Oklahoma football: Remembering former Sooner RB Mike Gaddis
By Chip Rouse
Former Oklahoma football running back Mike Gaddis was a great player on some not-so-great Sooner teams.
Gaddis played at Oklahoma, from 1988 to 1991. He saw action in only three of the four seasons, however, having to sit out the entire 1990 season recovering from a serious knee injury suffered the year before. His 2,726 rushing yards and 30 touchdowns ranks 13th among the career rushing leaders at Oklahoma.
Gaddis died Monday at his home in Oklahoma City after a lengthy illness. He was 50 years old.
The time Gaddis played at OU was a time of transition in Oklahoma football. He was recruited by legendary head coach Barry Switzer. His freshman season, in 1988, coincided with Switzer’s 16th and final season as the Sooners’ head coach. Gaddis was a member of OU’s 1987 recruiting class, but was redshirted his true freshman season.
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It wasn’t that the OU teams weren’t good during the time that Gaddis was in Norman, just not by historical Sooner standards. Oklahoma has won 10 or more games in a season a nation-best 39 times, but that did not occur while Gaddis was at OU.
Switzer resigned after the 1988 season amid a series of scandalous events involving several Sooner players. He was replaced by former OU player Gary Gibbs. Although Oklahoma had a winning record all four seasons the star running back was there, the Sooners never finished higher than second place in the Big Eight standings.
Switzer told Dean Blevins, himself a former OU player and now sports director at KWTV News 9 in Oklahoma City, that Gaddis was the best running back he ever recruited out of the state of Oklahoma. Before committing to OU, Gaddis starred at Carl Albert High School in Midwest City, Oklahoma.
"“He’d play today for the Sooners, I promise you,” Switzer told Jason Kersey of The Athletic on Monday upon learning of Gaddis’ death. “He’d be the running back today if he was playing. The guy had it all. He was big and fast, and could make people miss. He was a slasher.”"
Gaddis had four 200-yard rushing games in his college career, one of which came in 1988, when he rolled up 274 rushing yards against Oklahoma State. That was 60 more than that year’s Heisman Trophy winner Barry Sanders produced that day and in half as many carries.
Some experts believed that Gaddis may have been on his way to a Heisman Trophy before he suffered the devastating knee injury against Texas in 1989. He was forced to miss the 1990 season, but came back strong as ever in 1991, rushing for a career single-season best 1,240 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Gaddis suffered from kidney disease most of his adult life. He received a kidney transplant in 2005.
Longtime Oklahoma assistant coach Cale Gundy was the quarterback at OU from 1990-93 and played with Gaddis:
“There’s been so many great players come through here,” Gundy told The Athletic’s Kersey. “So many national award winners. Guys who have gone on to the NFL. But Mike Gaddis could have been one of the very, very best. If he had stayed healthy, there’s no telling what could have happened.”
Gaddis was a sixth-round selection of the Minnesota Vikings in the 1992 NFL Draft, but he blew out his other knee in mini camp, ending any chance he might have had for an NFL career.