Hands-on training
Lamb’s suction mitts nothing new
CeeDee Lamb’s great catches go back as far as his high school days.
CeeDee Lamb lined up near the numbers and ran a post route over the middle. The pass sailed high and behind him, but Lamb adjusted. His left arm aligned vertically with his body, and his left hand snared the football before he tumbled to the turf.
First down, Foster High School.
Lamb’s suction mitts preceded his Sooner days. Before leaping against UCLA for what has to be the best uncounted reception in OU history, and before snagging a one-handed catch Saturday against Baylor, he was doing the same for Foster against Temple High School in the Texas Class 5A state semifinals in his senior season.
“CeeDee Lamb is a special breed,” Shaun McDowell, the football coach at Foster, said. “At Oklahoma you get guys like that, but in high school he might be a onein-a-million type of guy. He has almost a sixth sense on where the ball is.
“He’s almost like Spider-Man with his hands. He’s got webbing.”
That one-handed grab in high school, like Lamb’s Saturday against Baylor, came on a crossing route in the middle of the field. That’s where the similarities end.
Saturday the ball was more behind him, so much so that he had to pin it against his right biceps before recollecting the catch in front of his body.
“I just stuck my hand out and I kid you not, I just squeezed for dear life,” Lamb said.
“For me to catch that one, I was like, brah, this is getting out of hand. I need to catch with two hands. Next thing you
know, I caught it with one hand.”
The one-handed middle of the field catch against Temple High School two years ago came on a high pass — almost impossibly high. Lamb had to fully extend his 6-foot-2 frame to reach it. More impressively, Lamb secured the ball with his left hand as he leapt.
“The quarterback threw it on line, but it was a little high,” Lamb said, smiling as he remembered the play. “It was between two defenders. I just reached my hand up, and I tipped it to myself.”
Among his three notable one-handed catches, he ranks the sideline out of bounds catch No. 1. Then there’s a tie for second between his senior year high school catch and the one Saturday against Baylor.
Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley argued the catch against Baylor might’ve been Lamb’s best.
“It may be better than the one that was out of bounds a couple of weeks ago,” Riley said. “This one was tougher. That one you are just jumping straight up. That one’s more wild because it’s up in the air. This one, you are talking about the same type of catch, but you are running full speed across the field and near a safety that can knock your brains out.”
Lamb admits his ambidextrous acrobatics surprise himself. Not so for his teammates. They’ve seen it. They know how the movie ends.
“It’s not too surprising,” quarterback Kyler Murray said. “If I put the ball anywhere in his vicinity, he’s going to catch it.”
OU linebacker Kenneth Murray assessed the grabs from a defensive perspective, but like Kyler Murray indicated, the sensational nature of Lamb’s catches aren’t quite as special anymore.
“He does it literally every day in practice, catching them with one hand or doing all types of spectacular stuff,” Kenneth Murray said. “That’s nothing new for me.”
It's a question as to whether greatness should be diminished if it's repeated.
“To me, he was the best receiver in his class in the state of Texas when he graduated,” McDowell said. “I believe now that he’s potentially the best receiver in the nation.”
But the sophomore is second on his own team in receptions (19) and receiving yards (348) behind speedster Marquise Brown. Lamb and Brown have both caught five touchdown passes.
Lamb ranks 15th in the Big 12 with 70 receiving yards per game. Except for Iowa State’s Hakeem Butler, every conference receiver ahead of Lamb has at least three more catches than he does. Only in OU’s offense and a small selection of others could Lamb possibly be overshadowed.
Though the flash of his one-handed receptions shines too much for any shadow.
“He actually does it better in games than practice,” Riley said.
Because catching a ball one-handed during a game is never the plan, Lamb said. It’s all instinct.