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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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 last season, spent five years at Tulsa before transferring to OSU.
Thinking back to 2018, “We had no NIL then,” Wright said. “Nobody had any NIL.”
Athletes couldn’t profit from their name, image and likeness until 2021.
“We still didn’t have NIL at Tulsa,” Wright said with a laugh. “I get here and I end up getting some NIL, which is awesome, but I don’t know, as an athlete it’s very hard with just … if you take away the NIL, it is not easy. The little extra money to get by easier, it helps.”
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Fifth-year OU cornerback Dez Malone, who transferred in from San Diego State, said college football today is a “whole different ball game.”
“Some people, they say it’s soft, but I feel like soft is a mentality,” Malone said. “It’s not soft. At the same time, you’ve got kids who can change their parents’ lives and help out back home. That’s big, you know, especially when you’re from so far (away). That’s the reason that keeps us pushing.”
Malone doesn’t mind being the “Get Off My Field Guy” with his younger teammates.
“I tell them all the time, ‘You don’t understand how blessed you is, bro,’” Malone said. “Even us, some of the guys still able to be in college while it’s happening, we’re blessed, too.
“There were generations of talent that came before us that didn’t get a lick of anything.”
Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at jmussatto@oklahoman.com. Support Joe’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma State ‘grandpas’ Alan Bowman, Justin Wright enter Year 7
