High Noon Highlights(3/5): Mason Rudolph talks about his rookie year

It’s high noon...

Mason Rudolph talks what he learned during his NFL rookie year:

The Steelers sat down with former Oklahoma State QB Mason Rudolph to discuss the things that kept him motivated during his rookie season. Rudolph talked about the opportunity to learn from Ben Roethlisberger and making the most if his situation.

“I knew I wasn’t going to start,” said Rudolph. “I knew I would be able to help Ben, the staff, the offense as much as I could. The first couple of games you are like wow, this is NFL football. In the middle of season you start to understand it, the flow, the preparation, the travel, and just the way we operate as an organization. The last five to six weeks I felt like I could play now if I had to.

“It’s becoming comfortable with your new teammates, surroundings, new town. I started to feel that sink in around me the last six weeks of the season.” {Steelers.com}

NFL Combine winners and losers:

USA Today came out with a list of winners and losers from this weekend’s NFL Combine. Among the list of winners was Oklahoma State’s own Justice Hill.

Here’s what they had to say about the running back.

So much for the questions about his explosive ability. Leading all running backs with a 4.40-second 40, 10-10 broad jump and 40-inch vertical leap, Hill had the most dynamic showing in an otherwise uninspiring class of ball-carriers. The workout could help him separate from a pack of mid-to-late-round running backs come April.{USA Today}

Interview with Jordan Brailford:

Check out this Jordan Brailford interview where he talks about his experience at the Combine.

How Gary Ward almost became head coach at Wichita State:

The Tulsa World’s Guerin Emig told a really interesting story about former Oklahoma State Head Coach Gary Ward almost became the head coach at Wichita State.

“Bredehoft calls me. All he knows is he wants a baseball program at Wichita State. He doesn’t have anything in place. I really wanted the job, but he couldn’t even tell me what the salary was going to be and what the budget was going to be. Another thing, he didn’t know for sure how many scholarships he was going to have.

“He kept saying, ‘Well Coach, they (Brock and his contacts at Arizona State) keep telling me you’re the guy I want. And we’re gonna have a program. And you’ve just gotta trust me.’”

Bredehoft was quite a pitchman — he was nicknamed “Barnum and Bailey” Bredehoft according to the Wichita Eagle — and Ward wanted to trust him. He just wasn’t sure he could, or should.

He wasn’t sure he could take his mind off the established program an hour-and-a-half drive from his hometown of Ramona, Oklahoma.

“At the same time I had been looking at the Oklahoma State job knowing that the program wasn’t carrying on the tradition,” Ward says. “Oklahoma had taken the reins of being the dominant baseball program with Enos Seymore and Gene (Stephenson, then an OU assistant) running it.” {Tulsa World}