Oklahoma football: CBS Sports has its eye on Sooners’ Spencer Rattler

No college player has been talked about more this preseason than Oklahoma football quarterback Spencer Rattler.

If you didn’t know better, you would have thought he has already won the Heisman Trophy and locked up the No. 1 overall pick in the next NFL Draft — after all, hasn’t that become a rite of passage for Oklahoma quarterbacks.

In just a little over a month, the Sooner starting quarterback and Arizona native has been named a Sporting News and Walter Camp preseason first-team All-American as well as preseason All-Big 12 and preseason Player of the Year.

And that’s not all…as they say in the world if informercials. The second-year Oklahoma starter is on the preseason watch lists for four national individual awards, including the prestigious Maxwell Award and Walter Camp Player of the Year Award.

And there’s still more. On Wednesday, Rattler was named the CBS Sports/247Sports preseason college football Player of the Year and a preseason All-America first-team selection. He is joined in the preseason accolades from CBS Sports by his coach, Lincoln Riley, who the network named its preseason Coach of the Year in college football.

In the COVID-shortened 2020 season, Rattler threw for 3,031 yards and 28 touchdowns in 11 games.

Now in his third full season at Oklahoma, Rattler told Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports, “I feel like a veteran now. I am a vet now, knowing what to expect. I feel like I’m in control (now).”

ESPN’s Todd McShay has projected Rattler as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft. If that were to happen, Rattler would be the third Oklahoma quarterback taken No. 1 overall in five years and the fourth since 2009.