dilfer said. “Landry does all the work to get you to the 20, then you take him out -- you never develop the red-zone passing game. I can’t tolerate that. When you do that in the red zone to a quarterback, there are so many other things that you are limiting because you’re not developing your quarterback in the red zone.”

“In the red zone, everyone knows (the Belldozer package) is coming. It works against the bad teams. Against the good teams, they load up and blow it up.

“All that lowers the quarterback development to the lowest denominator. It’s really a glorified version of 7-on-7.”

Ultimately, Dilfer said, that negatively impacted where Jones went in the draft.

“If Landry had played at USC he would have been a first-round pick,” Dilfer said. “I know Matt Barkley was a fourth-round pick, that’s not what I’m saying. You develop a quarterback in college by running multi-dimensions of offense. That’s what you have to do in the NFL. When you have a pure passer in Landry who can move around for a big man, is smart, is tough, you have to give him all the dimensions in which to operate. What he did at Oklahoma was operate in just a few dimensions to the point you couldn’t really evaluate or project what he’d be in the NFL. You didn’t get to see him do it. That really hurt his stock.

“What I saw with Landry is now an NFL coach is going to have to teach him stuff, develop stuff, that should have been developed his junior-senior years.”

OU officials declined to comment.

SCRANTON, Pa. -- Every morning, Jermaine Eluemunor would throw off his blue comforter and stare at the acceptance letter tacked to his wall.

That paper -- thick, off-white, splashed with the blue hues of Lackawanna College -- wasn't there to add decoration to the cramped room. It was there, in the spring of 2012, to serve as a reminder.

A reminder that, months before, he labeled himself as scared and unmotivated. A reminder that few of his high school essays hung beneath magnets on the fridge, since his GPA hovered around a 1.9. A reminder that nobody else wanted him. That college coaches never visited, that they didn't know how to pronounce his last name, that they didn't even know he existed.

But, most of all, that acceptance letter reminded him he still had the ability to change all of that. Which he, in fact, has done, racking up more than 20 offers in the span of a year. And not just any offers, but from the likes of Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Penn State, Texas A&M and USC.

Read the rest of the story from NittanyNation's Josh Moyer.

David Ubben goes through his top three games to watch this upcoming season to help boost and decide the Big 12.