During halftime of Oklahoma’s 49-17 victory at Baylor in October, I talked with the Sooners athletic department spokesman Kenny Mossman about Sam Bradford’s chances at winning the Heisman Trophy this season.

At the time, Bradford was starting to establish himself as a candidate by virtue of his play, though he proved elusive about the subject off the field.

Mossman said he was having difficulty getting Bradford to do interviews with national news media outlets because he didn’t want to talk about himself.

“If Sam wins the Heisman,” Mossman said, “it’ll be in spite of himself.”



Now, just over two months later, Bradford is on the cusp of potentially winning the Heisman Trophy on Saturday night, despite his self-deflecting personality. Because he had no interest in promoting himself for the award, Oklahoma actually ramped up his campaign late in the season, largely without Bradford’s knowledge, Mossman said.

The university recently mailed out a cutout photograph of Bradford in the shape of a hand-held fan to the members of the Football Writers Association of America. The photograph of Bradford is similar to the stiff-arm pose of the player depicted in the Heisman Trophy and says, “Fantastic Sam” with his accomplishments listed on the backside.

“Sam’s focus on academics and football is such that he did not want the additional media attention that comes with a flashy campaign,” Mossman said in an e-mail message. “I also think he felt too much spotlight on him might be detrimental to team chemistry. His humility is as genuine as I have seen in my 24 years in intercollegiate athletics. So it is probably appropriate to say that he earned this much acclaim in spite of his personal approach to publicity, but it’s also fair to say that he probably rose in the voters’ eyes on the strength of the team cohesion that he fought so hard to protect. He appreciates his platform as a role model but he would probably be fine living his life in anonymity too. Of course, those days are gone.”