Before Green Bay ...
Packers’ Ripkowski, a fullback name with a fullback’s game
But for a mail mixup, Aaron Ripkowski might have never been a Sooner.
A aron Ripkowski already was an OU sophomore, blocking linebackers and majoring in communication, when his mother, back home in Dayton, Texas, was cleaning up around the house.
Marlo Ripkowski had grabbed an old magazine that had come in the mail and been lying around forever. A sealed envelope fell out. Inside was a two-year-old letter from the University of Alabama, inviting Ripkowski and his parents to a dinner for Houston-area recruits who might be interested in playing for Nick Saban.
Good thing for the Sooners, and maybe the Green Bay Packers, that some things get lost in the mail.
Ripkowski, a fullback in the old-fashioned sense of the word, is scoring touchdowns and carrying the ball and, yes, blocking linebackers for the Packers, who play the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday in the NFC semifinals. Ripkowski’s home state.
Few foresaw Ripkowski sharing a backfield with Aaron Rodgers. Or Landry Jones and Trevor Knight, for that matter.
But down in Dayton, Randy Ripkowski foresaw it.
“I expected him to make it there,” said Ripkowski’s father. “I really did. He was such a strong kid growing up. I knew he was very special. I hoped he would get the opportunity in high school that he’s getting now.”
At Dayton, a town of 7,000 on U.S. 90,
about halfway between Houston and Beaumont, Ripkowski played on the line in a spread offense. Randy Ripkowski would talk with his cousins about his son’s potential, knowing Aaron was capable of playing with the ball in his hands.
Aaron Ripkowski was headed to the Naval Academy, but his dad knew that wasn’t the football ideal. At Navy, Ripkowski would have been a defensive lineman. “I knew that wasn’t the route for him,” Randy Ripkowski said. “They wouldn’t use his abilities.”
But in summer 2010, just before his senior season at Dayton, Ripkowski attended an OU camp. Bob Stoops assistant Bruce Kittle spied Ripkowski and showed interest. Told Ripkowski the Sooners were trying to find a scholarship for him. Invited him to enroll the next autumn and try to earn a scholarship. Ripkowski returned for the OU spring game in April and changed his mind about Navy. Ripkowski was headed to Norman.
“OU, they would get everything they could out of him,” Randy Ripkowski said. “That’s what I told him.”
Ripkowski played as a true freshman, a blocking back in the Belldozer. Same in 2012. By 2013, Ripkowski was on scholarship and playing in all sorts of situations. By 2014, Josh Heupel’s offense was even putting the ball in Ripkowski’s hands.
Ripkowski this season has carried 34 times for 150 yards and two touchdowns for Green Bay, plus has nine catches for 46 yards and a TD. Ripkowski scored on a 1-yard run against the Giants last week in the first round of the playoffs.
But it’s not like the Sooners didn’t use Ripkowski that way. In Ripkowski’s final OU home game, he scored three touchdowns in Bedlam.
The Packers drafted Ripkowski in the sixth round of the 2015 draft. A perfect place for a roughand-tumble fullback. More so than even Alabama, which might have missed out on Ripkowski through a simple mail snafu.
Clark Hinkle, Ted Fritsch, Jim Taylor, John Brockington, William Henderson. For almost a century, the Packers have valued fullbacks and elevated them to stations of status.
Back in 2011, when Ripkowski first started leading Blake Bell to first-down yardage, Stoops marveled at his new fullback’s name. “Sounds like he ought to play for Wisconsin,” Stoops cracked.
Instead, Ripkowski is playing in Wisconsin, for the hallowed Packers. A fullback game to match a fullback name, in a place of fullback fame.