What graduate transfer life is like for Hurts
NORMAN — J al en Hurts needs a map.
“I can't tell you where the buildings are,” Hurts said. “I k n o w v e r y l i t t l e a b o u t campus.”
There's no reason for him too. OU l andmarks l i ke the South Oval, Bizzell Memorial L i b r a r y a n d t h e P h y s i c a l S c i e n c e C e n t e r — wh i c h most students know as “The Blender” — are a bit farther west of where Hurts spends his time.
The Oklahoma quarterback gets to the football facility between 7 and 8 a. m. on a typical day. He doesn't leave until 6 or 7 p.m.
That's l i f e as a graduate transfer.
“I have a couple night classes throughout the week, but I don't get that experience,” Hurts said, contrasting his situation with those of underg r a duat e t e a mmates. “I ' l l never get that experience at the University of Oklahoma.”
Hur t s a r r i v e d a t OU i n January with one year of eligibility left. He transferred from Alabama for a simple reason: to win again as a starting quarterback after losing his job to
Tua Tagovailoa. Now he and Tagovailoa are two of the top three candidates to win the Heisman Trophy.
“This can very easily be assumed as a business trip for me ,” Hurts said .“And that is true. But I think it' s very special that I was able to experience playing in that game that these people find so important. I think that brought me closer to this university.”
That game was OU-Texas, and after it, Hurts revealed an emotional void had been filled. No longer did he feel like a stranger in his new home. There was something powerful about beating a rival and wearing that Golden Hat.
“I expected it to come at some point,” Hurts said of feeling connected to OU, “and I figured this would be the time.”
Hurts has quarterbacked the Sooners to an undefeated first half of the season. Oklahoma hosts West Virginia at 11 a.m. Saturday with the chance to move to 7-0 for the first time since 2004.
When he' s not logging 12- hour days in the Barry Switzer Center and on the practice fields, Hurts is working toward a graduate degree in human relations. He graduated from Alabama in three years with a degree in public relations.
Graduate student-athletes are typically enrolled in nine hours. Hurts likes his psychology class the best. Most of his classes are online, but his night classes are in an unidentified building. It has a name, Hurts just doesn't know it.
“I can totally relate,” said Drew Allen, a former reserve quarterback for the Sooners who transferred to Syracuse in 2013 for his final season.
“I was on campus one day out of the week,” Allen said. “Pretty much everything I did was football, which was fine because I knew I was there for a short period of time. You're meshing point is with your team.”
Allen, who now works in commercial real estate in San Antonio, was in the Cotton Bowl stands last Saturday to watch Hurts and the Sooners.
As OU celebrated, Allen recognized the relief on Hurts' face.
“With one year left and knowing this is your last chance, I can't stress enough how daunting that really is,” Allen said.
The number of graduate transfers in college football has ballooned in the last decade. In 2011, Russell Wilson was one of 17 Division-I graduate transfers when he left N.C. State for Wisconsin.
There were 166 in 2018, according to NCAA numbers.
“It made it more businesslike,” Kendal Thompson said of the rule.
Thompson transferred from OU to Utah as a graduate in 2014. He's back living in Moore, rehabbing a foot injury before he makes another go at the NFL or XFL.
“As a quarterback, it definitely has i ts advantages,” Thompson said of the grad transfer life. “You can leverage your time, get your work out of the way and spend extra time watching film and stuff like that.”
Neither Allen nor Thompson identify more with Syracuse or Utah than they do OU. But they both pointed to moments at their new school when they felt a similar connection to the one Hurts described last Saturday.
“I'm built by `Bama obviously,” Hurts said, “but I've kinda been injected with that OU DNA.”