Senior quarterback Jalen Hurts before the Bedlam game against Oklahoma State Nov. 30.
ATLANTA — Thursday morning in Atlanta was likely Jalen Hurts’ least favorite part of his and Oklahoma’s trip to the Peach Bowl to face No. 1 LSU in the College Football Playoff. He had to sit through 45 minutes of questions with the media.
He was dry — as usual.
The perception of Hurts, at least outside of Oklahoma’s locker room, is that he’s a quiet kid with little personality. A guy who doesn’t say much or show much emotion. And that he’s at Oklahoma for one reason and one reason only: to win a national championship.
“He doesn’t get caught up in false narratives,” OU athletics director Joe Castiglione said. “He doesn’t get caught up in things that aren’t, candidly, relatable to the process he believes his team is going through.”
But that’s not the full story, say his Oklahoma teammates and coaches. He may not be the most outspoken player on the team, but he picks and chooses his moments to speak up. For Oklahoma, those moments have come at some of the most critical times this season — during his first week on campus, the night before a rivalry game, hours after a loss and at the halftime of a historic come-from-behind win.
This is the story of those moments that have, behind the scenes, made him a culture-changer in just 346 days at Oklahoma.
“I think he’s gotten to know this team, his teammates better,” OU head coach Lincoln Riley said. “I think for any leader, that’s a big part of being a good leader, is understanding who you’re leading and what’s the best way to lead them ... He’s done a great job of it. (It’s) impressive because of the short time he’s had here. That’s the thing that makes it unique.”
Jan. 18: ‘Who are we?’
Senior quarterback Jalen Hurts after winning the Big 12 Championship game against Baylor on Dec. 7.
On Jan. 18, Oklahoma’s campus was struck by an act of racism when two OU students recorded a blackface video. A “Better Together” march ensued the following Thursday, and thousands of students, including many members of the football team, dressed in black and marched across campus.
Days before the march, the football team had a players-only meeting to discuss how they should handle the situation as campus leaders. Many of the seniors spoke, like Neville Gallimore and Nick Basquine, who have been in the program five and six years, respectively. They then opened the floor to anyone who wanted to join the conversation, and one voice stood out above the rest.
That voice belonged to Hurts, who had been on campus only a week.
“Who are we?” Hurts said at the meeting, according to Mykel Jones, who became one of Hurts’ closest friends on the team and recently entered the transfer portal. “We are a reflection of our campus. People look to us as role models being student-athletes, especially football players ... You go to class, you take your hood off, you pay attention ... Let’s set a standard.”
That was the moment many players came to respect the Alabama transfer quarterback not just as a player, but as a leader of their team.
“That was kind of his first moment of stepping in and putting his imprint on the team,” Basquine said. “Nobody knew him. He was just kind of there. That was a moment that he let us know he was really there, he’s a part of this team, and we’re all in this together.”
“It was just a mature tone of voice, a mature answering, a mature leadership role that he had so early. That really shocked me,” said sophomore defensive back Brendan "Bookie" Radley-Hiles. “You don’t really come into a program like Oklahoma and really speak like that so early. To see the confidence he spoke with was a respect factor I’ve had since the day I met him.”
Hurts’ speech set the tone for what was to come and the type of leader he was, as he would be named one of four captains in August.
“Being a leader, for him, it’s something that’s natural. It’s something that comes within him,” Gallimore said. “As a man, it wasn’t hard to see who he was. It didn’t take much of an adjustment. He’s the kind of guy that definitely speaks from the heart ... It’s all about perspective.
“Jalen, he’s a natural leader. He knows what he wants out of himself. He holds himself to a high standard. If you’re around him, he expects nothing less.”
Oct. 11: ‘OU DNA in me.’
Senior quarterback Jalen Hurts celebrates with fans after winning the Big 12 Championship game against Baylor on Dec. 7.
The night before the Texas game, Hurts stood before his teammates, delivering another speech few will forget.
He talked about being a Texas native and how much the rivalry meant to him. He reflected on his short time at Oklahoma and how that game was going to make him finally feel part of the Sooner family.
“It was the first time, not so much just emotion, but just seeing how much that game meant to him,” said Shane Beamer, assistant head coach for offense. “I remember going back to my hotel room and telling my wife, ‘We’re getting ready to play really well tomorrow.’”
After the 34-27 win, in which he totaled 366 yards and four touchdowns, Hurts said he felt like he had “OU DNA in me.” This was also the first time Hurts struggled on the field as a Sooner, turning the ball over twice. While his teammates had trusted in him, he had found a new trust in his teammates. It was in that moment that he felt a real connection with his teammates, coaches, the university and Sooner Nation.
It was no longer just about the great player he was, but the teammate he had become.
“As a teammate of Jalen’s, you have respect for him on the field and all, because he’s just a great player and we know it,” Radley-Hiles said. “But you have more respect for him off the field than anything. He’s just a stand-up individual. He’s one of the most mature guys on our team. He’s like a big brother to all of us.”
In Castiglione’s 20 years at Oklahoma, he says he’s never seen a student-athlete quite like Hurts. The ability to connect with a team and a program as fast as Hurts did is something special.
“He’s a rare individual in so many positive ways. We can all point to the experiences he had to the degree we were all able to watch them from the outside,” Castiglione said. “But until you get to know the person and how they’ve processed and grown from each of those experiences, to be the person they are, you can only guess ... For him to step on any campus, to be clear, but to come into Oklahoma, and he knew how to get the guys around him to buy in ... He just has that factor that people gravitate toward him.”
Oct. 26: ‘Barbecue or mildew.’
Senior quarterback Jalen Hurts before the Big 12 Championship game on Dec. 7.
Two weeks after the Texas game, Hurts found himself again in front of his teammates, this time delivering a speech after Oklahoma’s shocking 48-41 loss to Kansas State. The meeting took place as soon as the team got off the plane at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City.
Junior Kenneth Murray recalls Hurts telling him not to let anyone on the bus when the flight landed that night. Hurts called for a meeting right then and there, just hours after the game.
“We’ve got two options: We can either barbecue or mildew,” Hurts said, according to the players. “What’s it going to be?”
"We just made a pact to each other: We're going to do everything for each other. We're going to play for each other and give it all we got," Ronnie Perkins said in November of the meeting. "Jalen ran the whole thing. He talked the whole time, and everybody listened."
Radley-Hiles, who was the last person off the plane, recalls the moment as a season-defining one.
“It was silent, man,” Radley-Hiles said. “When I heard that line, it was real. It was spot-on. If you understand what mildew is, that’s not something you like. That’s not something you want. Barbecue is something that you do want. What his emphasis was is that we’re in control of that. A lot of the outside world was going to tell us that we weren’t ... Don’t let anybody tell you that you’re not in control of this. What you do from this point forward defines you ...
“Standing here today, I feel like we did exactly what he said.”
Oklahoma practically reinvented itself from that moment forward. Riley relied heavily on Hurts’ legs, and the Sooners became a team that dragged out games by holding onto the ball instead of their typical run-and-gun style of play.
The Sooners became a resilient team, winning games in dramatic fashion.
“He brought the same attitude no matter what the setting was,” Jones said. “Whether it was football stuff or school stuff, he kept the same positive attitude and energy. No matter if it was sports or not, he wanted to make the people around him feel better.
“You don’t just come to another school and say, ‘I’m this person and this is how this is going to go.’ No, you have to earn our respect. And he did that.”
Nov. 16: ‘It was always him.’
Senior quarterback Jalen Hurts and redshirt junior wide receiver Mykel Jones pose after winning the Big 12 Championship game against Baylor on Dec. 7.
When Oklahoma entered the locker room trailing then-No. 9 Baylor 31-10 at halftime, Hurts took it upon himself to create a spark for a team on the verge of going off the rails.
“He came in, and he was on fire. Guys were down and had no energy,” Jones said. “And he’d been here before, where guys were down and he needed to fire them back up. He rallied them together, and the rest is history.”
Everyone knows what happened next. Hurts and the Sooners scored 24 unanswered points, beating Baylor 34-31 to seal the school’s biggest comeback. Hurts had not only redeemed himself after two costly turnovers in the first half, but he had once again earned the trust of his teammates.
“He was really good at knowing the right time to lead and not missing it,” Jones said. “There were a lot of times that we were like, ‘We need someone.’ And it was always him.”
Hurts’ close relationship with Jones — who recorded only two catches all season — is the perfect example of the type of leader he’s become.
Jones hit it off with Hurts from the first day they met. Jones considers himself an “old soul” much like Hurts. The two spent hours working in the offseason together, from lifting weights late at night to Jones running routes and catching extra balls from Hurts after practice during fall camp, before Riley named a starting quarterback. During the season, the two ate at Wingstop every Thursday evening — Jones would order lemon pepper and parmesan, while Hurts would order the same thing with Louisiana rub.
“He keeps a tight circle. Like, a tight-tight circle,” Jones said. “He’s a really reserved guy. He’s really intellectual. He talks football a lot, but he likes to talk about a lot of other things — life skills, goals. A lot of our conversations were to better us as people, not football players.”
While Jones played relatively zero meaningful minutes this season, Hurts kept him close by his side, often using him as a sounding board during games. When Jones decided to transfer after the Big 12 Championship, he sought Hurts’ advice.
“Whatever you do,” Hurts said, “make sure it’s not an emotional decision.”
That advice, perhaps, epitomizes Hurts’ season. He’s been a leader not defined by what he’s accomplished, so much as — often behind the scenes — what he’s helped others achieve along the way.
While Hurts again had little insight to offer on Thursday, maybe, just maybe, he has another speech up his sleeve.
“This is his one shot,” Beamer said. “He came here from Alabama on a mission from day one. Nothing has gotten in his way. He’s singular, focused on the ultimate goal, and he hasn’t deviated from that.”
