Baker Mayfield becomes sixth OU player to capture Heisman Trophy
December 11, 2017 by admin
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Since the NCAA began allowing athletic scholarships in 1950, no player to win the Heisman Trophy had started his career as a walk-on.
Baker Mayfield changed that Saturday night.
Mayfield, the Oklahoma quarterback whose storybook saga began with him walking on at Texas Tech, captured the 83rd Heisman in a landslide victory.
Baker Mayfield’s unconventional route to the Heisman
Baker Mayfield, the former walk-on who became a star QB at Oklahoma and led his team to the College Football Playoff, captured the Heisman Trophy. “It’s a dream right now,” he said.
The trash-talking, flag-planting, TD-making genius of Baker Mayfield
Baker Mayfield, the Heisman front-runner, has been infuriating and iconic. Even his opponents, who should despise him, can’t help but respect and be in awe of the OU QB.
Mayfield collected 732 first-place votes and 2,398 points in the voting totals. Stanford running back Bryce Love was second with 1,300 points (75 first-place votes). Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson, last year’s Heisman winner, was third with 793 (47).
Mayfield yielded the third-highest percentage of possible points received (86 percent) since 1950, behind only Ohio State’s Troy Smith (2006) and Oregon’s Marcus Mariota (2014).
Mayfield became the first senior to win the Heisman since Smith in 2006. Earlier in the week, he won the Davey O’Brien (best quarterback) and Maxwell (player of the year) awards. The Associated Press and Walter Camp also both named him their player of the year.
“This is unbelievable for me, being up here among these greats,” Mayfield said upon receiving the award with past Heisman winners standing behind him. “It’s something that words can’t even describe. God has put me in this position that I’m so blessed, and a lot of times I wonder why. But it’s such an honor to be up here. It’s unbelievable.”
Mayfield has put together one of the most impressive individual offensive seasons in the game’s history and, in the process, led Oklahoma to the College Football Playoff for the second time in three years. The Sooners will open the playoff against Georgia in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day.
Mayfield has completed 71 percent of his passes and thrown for 4,340 yards and 41 touchdowns with only five interceptions. He is averaging 11.8 yards per passing attempt, which would shatter the FBS record that he set last season.
With Mayfield running the show, the Sooners have posted the highest offensive efficiency rating since ESPN began tracking the metric in 2005. Since Mayfield took over as Oklahoma’s starting quarterback in 2015, the Sooners have led the FBS in points per game, offensive touchdowns, yards per game and yards per play the past three seasons.
This season, Mayfield became the 10th player in FBS history to throw for 14,000 yards in a career. He is the first of those to rush for 1,000 yards as well. He also moved ahead of former Oklahoma quarterback and Heisman winner Sam Bradford for the FBS record for career passing efficiency.
Mayfield became just the fifth player — and joined Georgia’s Herschel Walker as only the second in 68 years — to finish in the top four of the Heisman voting three times. The other three to do so, SMU’s Doak Walker, Army’s Glenn Davis and Army’s Doc Blanchard, achieved the feat during the 1940s. Before Mayfield, Blanchard was the only Heisman winner to transfer from one FBS-level program to another. Blanchard played at North Carolina before joining Army.
Mayfield gave Oklahoma its sixth Heisman winner, which moves the Sooners into a tie with USC for the third-most all-time (not including Reggie Bush’s vacated 2005 Heisman). Alongside Heisman winners Billy Vessels, Steve Owens, Billy Sims, Jason White and Bradford, Oklahoma will soon erect a statue of Mayfield in its Heisman Park, which sits just to the east of Oklahoma’s Memorial Stadium.
“It’s been a dream come true to play at OU,” Mayfield said. “Although I grew up in Austin, Texas, I was always Sooner-born and Sooner-bred. And you know, they say, ‘When I die, I’ll be Sooner-dead,’ and I truly mean that. It’s been a dream for me. And it’s an honor to represent my school.”
After he won the starting job as a walk-on true freshman at Texas Tech, Mayfield bolted for Oklahoma. He showed up in Norman in 2014 without an invitation from then-coach Bob Stoops, much less the promise of a scholarship. But Mayfield grew up a Sooner fan living in Austin, Texas, and wanted to see if he could make it at his “dream school.”
Then, after sitting out the first season as an ineligible transfer, Mayfield beat incumbent Trevor Knight for the starting job. In 2015, he led Oklahoma to the playoff on his way to posting a 34-5 career record with the Sooners.
“There’s a lot of people who put effort into this. Coach Stoops, you welcomed a chubby, unathletic kid into the program with open arms,” Mayfield said. “I wouldn’t say that many would do that, but thank you.”
Mayfield’s Heisman season, however, didn’t come without obstacles and controversy that he mostly created for himself and had to overcome.
In the early morning of Feb. 25, Mayfield was arrested in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on chargers of public intoxication, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and fleeing. A month later, police released dash-cam video of Mayfield attempting to run away from the scene before officers tackled him into a wall. Mayfield agreed to a plea deal that eliminated the resisting arrest charge. After Oklahoma’s first spring practice, he spoke publicly for almost a half-hour, noting that he realized he had “let down” many people.
Twice during the season, Mayfield’s on-field antics stirred up controversy as well.
Following one of the biggest wins of his career, a 31-16 victory over Ohio State on Sept. 9, Mayfield planted an Oklahoma flag at midfield of Ohio Stadium. Two days later, he apologized, saying he “didn’t mean for it to be disrespectful.”
Mayfield also apologized after grabbing his crotch and cursing at the Kansas sideline on Nov. 18. In turn, coach Lincoln Riley suspended Mayfield from starting the final home game of his career and temporarily stripped him of his captain status. But after he sat out the first series, Mayfield passed for three touchdowns in the victory over West Virginia.
The following week, he passed for another four scores to propel the Sooners past TCU in the Big 12 championship game, which effectively punched Oklahoma’s ticket to the playoff — and clinched the Heisman for Mayfield.
Mayfield said Saturday night that Riley’s hiring in June “changed my life.”
“Coach Riley, you’ve been a great mentor to me,” Mayfield said. “We’ve been through a lot together, so I appreciate you.”
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As Mueller’s Russia Probe Forges Ahead, Potential Legal Endgames Begin to Take Shape
December 11, 2017 by admin
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Protesters outside the federal courthouse where Michael Flynn pleaded guilty early this month speculate what is coming next in the special counsel probe.
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Protesters outside the federal courthouse where Michael Flynn pleaded guilty early this month speculate what is coming next in the special counsel probe.
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While many aspects of the Justice Department’s Russia investigation remain shrouded in secrecy, one thing at this point is clear: Special counsel Robert Mueller isn’t finished yet.
That raises the question about where he might be heading.
Mueller has moved aggressively in his high-profile probe since taking the reins seven months ago. He has brought charges against four people with ties to the Trump campaign or administration so far, including the president’s onetime campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The outcome of Mueller’s relationship with Flynn — who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is cooperating with investigators — could be the key to what happens down the line, attorneys say.
“There are two possible ways this could end up going, and both hinge on why Flynn lied,” said Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who teaches white collar criminal law at George Washington University Law School. “Depending on which is the case, you could have very different endgames.”
If Flynn lied about his Russia contacts because they were deemed politically damaging, then Trump associates — and maybe the president himself — could get caught in a cover-up, even if what they’re trying to hide isn’t itself criminal.
If the facts bear that out, that could mean an obstruction of justice case. For months, news outlets have reported that Mueller is looking into whether Trump obstructed justice, which would amount to attempting to influence or subvert an ongoing investigation.
A Trump tweet after Flynn’s guilty plea renewed the talk about possible obstruction and fueled questions about what the president knew when he cut Flynn loose in February.
Trump said on Twitter that he fired Flynn “because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies.” Trump lawyer John Dowd took responsibility for the tweet after it ignited a firestorm, but the White House ultimately acknowledged that Trump knew in late January, before he fired Flynn, that Flynn had probably lied to the FBI.
“The president has the right to fire anybody when he wants. But what he can’t do is try to interject improper influence in, and impede, an investigation,” said Michael J. Moore, a former U.S. attorney now at Pope McGlamry in Atlanta.
Moore alluded to the account of former FBI Director James Comey after Flynn’s firing. Trump, in Comey’s telling, asked him in a confidential meeting at the White House whether he would “let this go.” And Trump later fired Comey himself.
“That’s why that tweet was so important,” Moore said. “If he knew at the time that Flynn had lied to the FBI and told Comey to back off, then he’s using his position as Comey’s superior as leverage to try to achieve an outcome in an investigation — that amounts to obstruction.”
Obstruction could remain a possible endgame charge in a second scenario as well: If Flynn lied to shield a broader network of contacts between Trump associates, Russians and some nefarious actions they engaged in together.
Mueller’s mandate from the Justice Department calls for him to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government” and the Trump campaign. In the popular parlance, that is often called the question of “collusion.”
But even though “collusion” is a word that has been frequently bandied about, there is no such criminal charge. There is another C-word that could come into play — conspiracy.
Depending on the facts developed in Mueller’s investigation, there are a couple of options.
A Trump tweet after Flynn pleaded guilty renewed the talk about possible obstruction and fueled questions about what the president knew when he cut Flynn loose in February.
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A Trump tweet after Flynn pleaded guilty renewed the talk about possible obstruction and fueled questions about what the president knew when he cut Flynn loose in February.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
One potential charge might be conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, says Barak Cohen, a partner and litigation lead at Perkins Coie in Washington, D.C. Mueller’s team could reach for that if there is evidence that Trump associates worked with Russia on the hacking of the Democratic National Committee or the emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta.
“I think the special counsel would like to be able to charge them as co-conspirators to the hack or accessories after the fact,” Cohen said. “It’s the most credible and well-established legal theory.”
If Trump associates weren’t directly involved in the hacks but, say, knew about them and kept them hidden, then they could be charged as accessories after that fact, Cohen said.
Another theory proffered by John Norris and Carolyn Kenney for the liberal Center for American Progress is that Mueller might try to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
“More dominoes seem almost inevitable to fall given the special counsel’s efforts to secure cooperating witnesses, and RICO statutes give him a powerful card to play if he wishes to do so,” they wrote.
Or a more general conspiracy charge — to defraud the United States — could come into play, according to Eliason. Conspiracy of this sort means interfering with a lawful government function by deceit or dishonest means. In this case, prosecutors might try to prove the Trump camp had helped pervert the election.
“Of course, it depends on what the facts show,” Eliason said, “but if one worked with the Russians to leak information and create false social media accounts and other such stuff, that could be conspiracy to defraud the U.S.”
A third possible endgame is some sort of financial crime such as money laundering.
“My guess is this is all going to center around money — Russian money,” Moore said.
Questions swirl around Trump’s finances, partly because he has been opaque about his tax payments and partly because of charges by opponents that his businesses are the terminus of a money laundering scheme.
This aspect of the story got a boost after reports that Deutsche Bank had received a subpoena from Mueller’s team for information on accounts held by people or entities connected to Trump.
A lawyer for Trump, Jay Sekulow, denied those reports. The bank itself has made no comment. A Deutsche Bank spokesman told a German business newspaper that it cooperates with official inquiries but does not comment on individual cases.
Probing possible financial crimes dating back to before Trump took office and unrelated to Russia could be perilous politically. Trump’s aides and Republicans have already argued that such a move would be a step too far for Mueller.