July 14, 2019

College football notes … Hard to believe but college football programs will be opening their doors for the beginning of fall training camps in just over a couple of weeks. Couple of stories we have been following the past few days. At Oklahoma, redshirt sophomore RB Kennedy Brooks has reportedly been cleared to resume playing with the Sooners after being suspended from all team activities while he was investigated for a Title IX investigation. A female student had alleged that Brooks had been “physically violent with her” earlier in the summer; however, while the student filed a complaint against Brooks with the school’s Title IX office, she did not report the incident to police. Not sure what that has to do with anything, but it was enough to get Brooks cleared and returned to football activities. And while he’s hardly a household name at this time, the 5-10, 210-pound Brooks is a rising star in college football who ran for over 1,000 yards in 2018 when he averaged 8.9 yards per carry as he played second fiddle to Heisman trophy winning QB Kyler Murray and figures to be a prime draft prospect as early as next April if he can keep his nose clean off the field. In fact, as soon as he was cleared, Brooks was named to the pre-season Big XII all-conference team where he joins Kansas sophomore RB Pooka Williams in the backfield. Ironically, Williams was also just recently reinstated from a suspension resulting from a domestic battery charge of his own for which he will miss the Jayhawks season opener against Indiana State. Speaking of under the radar emerging college stars, Colorado junior WR Laviska Shenault, arguably the best receiver in the country nobody has heard of, indicated at the Pac-12 media day that everything else being equal that he will be entering the upcoming draft. The 6-2, 225-pound Shenault had 86 receptions for just over 1,000 yards last fall while playing in just 9 games as he was hampered by toe and shoulder injuries.