Blake Bell dishes on OU decision at All-American game

My friend and colleague, Jason Roberts of PRISM Press Group, was gracious enough to share his Under Armour All-American High School Football Game post-game notes, including an interview with University of Oklahoma committment, Blake Bell. Here is Mr. Roberts’ perspective on the future Sooner:

Blake Bell, QB, Bishop Car­roll High (Kansas)

Bell explains that when it came time to com­mit to a pro­gram, the Uni­ver­sity of Okla­homa just seemed the proper fit for him. 

He notes, for instance, that when he went on his offi­cial visit to Nor­man, he felt an instant con­nec­tion with the coach­ing staff – offen­sive coor­di­na­tor and tight ends coach, Kevin Wil­son, and quar­ter­backs coach, Josh Heupel, in par­tic­u­lar.  Then there was the fact that the uni­ver­sity was located just about two and a half hours from home, where Bell draws sup­port from what he calls “a big fam­ily” – far enough to “get away,” as he calls it, but not such that he won’t be able to count on a large cheer­ing sec­tion at each home game that the Soon­ers play.  Of course, the tra­di­tion of excel­lence at the quar­ter­back posi­tion at Okla­homa also played a role too; Bell leaves lit­tle doubt, after all, that he has long been enam­ored with names like Jason White and Sam Brad­ford – and how learn­ing from some­one like Heupel is a true honor. 

Bell fig­ures his abil­ity to move around in and out of the pocket, and to make things hap­pen when pass pro­tec­tion breaks down will serve his great­est asset in that process.  He knows he needs to work on his throw­ing mechan­ics – espe­cially on his long ball.  But that is some­thing he plans to work on through­out the spring, espe­cially when he takes sched­uled trips to Nor­man to watch the Soon­ers dur­ing off-season prac­tice. 

What he pos­sesses out­side of such par­tic­u­lars can’t be taught; and it’s some­thing that leads him to believe he’ll be able to bring some­thing spe­cial to a pro­gram that just recently received what he believes is a huge boost head­ing into spring with a Sun Bowl win over the Stan­ford Car­di­nal.  

OU, Bell admits, had “some stum­bles” this sea­son, with injuries play­ing a key part.  The wide receiver corps for the Soon­ers was young as well – a sit­u­a­tion he notes both he and the coach­ing staff have been try­ing to rec­tify by bring­ing in, along with Bell, young tal­ent with an abil­ity to make an imme­di­ate impact on offense like Kenny Stills (La Costa Canyon High, Cal­i­for­nia) and Joseph Pow­ell (Sky­line High, Texas). (He noted with a hint of dis­ap­point­ment that fel­low Under Armour com­peti­tor Dar­ius White announced at today’s game he would be headed to Texas.) But the Soon­ers can take plenty of pos­i­tive away from the win over Stan­ford, with a strong post-season per­for­mance set­ting the tone for what he – and the Soon­ers – hope will be a race for a national cham­pi­onship start­ing in 2010. 

Of course, to do that, he real­izes he’ll have to face some stiff com­pe­ti­tion in the Big 12, a con­fer­ence com­prised of top-tier pro­grams and that has as of late been the home to some of the best quar­ter­back tal­ent in the coun­try.  But it is a chal­lenge Bell clearly looks for­ward to – and espe­cially when it comes to fight­ing for brag­ging rights in the state of Okla­homa each and every year when it comes to play­ing rival Okla­homa State in the annual Bed­lam Game.