Oklahoma football: Four days until kickoff — No. 4 Jamelle Holieway

With four days left until the start of another Oklahoma football season, we continue our countdown to Saturday’s season-opening game.

The phone call came from Keith Sparks.

The early 1990s-era Oklahoma Sooners’ player was part of an alumni-led, word-of-mouth effort to fulfill the wishes of new Oklahoma Coach Brent Venables, who implored the fan base to show up to last April’s Oklahoma spring game and stressed that former players, no matter the era, were not only welcome back but would be instrumental in what Venables was set to build in Norman.

The recipient of the Sparks phone call was 1980s national championship quarterback Jamelle Holieway. Despite never being teammates, a player from the 1990s reaching out to an icon of the 1980s served as a fitting testament to the sort of brotherhood that comes with being an Oklahoma Sooner.

“All the Sooners, we all try to stick together,” Holieway told Stormin’ In Norman. “I don’t care who is the coach, we know we put on that crimson and cream. We know we played OU football.”

Holieway and Sparks were among whopping 250-plus former players and a nation-best 75,360 fans that descended upon Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on April 23 for the spring game. Clad in his original Oklahoma road-white 1986 Orange Bowl jersey – which was used just for a bowl week photo opportunity as the Sooners wore their crimson jerseys in the game that year – Holieway gathered before the scrimmage at midfield with all of the other former players as Venables spoke passionately about their importance to the program.

“He made me want to go put my damn helmet on one more time and play,” Holieway said. “And I would have given it all I could. And when he was talking and his motivation and the way he was speaking, man, he was speaking to us. So I know when he speaks to his own team, he kind of reminds me of (former Oklahoma Coach Barry) Switzer when it comes to motivation. … Him just talking and getting people together was really amazing.”

There are few stories regarding Oklahoma football more remarkable than the one authored by Holieway. For 33 years, he held the distinction of being the only true freshman starting quarterback in the history of the game to lead his team to a national title. Yet, when it came to national retrospectives on 1980s college football, Holieway was customarily left out in favor of players like Doug Flutie, Bo Jackson, Herschel Walker, and Holieway’s teammate, Brian Bosworth.

“The recognition I get is from my friends and my family still remembering those times,” Holieway said. “We will get together once a year in September, but not this year, at my mom’s house, and when people know that I am coming into town, we will have a five-day party. People from all over will come by just to say hello because they know that I am in town. That humbles me and makes me appreciate what I did back then, and they still remember that. Those are good times.”

CALIFORNIA KID

A native of Carson, California, Holieway convinced his mother, Charlie Mae Harris, to move into a school district that would allow him to play football at Phineas Banning High School in Wilmington, Calif., for Coach Chris Ferragamo.

“I said, ‘Mama, I can get a scholarship,'” Holieway recalled. “‘If you move us out there, I can get us a scholarship, and you won’t have to pay for me to go to school.’ And my mama believed in her little 15-year-old boy to do that, and the rest is history. To me, that is some good stuff for your mama to believe in you when you are 15 years old, and it is only me and her.”

The decision proved wise. Holieway starred at Banning, helped a Pilots team with 13 future major-college players win a Los Angeles City football title as a junior, then was named the LA. City Player of the Year – the “Baby Heisman” – after a senior season in which the Pilots were L.A. City runner-up.

Holieway’s college photograph is still displayed in the Banning weight room.

“I was back to Banning a year ago,” Holieway said. “It is not the same, just like everything in the world is. It is not a powerhouse anymore, but we still get together and have a Banning reunion. It is really cool to have Banning and Carson get together.”

SOONER SELECTION

Just as he predicted, the colleges came calling. Ultimately, Holieway whittled his list of suitors down to Colorado, Oklahoma, and the hometown school, Southern California. Once USC made it clear that it wanted Holieway to play defensive back, it became a two-horse race.

“I wanted the ball in my hand,” Holieway said. “So therefore, it was only Colorado or Oklahoma. And when Colorado and Coach (Bill) McCartney said he was going to change to the wishbone, I am like, ‘You just want me there. You are not going to change.’ I didn’t believe it. But the ironic thing about that is, here they did change, and my cousin (1990 national champion) Darian Hagan goes there a year later. So we got a couple of national championships in our family when we get together for a family reunion.”

Holieway then turned his focus to Oklahoma, which not only had a long, successful track record of winning big with the triple-option offensive attack but a charismatic coach in Barry Switzer who was not threatened by players who wished to display some personality.

“We would always watch Oklahoma-Nebraska,” Holieway said. “My first time I saw Joe Washington with those silver shoes, I am like, ‘Aw, man, that is sweet. He is the only one who has silver shoes like nobody else.’ … That threw me back, and then I saw Thomas Lott with the bandana. I am like, ‘That must be a cool-ass coach because he is letting these individual people be individuals, but they are still playing good football on the field.”

FROM FIFTH-STRING TO BACKUP

Holieway signed with the Sooners and arrived on campus in the summer of 1985. Seemingly buried at fifth on the quarterback depth chart, injuries to sophomores Kyle Irvin and Glenn Sullivan immediately vaulted Holieway into a training camp battle with fellow freshman Eric Mitchel to determine who would back up sophomore Troy Aikman.

While Mitchel possessed both the superior size (6-foot-1, 195 pounds compared to 5-11, 175 for Holieway) and speed (a 4.27-second 40-yard dash vs. Holieway’s low 4.5), it was Holieway that gained the approval of Switzer through the split-second decision making he displayed in preseason scrimmages.

“When we would scrimmage, Eric would make some big ol’ play and these runs and the crowd would go wild and be cheering,” Holieway remembered. “I got in and I just matriculated down the field and I only got applause when we got the touchdown. But Eric got these big applauses because of all the runs that he would make.”

“Well then, going in to the watch the film, my coach (Switzer) reassured me of one thing: You can’t play that sandlot football against Texas, Nebraska, against Miami. People that have just as good of athletes as we do. That is not going to work,” Holieway recalled. “He said, ‘Ya’ll see Holieway? That is how you are supposed to move the team down the field.’ And when my coach told me that, I knew then, ‘OK, it is not all about what the crowd is saying. It is not all about the cheering. It is all about how you are being a general amongst this team and moving down the field and getting us in the right plays. And the rest will take care of itself.”

Holieway was named the backup quarterback during the preseason, which began on August 15 and consisted of an incredible month and a half of two-a-day practices four or five days a week.
Once the season-opening home game against SMU was moved to December 7 to accommodate a national television broadcast by ABC, it meant the 1985 season would not begin until September 28 at Minnesota and, amazingly, the home-opener would not be until October 19, a week after the annual clash with Texas in Dallas.

It must have been a grueling wait for the coaches, players and the fan base.

“I didn’t know any different,” Holieway said. “Because this was my first go around, so this is normal for me. So it was, ‘OK, whatever we have got to do, we have got to do. This is how long we have to practice.'”

“JUST GET IN WHERE YOU FIT IN”

Holieway saw his first action in the second game of the season at Kansas State, running three times for 44 yards in a 41-6 blowout win for the Sooners. An Aikman-led victory over Texas (14-7) set the stage for the well-documented October 19 visit from unranked Miami.

If you have heard of Holieway, you have heard the story. Aikman gets off to a great start, then breaks his left leg in the second quarter with the Sooners trailing, 14-7, and Holieway trots out to assume control of the offense for the rest of the season.

But Holieway was not as green as has often been portrayed. Judging by the practice routine in the week leading up to the game, one had to wonder if an appearance from Holieway was the plan all along.

“It is something that Coach Switzer, to be the great coach that he is because, for whatever reason, I practiced with No. 1s that week against Miami,” Holieway said. “I got to run first-team offense with Troy right there. I got to step in and run my stuff. And then he goes and breaks his leg and I get to go in. I don’t know what this man knew that I didn’t know, but he knew something.”

Miami led by as many as 20 points that day in its 27-14 victory. The loss dropped the Sooners from third to 10th in the Associated Press rankings. Successive wins against overmatched foes in Iowa State, Kansas, Missouri and Colorado allowed Holieway to get his footing with the first-team offense and moved the Sooners to fifth in the rankings but did little to capture national attention.

That would arrive November 23 against third-ranked Nebraska.

“I knew that it was a national-televised game,” Holieway said. “It was remarkable because my mom and them got to see at home. My friends got to see. I just left high school and now we’re on TV? I am hollering all my friend’s names and all like that, it was the ultimate.”

In what became his coming-out party to the country, Holieway was brilliant. His electrifying 43-yard touchdown run in the first quarter gave the Sooners a 14-0 lead, which eventually ballooned to 27-0 after Holieway’s second scoring scamper from 17 yards out in the third frame.

It was a performance that prompted ABC studio host Jim Lampley to remark to legendary play-by-play broadcaster Keith Jackson in the fourth quarter, “Frightening, isn’t it Keith, to think how good Holieway could be if he plays for three more years and stays healthy and develops with that offense?”

Holieway finished the game with 110 rushing yards via 25 attempts and the two scores as the 27-7 win clinched a Big 8 title and berth in the Orange Bowl.

In order for that bowl matchup to have national championship implications, the Sooners would have to defeat both Oklahoma State on the road and SMU in the home finale.

They did. And suddenly, an 18-year-old freshman from Los Angeles was the all-Big 8 quarterback and tasked with fulfilling his team’s preseason No. 1 expectations by completing the quest for a national championship.

“I just played and I was happy to play and be a part of a team and not even thinking I am the leader,” Holieway said. “I am playing with grown men that have babies. I am playing with grown men that have wives and have to feed their families however (they can), trying to get to the league. And here I am, just a little 18-year-old snotty-nosed freshman. Just get in where you fit in. But I had to grow up fast because they are all looking at me to lead.”

RIGHT SLOT 72 Y GO

The Orange Bowl featured No. 3 Oklahoma against top-ranked and unbeaten Penn State. With future All-American linebacker Shane Conlan shadowing him on every play, Holieway never got his run game off the ground (12 carries, one yard). But with Penn State leading in the second quarter, 7-3, and Oklahoma facing a 3rd down and 24 yards to go from its own 29-yard-line, Holieway made his mark.

The play call from the coaches was a draw play to tailback Spencer Tillman. But as Holieway surveyed the defense, he called an audible: Right Slot 72 Y Go.

“In our practice film, I was taught if I saw their free safety start cheating over coming to the tight end, if that safety starts moving from the middle of the field down to the box, he is going to come on the blitz,” Holieway said. “When you see him start scooting over, you better change the play to Y Go. And that is what I did. I saw that little safety, I saw (Penn State safety Ray) Isom, No. 22, scoot over and start coming down and I just said, ‘Red, red, Y Go, Y Go’ and that means, ‘(Oklahoma tight end) Keith (Jackson), go run as fast as you can down the middle of the field and I am going to throw it as far as I can and hopefully we connect.’ That is how that play came about.”

The 71-yard strike gave Oklahoma the lead for good at 10-7. With Tennessee handily beating second-ranked Miami in the Sugar Bowl, a win over Penn State would give Oklahoma the national title. Tim Lashar kicked four field goals, Sonny Brown intercepted two passes and Holieway etched his name in the history books forever as the first true freshman starting quarterback to lead his team to a national championship, 25-10.

It was a distinction that Holieway shared with no one for the next 33 years. Players like Tim Tebow, Michael Vick and Tua Tagovailoa came later, but they either shared starting duties, came on in relief of starters or failed to finish. It was not until 2018, when Clemson’s true freshman full-time starting quarterback Trevor Lawrence – with Venables as defensive coordinator – joined Holieway in the exclusive club with a national championship.

“I loved it because when they talked about Michael Vick, Jamelle Holieway’s name got brought up,” Holieway said. “When they talked about Tua (Tagovailoa) in 2017, Jamelle Holieway’s name got brought up. So my name got brought up enough to keep my name in the loop and for me to be relevant in these times of college football. And if I can still be relevant in college football 30 years later, we’re pretty good.”

SOONER MAGIC

Holieway and Oklahoma had national title aspirations again in 1986, but a road loss to Miami in the third game of the season kept the Sooners outside the title chase for the duration of the season.

Oklahoma dominated the Big 8 schedule with an average margin of victory of 45-2 with four shutouts before heading to Lincoln for the regular-season finale at No. 5 Nebraska.

While a win would deliver an outright Big 8 title for the third year in a row, the third-ranked Sooners found themselves trailing after three quarters, 17-7.

“Coach Switzer would always sit there and say, ‘You have got to believe that you are going to win,'” Holieway said. “‘I don’t care if there are no ticks on the clock and it is the last Hail Mary, we have to think that we are going to win that. We have to think that we are going to figure out that jump ball.'”

A Lashar field goal cut the Oklahoma deficit to 17-10 with 10:39 to play, but the Sooners fumbled the ball away twice on their next two chances to drive for the tying score.

Thanks to a defense that kept giving its offense the ball back, Oklahoma got a last chance at a game-tying drive with 4:10 left. Beginning at their own six-yard-line, the Sooners marched 94 yards, including a 4th-and-1 attempt at their own 15 where a Holieway fumble was negated by a Nebraska face mask penalty.

“Let me tell you what really sparked everything,” Holieway said. “The face mask on fourth down on the short side of the field where Broderick Thomas grabbed by face mask. He grazed it, but enough to see my head turn the other way. That was a face mask that gave us a first down.”

On the ensuing play, a 35-yard Holieway completion to receiver Derrick Shepard (decd. 1999) brought Oklahoma to the Nebraska 32. Five plays later, following an Oklahoma time out, Holieway threw to the goal line to tight end Keith Jackson for a 17-yard touchdown.

With 1:22 to go, Switzer elected to kick the tying extra point that would secure Oklahoma the Big 8 championship and the Orange Bowl bid, while the Nebraska crowd was seemingly left with the consolation tie.

Cue the Sooner Magic.

On the following possession, Nebraska quarterback Steve Taylor ran out of bounds on two quarterback runs and threw an incompletion, which took hardly any time off the clock and forced his team to punt the ball back to Oklahoma.

The Sooners started at their own 34-yard line with 50 seconds left, but only got to their 45 with just 18 remaining ticks on the clock. That is when Holieway engineered a play that will be remembered forever in Oklahoma history.

“The tipped pass,” Holieway said.

With Jackson streaking down the near sideline, Holieway fired the ball over Thomas at the Nebraska 35, Jackson tipped the ball to himself, corralled it and raced to the 14-yard line with nine seconds left. Lashar calmly drilled the game-winning field goal from 31 yards away.

“The Tim Lashar kick at the end and (sophomore tight end) Duncan Parham going all wild, throwing his hands up like we just won everything,” Holieway said.

In a matter of four minutes of game time, the stunned Nebraska crowd had gone from sensing victory to settling for a tie to a shocking defeat.

“To me, that was ‘Sooner Magic,'” Holieway said. “(Sooner Magic) was born before me, but to be a part of it, to have a game or two in ‘Sooner Magic,’ (was great).”

POP, THERE IT GOES

A dominant Orange Bowl win over Arkansas set the stage for the 1987 season, in which Oklahoma began the season ranked No. 1 and won its first eight games, which set up a Bedlam matchup against No. 12 Oklahoma State in Norman.

Holieway capped the opening drive with a five-yard touchdown run, and a his 36-yard run set up an R.D. Lashar field goal later in the quarter. But with 6:13 to go in the game, Holieway sprinted to the left on a quarterback keeper, was tackled and immediately bounced back up to try and walk off some knee pain. As he got to the Oklahoma State sideline, he collapsed to the turf and clutched his left knee with both hands.

“My foot got stuck in the turf in the season where they sewed it together,” Holieway said. “My foot went inside the turf and it slid, so it just took all of the traction out of the bottom. Then pop, there it goes and I just remember Pat Jones being the first one out there saying, ‘Stay down, son.'”

Ligament and cartilage damage ended his season, but Holieway was enough of an asset moral-wise that Switzer brought him with the team to Lincoln for the second-ranked Sooners’ matchup with No. 1 Nebraska.

In addition to his crutches, Holieway packed a second notable accessory for the chilly trip up north. … a brown fur coat.

“I am always the last one on the bus,” Holieway said. “Especially this time, because I am on crutches. Because you get to dress up, this is the time where everybody gets to dress up and show what their style is and what part of the neck of the woods they are from. And me being from California, we have got to be flamboyant. We have got to make it hit. I get on that bus to get on that plane, and Coach Switzer says, ‘Where did you get that jacket from?’ I said, ‘Coach, it is going to be snowing up in Lincoln. I am going to be cold. I am going to be sitting on the bench. I won’t be by a heater. He said, ‘Get your ass on the bus.'”

In what is referred to as, “Game of the Century II,” Oklahoma and freshman quarterback Charles Thompson beat Nebraska for the fourth year in a row, 17-7, and clinched its fourth-consecutive Big 8 championship.

The win returned the Sooners to the top of the rankings and set the stage for another Orange Bowl matchup, this time against No. 2 Miami on its home field. You would think being relegated to spectator as his team competed for a national championship for Holieway.

Think again.

“That was the best time of my life in Miami,” Holieway said. “Even injured. The reason being, Coach Switzer tore his knee up at the Nebraska game. … Who do you think got to ride around in a cart to drive Coach Switzer around? It was Jamelle. He has right leg sticking out, I have got my left leg sticking out of the car and we are just riding around practice the whole time.”

Holieway’s chauffeur duties extended from the golf cart to the car that shuffled Switzer from one bowl week commitment to another.

“It was just me and him that whole time during that Orange Bowl,” Holieway said. “And when I tell you I loved it, I wanted to be a coach right then and there if this is all it takes to coach, all the press conferences and seeing all these different sites because he was Coach Switzer and I am the quarterback. That was the best time.”

Oklahoma’s bid for a second national title in three seasons was turned away by the Hurricanes, 20-14, and Holieway believes the outcome might have been different if he were healthy. From 1985-87, the Sooners finished 33-3 with three conference championships and one national title.

All three losses were to Miami.

“There was something about playing Miami, because I knew that we had to give our best,” Holieway said. “I knew we couldn’t make a mistake. You can’t jump offsides when it is 4th and 1. You couldn’t make that pivotal mistake. If I could play Miami every game, me personally, I would have played them every game. Just to see where we are on the radar.”

REALITY SETS IN

Holieway returned for the 1988 season and passed up the chance to take his redshirt year and continue rehabilitating his knee in large part because the Sooners were visiting his hometown Southern California in the third week of the season against the fifth-ranked Trojans.

“I was playing against my best friend, Leroy Holt, who was a starting fullback for USC,” Holieway said. “I pushed myself. I should have redshirted that year, but because I wanted to come home and play and be all like that and thought I wanted to hurry up and get my ass out of college. If I had to do it all over again, I would have redshirted, took it, enjoyed the moment and then come back a little bit healthier the next year.”

Holieway lost for just the second time as a starter, 23-7, that day and started two more games – while alternating playing time with Thompson – before his limitations health-wise made it clear that Thompson was the faster, more effective option going forward.

“That is when reality set in,” Holieway said. “You’re not moving like you used to.”

On the last play of the regular season, Thompson broke his leg in a 7-3 home loss to seventh-ranked Nebraska. With Mitchel now at tailback, Holieway returned under center one final time as a Sooner in a 13-6 Citrus Bowl loss to No. 13 Clemson.

“Coach (Switzer) said, ‘Ah! You get your dream, you get to start one last game,'” Holieway said. “I guess that is why I don’t like Clemson to this day, because they beat us the last game.”

The Citrus Bowl loss was also the last game for Switzer at Oklahoma, who was forced to resign the following summer after the program suffered a serious string of criminal incidents involving its players.

Holieway graduated with a 31-3 record as a starter, was a two-time all-Big 8 quarterback and totaled over 5,000 total yards (2,713 rushing, 2,430 passing). He recorded 32 rushing touchdowns and 22 passing scores with 15 interceptions. At the time of his graduation, he was third in school history in passing yards behind Bob Warmack (3,744 from 1966-68) and Jack Mildren (3,092 from 1969-71). Even with the prolific quarterbacks that arrived on campus with the hire of Bob Stoops as head coach in 1999, Holieway still ranks 17th in passing yards in program history.

Holieway had professional opportunities with the Los Angeles Raiders of the NFL, the CFL’s British Columbia Lions and an American football league in Spain before he finally hung up the pads for good.

LIFE AFTER FOOTBALL

Today, he lives in McAlester with his wife and children and when he is not doting on his three grandchildren – Honey, Prince and Ellie Kay – he is heavily involved in youth sports and is a motivational speaker throughout the state of Oklahoma.

Holieway still regularly attends Oklahoma games in Norman – he will be at the Texas El-Paso game on Saturday – and continues to be amazed at the number of fans who approach him with words of appreciation and youthful tales of how he was admired and emulated.

“It is humbling,” Holieway said. “Now knowing that I touched that many people out there, young men, to wear No. 4. To give people awe like that is a great feeling. The crowd, the fans are everything. Coach Switzer always told us, ‘If it is not for the fans, then who the hell are we? So take time out to acknowledge them and to give them praise, too, for cheering for you.'”