Alan Bowman will make history this season. He’ll become the first college football player to have worn a leather helmet, and a QR code on his helmet.
Old man jokes aside, the seventh-year OSU quarterback has seen a lot.
He’s played through a pandemic. Through the dawn of name, image and likeness (NIL). The explosion of the transfer portal. Conference realignment. College Football Playoff expansion.
Revenue sharing is on the horizon, and who knows what else.
The 24-year-old Bowman is playing the same sport, albeit in entirely different circumstances than in 2018, when he was a freshman at Texas Tech. Different circumstances than in 2021, his first year at Michigan. And even from last season, when Bowman emerged from OSU’s three-man quarterback derby.
“It’s just been fun to be a part of everything,” Bowman said, “to say I’ve lived through it.”
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Alan Bowman (7) warms up during an Oklahoma State football practice in Stillwater, Okla., on Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024.
It’s like he’s a dinosaur who survived the meteor shower — bearing witness from the prehistoric days of college football to now, when fans can scan players’ helmets to give to an NIL fund.
“There’s a lot of change and a lot of new things, but we just focus on winning one game at a time,” said Bowman, speaking like the elder statesman he is.
Bowman shares super-duper senior status at OSU with seventh-year linebacker Justin Wright, who’s dubbed himself and Bowman as “grandpas.” Bowman and Wright were in the same 2018 recruiting class as Justin Fields and Micah Parsons — fourth-year NFL players.
Bowman, who specializes in self deprecation, wished himself a “Happy 1st day of 19th Grade” on Monday.
Wright, who received a medical redshirt…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/oklahoma-state-football-grandpas-alan-113040695.html
Author : The Oklahoman
Publish date : 2024-08-25 11:30:40
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