Bradford the backup: What if Rhett Bomar had never been involved in the Big Red scandal?

Good raisin’. Good coaching. Good arm and good mind and good eyeballs. Hard work. Probably a hundred other things could be added to the list.

So here’s another: good fortune, in the form of a knucklehead’s antics.

Without the fall of Rhett Bomar, Slingin’ Sammy Bradford still would be waiting to see the playing field, much less the inside of the Nokia Theatre, where the Heisman Trophy will be awarded Saturday night.

Funny game, and I don’t necessarily mean football. Life can go all strange sometimes.

One minute, the Oklahoma castle is barred to all but the reigning young monarch. The next, every kid with a zip to his wrist and gleam in his eye is invited to try out the throne.

This 2008 Oklahoma offense for the ages would have been Bomar’s, had he not squandered it with riotous living. If you want to argue that Bomar eventually would have disgraced himself even without the Big Red scandal of August 2006, I’m buying. But if you want to argue that Our Man Sam would have beaten out Bomar, then, whoa, buster.

It’s easy now to label Bomar a bust, but that’s revisionist history. Bomar was a pretty fair freshman quarterback in 2005 under difficult circumstances.

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