Born and bred a Sooner, QB Taylor ready to excel at NU
digg it!
Facebook
del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit
BY BRIAN ROSENTHAL / Lincoln Journal Star
NORMAN, Okla. A picture of Oklahoma football player Sherwood Taylor, shown tackling a Nebraska player in a late 1970s game at Owen Field, sits on a shelf in the large family room.
You notice the picture in the Taylor house when Julie Taylor is pointing out the back window, instructing you to look across the back yard, and across the street.
That's where Gary Gibbs, a good friend of Sherwood's, lives.
Oh, and did we mention that Kelvin Sampson lives a few blocks down, and another block over? And Barry Switzer lives within a mile?
Yes, this is certainly Sooner territory, as the crimson flag waving from the house next door indicates.
Julie, an Oklahoma City native, attended school here. Her parents have held season tickets to OU football games for 48 years.
Sherwood, who lettered for OU from 1977-79, was a team captain under Switzer.
Want more recent brushes with Sooner fame? Well, Josh Heupel once dropped by the Taylor house for a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting.
You remember Heupel. The little-known, junior college quarterback who came seemingly from nowhere, leading the Sooners to a national championship in the second year of a new coaching staff.
Julie, showing a picture of Heupel taken that day he visited, smiles as she recalls Heupel's long road to success.
She's hoping her son can enjoy similar results.
Zac Taylor a Norman native, a Norman High School graduate, the son of an OU player, a former ball boy for Billy Tubbs is fighting for a starting quarterback job.
At Nebraska, of all places.
"Actually, I couldn't think of a better school for him to go to," said Sherwood, also a former assistant coach for OU and Kansas State.
"I mean, it goes back to when I was a kid, watching them on TV on Thanksgiving. If you're going to pick somewhere other than OU, you'd have to say Nebraska.
"I'm being honest. I could not have picked a better situation for him to go."
Hey, it's better than Oklahoma State, right?
That's where Zac, a transfer from Butler County (Kan.) Community College (via Wake Forest), originally committed before his senior year in high school.
"(Mike) Gundy wanted him really bad," said Butch Peters, Zac's coach at Norman High. "Gundy and (Les) Miles went after him pretty hard."
In fact, before committing to OSU, Zac, for a short while, had an offer from Colorado. That didn't pan out, and Zac committed to OSU after attending a 7-on-7 camp in Stillwater.
Julie, whose parents once told her she could attend school anywhere she wanted, "except OSU," heard good-natured complaints from her family.
"One of my brothers would call every day and go, Has he changed his mind yet?' "
Well, one day, Zac did.
The long, inconsequential story led him to Wake Forest, where he redshirted his first year, played sparingly in a new run-oriented offense the next, then transferred to Butler. There, Zac led the Grizzlies to the NJCAA national championship game in his only season.
Then, Nebraska began showing interest. Lots of interest.
"(Zac) called me and said, I just spent 3½ hours with this coach from Nebraska,' " Sherwood said. "The majority of the time, when a coach came, it was 15, 20 minutes."
That coach was NU offensive coordinator Jay Norvell. He fell in love with Zac's will to win, his leadership skills, his overall demeanor and attitude.
"The thing that sticks out about Zac is his intelligence," Peters said. "He operates under pressure. He's very cool, very calm."
Zac liked Norvell, too. But Norvell really had him at Peyton Manning.
Had Norvell, a former assistant with the Indianapolis Colts, seen Zac's room at home, the one he shared with his younger brother, Press? The Manning jerseys, the pictures, the figurines.
The mere mention of possibly someday helping coach the Mannings' football camp had Zac hooked.
Sherwood, after watching film of Nebraska's offense, was sold, too.
"Listening to Jay and watching them, I just felt it fit Zac, and I felt like he had a chance to compete," Sherwood said. "The things that offense does is what he does best.
"That offense is not something you pick up in a day, either."
Zac will learn as much as he can this spring, when he battles incumbent Joe Dailey and Jordan Adams for the starting position. Freshman Harrison Beck enters the mix this fall.
"I don't see anybody playing in front of (Taylor)," said NU recruit Justin Tomerlin, who roomed and played with Taylor at Butler. "I just can't see that happening."
Taylor has experience not only at the college level, but also with operating an offense in transition.
When he began his junior season at Norman High, the Tigers had been known as a running team. The coach changed things up to suit Taylor, and the kid threw for 1,965 yards in his first season.
At the time, the career passing record at Norman was slightly more than 2,000 yards.
"The type of offense (Nebraska) runs is very similar to what we ran," Peters said. "He's been in that type of offense pretty much most of his career.
"He's a kid that will fit right in with their system."
And even with his Norman roots, Taylor feels he can fit in with the Nebraska lore, too.
"Since I was a little kid, I never hated Nebraska," Taylor said. "I always loved Tommie Frazier and Scott Frost and those guys. I always liked watching them.
"The thing I've heard several people from Norman say and this is the way I always felt with Nebraska, it's always been a respected rivalry. It's not OU-Texas, it's not OU-OSU."
So what if the Taylors have to travel a little further to follow a legendary football program? So what if Julie's parents, who also plan on coming to Zac's games, will have to find other users for those season tickets?
Sherwood's just hoping his trips to Lincoln will go better than his visit in 1980, when NU assistant coach Jerry Pettibone, an OU graduate and friend of Sherwood's, asked him to speak at a Nebraska team chapel service.
It was the night before the Huskers played Florida State.
"And they lost," Sherwood said. "We're like, That's our last trip.' "
Reach Brian Rosenthal at 473-7436 or brosenthal@journalstar.com.
Most Commented news