A fall breeze whisking around his broad shoulders, Rhett Bomar smiled as his eyes drifted across a quiet Bowers Stadium on Wednesday.
Perched on the balcony of the field house overlooking Sam Houston State's football home, the once-condemned quarterback enjoyed a serene moment with the arena of his redemption.
For a moment, however, Bomar, the nation's top quarterback recruit five years ago out of Grand Prairie High, envisioned what it must be like 360 miles north of the Piney Woods - where folks are preparing for college football's biggest game so far this season.
"Mixed emotions run through your head,"
Bomar said about No. 5 Oklahoma's showdown with second-ranked Texas Tech on Saturday night in Norman, Okla. "You can think, ?I should have been there. That should have been me.' But I try not to do that. You'd drive yourself crazy if you did. I'll flip through the channels and watch a little bit of it."
"But I can't worry about that. I just have to worry about my own goals."
Those goals include finishing off the 4-5 Bearkats' season at 2 p.m. Saturday in Bowers in a spoiler role against Texas State, which will advance to the playoffs with a victory. Bomar's college career should quietly have come to an end by the time Tech and OU kick off at 7 p.m.
And then? Honing in on a shot at the NFL.
Two years ago, that idea seemed far-fetched. In August 2006, OU coach Bob Stoops booted Bomar, who had started the previous season as a redshirt freshman, and teammate J.D. Quinn from the program after an investigation revealed they were paid for work they didn't do at a Norman auto dealership.
Resulting NCAA infractions cost the Sooners their eight victories in 2005, but OU fought the ruling, and last February an NCAA appeals committee handed the Sooners back the wins. Back in Huntsville, Bomar said he barely noticed.
"Honestly, I didn't pay much attention to it at all,"
said Bomar, the 2005 Holiday Bowl Most Valuable Player.
In only two seasons, he has become the Bearkats' career leader in passing yards (5,227), completions (384) and total offense (5,788 yards).
ESPN NFL draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr., ranks Bomar as the nation's No. 2 senior quarterback behind Tech's Graham Harrell, Bomar's longtime friend.
"Football is football,"
Bomar said of getting noticed at a small school like SHSU. "I feel like the national media looks down on Division I-AA because everything is so Division I-A oriented. But there are guys who can play at this level."
"It's not like I left Oklahoma because I couldn't start, or that I got beat out by somebody. I was a starter. It's not like my talent went away."
