Oklahoma football: Joe Mixon can learn from Ryan Broyles

A lot of things are going to be said about Joe Mixon within the coming days, weeks—heck, we will still probably find a way to talk about him mid-season.

However, this is not the first time a stud true freshman has been in trouble with the law before even putting on an Oklahoma Sooner jersey.

Let’s rewind seven years ago. Hometown hero and poised to be an immediate impact player, Ryan Broyles, was arrested right before the start of his freshman year at OU.

He was handed a suspension and sat out the entire 2007 season, before returning in 2008 to become arguably the best receiver to come through Norman.

“I started out rough,” Broyles said to ESPN in August of 2011. “I was young, naive, thought the world revolved around me.”

However, things changed drastically for Broyles. Very drastically.

As Brandon Chatmon pointed out in his story a few years ago, Broyles had his growing pains. But the all-time NCAA receptions leader made the best of a bad situation.

Now it’s Joe Mixon’s turn.

A player of his caliber should be on the football field immediately, but Mixon made a mistake.

However, we all made them when we were young, and while he could transfer and distance himself from the situation, Joe Mixon can win back some of his fans by taking his punishment and coming back to OU in 2015 even stronger.

He is already college-ready. The coaches have made that clear. One season to train will only make things even more difficult for the rest of the league.

However, no one would blame Mixon if he left. The pressure that comes with being a football player at the University of Oklahoma is high. You are under a microscope 24/7.

However, there is a reason why not just any player can be a Sooner. There’s a reason not just any player can wear one of those seven shiny rings Oklahoma has claimed.

I want Joe Mixon to succeed. I think anyone who has ever made a mistake hopes Mixon can move past this.

I do not know Joe Mixon personally. He appears to be a character guy from the multiple testimonies given by his former coaches and current ones.

His fate at Oklahoma has been far from decided. And he has a blueprint from a former Sooner who messed up before his career even began.

“I soon understood it wasn’t about me, it was more than that,” Broyles told Chatmon. “And I’m starting to understand it’s more than football. There’s life without football, there’s happiness without football.”

Hopefully, someone will be in Mixon’s ear. Not everything will be positive at first, but there’s hope for him to stay in Norman and leave a legacy that is much greater than one blunder he made on his birthday.

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