CeeDee Lamb in the spotlight
Freshman receiver CeeDee Lamb is only two games into his college football career, and he already has people taking notice.
Giant headphones encased CeeDee Lamb’s ears and tamed his wild, goldtipped twists as he walked out of Ohio Stadium’s visitor tunnel.
The Black Keys’ synthesized rock anthem, Gold on the Ceiling, blared from the sideline speakers, cranked up so you felt it deep in your chest and your brain thumped through your skull.
Just steps away, Baker Mayfield strutted across the 5-yard line in between warm-up throws to the beat of the final chorus. As Lamb approached, the quarterback dropped a knee into a couple of heel-toe kick steps and swung one of his arms around, executing something close to a modified air guitar.
Without missing a beat, the true freshman mimicked the redshirt senior, adding a fullbody twist and a kick to his own happy jig.
After the impromptu dance-off, the two hugged and went their separate ways to finish their pregame routines.
In Lamb, Mayfield, who once admitted to a bucket-list dream of being a Justin Timberlake backup dancer, may have found his latest homerun offensive threat — and a dance partner. That was never more evident than Saturday night when the pair were in sync with big-time plays throughout the 31-16 win over the Buckeyes.
It’s a role not all unlike the one Dede Westbrook vacated.
Lamb’s mantra makes that all the more apparent.
“If I can dance, I feel like that can get me in my zone,” he said. “Just be calm in the situation and dance it out. That’s my motto.”
If Lamb was anxious before the first marquee game of his collegiate career, he didn’t show it.
And if the nerves flared up once the O-H-I-O echoed around the stadium, Lamb certainly didn’t show it then, either.
Instead, he caught five passes for 61 yards. All but one of those catches went for at least a 10-yard gain, including a 17-yard reception in the third quarter that led to Lee Morris’ touchdown.
The Sooners trusted Lamb in key situations, targeting him on three third downs and one fourth down against the Buckeyes. He converted all but one, picking up 10, 15 and 7 yards on the plays.
“When it comes to a big game like that, he’s still feels relaxed,” Mayfield said. “I think he feeds off of it. He feeds off the excitement.”
That much was true when Lamb made his debut a week earlier against UTEP, becoming only the third true freshman in school history to start at wide receiver in a season-opener. He was also named one of OU’s punt returners, another sign of the Sooners’ trust in the talented rookie.
Lamb set the tone long before he even stepped on the field that Saturday, wearing a Sterling Shepard Giants jersey for
the Champions Walk, parading through campus wearing his role model’s number.
“Every time that I looked down, I could see the Shep jersey,” said Lamb, who’s starting his OU career with slightly larger frame than Shepard at 6-foot-1, 173-pounds. “It reminds me that, ‘Hey, that’s where I want to be.’ He sets the tone for me.”
After Lamb traded the No. 87 jersey for his own No. 9, he set his own tone with a monster catch as two UTEP defensive backs converged on him for a 19-yard gain.
Later in the quarter, Lamb made a four-yard touchdown reception, grabbing Mayfield’s pass as he tiptoed along the end line, taking a couple extra steps
to seal the score.
“I didn’t want my first one to be an accident,” he said of the touchdown. “I just wanted Bake to put the ball where it needed to be, and I just made the catch. He made my job easy, basically.”
Lamb isn’t a perfect player — not yet, anyway — but he might just be the perfect fit for Mayfield and this offense.
“To have a young guy that you’re able to rely on in a big game like that, it didn’t even faze him at all,” Mayfield said. “It’s been huge for us. That’s the type of leadership and playmaking ability that we look for.
“If you have the talent and you have the it factor, you can come here right away as a true freshman and play.”