Near-steer: Thompson was close to being a Longhorn

By John Helsley

Published: October 4, 2006

NORMAN - Paul Thompson sat face-to-face with Mack Brown six years ago, pondering the scholarship offer to play for his boyhood favorite — Texas.

"I was excited," Thompson said Tuesday. "Sitting in coach Brown's office...It was a tough decision to make."

The difficulty came in a contingency: Brown wanted Thompson for wide receiver, not quarterback.

Seems Brown had another prep quarterback in mind. Fellow named Vince Young.

"We told Vince he'd be the only quarterback," in the recruiting class, Brown said. "And Vince played pretty good for us."

Of course, Thompson's decision eventually steered him to Oklahoma, where he'll make his first start against Texas as a fifth-year senior Saturday.

"Just talking with my family, gathering more and more information, what I wanted to do with myself, what I felt I could do well," Thompson said about the factors that went into his decision. "And one of those was I felt I could be a successful quarterback in the Big 12."

Thompson was a standout quarterback in Leander, Texas, just up the road from Austin.

"That was the team I watched and I pulled for," Thompson said. "But when it came to making a decision, I wasn't bleeding burnt orange or anything like that.

"I never thought it was my destiny to play for Texas."

Still, Thompson showed up for camp that summer at Texas, playing quarterback until coaches asked him to move to wide receiver the final day.

Thompson obliged, doing enough to draw the invite to Brown's office, where the scholarship was offered.

"We only took one quarterback that year, and it was Vince," Brown said. "But Paul was really good and we liked him.

"We liked his family. He was one of the most wonderful young men we've recruited since we've been here."