Everything you want to know about Trevor Knight
.Trevor Knight bio
Position: Quarterback
Height: 6-1
Weight: 202
Year: Redshirt sophomore
Hometown: San Antonio, Texas
High School: Reagan High School
Parents: George and Tricia
Major: Finance
2013: Played in eight games ... MVP of Sugar Bowl after throwing for 348 yards and four touchdowns ... Missed Tulsa game with injury and left Oklahoma State game with injury ... In career debut, rushed for 103 yards and threw three touchdowns in a win over Louisiana Monroe
2012: Redshirted
High School: Four-star recruit by ESPN.com and Rivals.com. Threw for 2,092 yards and 27 touchdowns and rushed for 943 yards as a senior. Ranked as the sixth-best dual-threat quarterback in the nation by Rivals.com
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Knight moves
Trevor Knight had an up-and-down season before the 2014 Sugar Bowl. While he had demonstrated an ability to run in 2013, he struggled passing. That all changed in a dominating bowl-game performance that served notice that the redshirt freshman was OU’s quarterback of the future.
Here are some of Knight’s highlights from OU’s 45-31 win on Jan. 2.
• His first touchdown of the night comes with OU trailing 7-0. From the Alabama 45-yard line, Knight first looks left, then checks right and throws over an Alabama defender and hits LaColtan Bester at the 26. Bester does the rest and the game is tied at 7 at the 9:53 mark of the first quarter.
• Trailing 10-7 late in the first quarter, Knight scrambles on third and 10 for a first down to the Alabama 13. That sets up a nice throw from Knight to Jalen Saunders for an 8-yard touchdown three plays later. Saunders is well-covered on the play, but Knight puts the ball in the perfect spot in the front corner of the end zone.
• It’s 17-17 with three minutes to go in the first half when Knight fires one of his best throws of the night. On a deep route, Saunders has a step on his defender and Knight perfectly drops a pass over his receiver’s shoulder for a 43-yard touchdown and the 24-17 lead.
• Leading 31-24 early in the fourth and facing third and 15 from the Alabama 43, Knight again drops a nice lob pass, this time across the field, over Bester’s shoulder, hitting him in stride for a first down on a 34-yard gain. That set up a touchdown pass two plays later.
• On second and goal from the 9-yard line with less than 11 minutes to go in the game, Knight rolls to his right and seems out of options when, just before going out of bounds, fires into the end zone to Sterling Shepherd for a score and a 38-24 lead. Said TV announcer Brad Nessler after the play, “It looked like Joe Montana to Dwight Clark,” referring to the famous Montana-Clark connection from the NFL Championship Game in 1982 known as “The Catch.”
Knight’s final stats: 32-of-44 passing for 348 yards and four touchdowns. He was named the game’s most outstanding player.
What they are saying
What national writers wrote following Trevor Knight’s MVP performance in the Sugar Bowl.
“Even a football novice could tell that Knight was the best player on the Superdome field. He completed 32-of-44 passes for 348 yards and four touchdowns. Knight made every type of throw -- 20-yard frozen-rope sideline comebacks, perfectly arched 40-yard rainbows, and on-the-run passes feathered between defenders.” – Lars Anderson, SI.com
“He was a player you could rightfully compare to Teddy Bridgewater, who shredded a powerful SEC defense in this same game last season, and even JohnnyManziel, who's been kryptonite to Alabamaon more than one occasion.” – Brian Leigh, Bleacher Report
“In every great quarterback's career, there is a defining game and perhaps even a signature moment where the passer seizes stardom. Oklahoma redshirt freshman Trevor Knight both (in the Sugar Bowl).” – Tammy Nunez, nola.com
“Gone from Trevor Knight is the one-dimensional quarterback tag. He is now a fully capable dual-threat guy who has elusive speed and can put the ball in tight spaces.” – M. Hofeld, SBnation.com
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Trevor Knight is the face of Oklahoma football.
The redshirt sophomore quarterback from San Antonio captured the attention of the college football world following his stellar performance in the 2014 Sugar Bowl victory over Alabama.
What a difference a few months can make.
When camp began in the fall of 2013, many predicted Blake Bell to be the Sooners’ starting quarterback.
Knight was introduced as Oklahoma’s top quarterback weeks before the season against Louisiana-Monroe. Supplanted twice following injuries in the season, he bounced back and, following the Sugar Bowl win, is a critical piece to a Sooners team heading into a 2014 campaign with high expectations.
Knight graces the cover numerous national football magazines. The Oklahoma quarterback has been named a Heisman Trophy candidate by some publications.
Yet one thing to remember is he only has eight games of playing experience and five starts to his credit.
What helps this year is he entered spring football as the Sooners’ starter. There was no quarterback controversy after Blake Bell moved to tight end and Kendal Thompson transferred to Utah.
Knight feels comfortable, but knows he still has work to do.
“(I’m) just a lot more comfortable,” Knight said during 2014 spring practice. “Obviously, I’ve got the offense down a lot more than I did last year. I’m not competing for a job quite as stiffly.
“Obviously I’m competing every single day to maintain that level, but not competing for a job. I’m just getting to relax, sit back and be a leader.”
Knight is a graduate of San Antonio Reagan High School. OU was not his first choice.
The four-star recruit had committed to Texas A&M, but changed his mind during the summer of 2011. He let the world know via Twitter (with a message to his grandfather, who had recently died): “Just Committed to Play Football at The University of Oklahoma in honor of Papa! We love you and are going to miss you! Youll be watching!”
Knight’s start at OU was supposed to be in January 2012. He had decided to graduate early from high school and enroll at OU for the spring semester to get a jump on replacing Landry Jones as the Sooners’ next quarterback in the fall of 2013.
But his father, George Knight, was diagnosed with Squamous cell carcinoma of his right tonsil.
It was a difficult time for the Knight family. Trevor had lost his grandfather earlier and his grandmother was battling breast cancer in the same six-month span.
“And then getting that news out of the blue, that shakes you up a bit,” Trevor’s mother Tricia Knight said. “But the worst part was telling your kids that their father has cancer.”
Oklahoma then informed Knight that there was not room for a mid-semester enrollee. He would have to wait until June to report to Norman.
It turned out to be a blessing. He was able to take his dad to cancer treatments and then cheer for his brother Connor (now an Oklahoma tight end) at basketball games.
Two years later, George Knight is cancer-free.
“Our faith really propped us up and allowed us to have nothing but a positive attitude,” George said. “I don’t think any of us had any thought that this would be the end. I think our first thought was, ‘What do we have to do to fight it?’ It was just a good thing to get into it, get it done and get it over with.”
Trevor reported to campus that summer learning from Bell and Jones, who led the Sooners to 10 victories and a share of the Big 12 championship in 2012. He attended games — home and away — and sat in the quarterback room to learn the important details of being Oklahoma’s quarterback.
As soon as the final gun ended a disappointing 41-13 loss to Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl, Knight went to work. While many had embedded Bell as the team’s next quarterback, Knight kept gaining the attention of OU’s coaches.
In the spring game — the first look at Knight from OU’s fans — Knight took snaps with Bell and Kendal Thompson.
Coaches would not publicly name Bell as the starting quarterback, but many kept the assumption that the junior, with two years of experience, would be Jones’ replacement.
One week before the season, Knight was tabbed as OU’s next quarterback.
What led to coaches selecting Knight?
“He’s smart, he’s competitive, he’s a great leader, he works extremely hard every single day,” OU co-offensive coordinator Josh Heupel said days before the opener. “You know what you’re getting in the meeting room and on the practice field every single day first and foremost. As a player, he’s a guy who can get the ball to the outside. He can stretch the field. Everybody will get a chance to see him (against Louisiana-Monroe).”
Knight led the Sooners to an opening game 34-0 victory over Louisiana-Monroe but struggled in week two against West Virginia. After suffering a knee injury against the Mountaineers, he was replaced in the fourth quarter by Bell.
Bell’s solid performance next week against Tulsa, followed by his work in a road win at Notre Dame, solidified the junior as the Sooners’ quarterback. Knight returned to health, but didn’t see the field except for a few plays against Notre Dame and several weeks later at Baylor.
When Bell was injured against Iowa State on Nov. 16, Knight took over in the second quarter and finished with a career-high 123 rushing yards and was 8-of-14 passing in a 48-10 win. The following week at Kansas State, he engineered a 41-31 win and started an important Bedlam win at Oklahoma State before exiting with another injury.
When OU was selected to play in the Sugar Bowl, coaches again were hush-hush on a starting quarterback. It wasn’t until moments before game time that Knight was announced as the starter.
Knight responded by throwing for four touchdowns and 348 yards (on 32-of-44 passing) en route to being named the game’s most outstanding player.
“Trevor Knight, of course, was exceptional,” OU coach Bob Stoops said. “I think he showed the whole country what we’ve been watching for two years in our practices and our scrimmages and things like that, that the game has really started to slow down for him where he’s really starting to feel comfortable in what he can do ... He’s got a very live arm with great legs.”
Knight lit up what had been regarded as college football’s best defense and best in the Sooners’ 45-31 triumph over Alabama in New Orleans on Jan. 2.
Not bad for someone who entered the game with only 471 passing yards and five touchdown passes during the season. He also wasn’t labeled as a pass-first quarterback, but a dual-threat quarterback who spent the previous December impersonating Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel in practice for the Cotton Bowl.
Opponents will have to honor Knight’s passing. But will there be a healthy number of read-option run plays in 2014?
“It’s difficult to say, because this place has been known for its passing game. And that’s what we still want to be known for,” Knight said. “But adding the run game kind of changes the dynamic. Last year was kind of the first year we had that in, so things changed a little bit. The dynamic changed a little bit. We’ve got some guys that can pull the ball down and run. I think we still want to get our passing yards, but I think it’s just opened it up a little more for us.”
He has had a busy few months since the Sugar Bowl. Knight hasn’t contained work to on-the-field activities. He has spent the last two summers doing missionary work with other OU student-athletes in Haiti. He often gives testimony at FCA meetings.
“He is quite the young man,” Tricia Knight said. “I tell people this about him: He makes me a better person. It should really be the other way around, but when I think about the choices he makes in life, his character, his morals, his Christianity, everything — he’s a pretty neat person to have in your life.”