"We're each our own person, but it does put a little more pressure on me," said Sowell, who turned 20 in June. "I never saw Michael miss a practice. He was always here for the team, he worked really hard and he was very humble. That's the type of guy I want to be."Ole Miss coach and offensive line coach are working hard to coach up Sowell. For the No. 10 Rebels to equal the preseason hype, starting with the Sept. 6 ESPNtelevised season opener at Memphis, Sowell is an essential element in keeping quarterback upright, locked and loaded."You don't know how much you miss Michael Oher until you go through those films this past summer and you watch him protect Jevan," Nutt said. "We are very proud of Bradley. He's trained hard and gotten better. But he hasn't seen what's about to come after him."You accelerate his learning curve by going against some of our guys (defensive ends) like Greg Hardy, Kentrell Lockett and Marcus Tillman. I'll whisper in Bradley's ear, 'Thirdandeight, (the defense) has got their ears pinned back, they know you have to pass and they are coming.'"
Sowell is a late bloomer who didn't start playing football until the ninth grade when he entered Hernando High. In junior high, Sowell was just an oversized youngster who loved basketball and baseball.As the youngest of four footballplaying brothers raised on a farm, there was plenty of room for noholdsbarred football, baseball and basketball. Welcome to the family feud, Bradley Sowell."All my brothers are 62 or taller, so it got pretty rough," Sowell said. "There were a lot of fights. Teeth got knocked out. But it was all in good fun."Still, Sowell, after a bad experience with a middle school coach, hadn't intended to play football in high school. But in his first few days at Hernando, football coach Anthony Jenkins spotted the mammoth 14yearold Sowell lumbering past him.
"I saw Bradley and I asked him, 'Why aren't you out for football?'" Jenkins recalled. "He said, 'Nobody asked me.' I said, 'I'm asking you.' I baited him to get him out for the team by telling him he could play tight end. I would have done anything to get him out there."Tight end was the deal closer."I was 66, 280 back then," said Sowell, "and I didn't want to play football unless I could play tight end. Coach Jenkins said I could do that if I came out for the team. By the third practice, I was the starting tight end. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I really liked it."Yet Jenkins knew exactly what he was doing, especially once he got Sowell fitted for a helmet and shoulder pads."I knew Bradley eventually was going to be a tackle," Jenkins said. "When he came on to the field that first day, I told him, 'I don't know what type of player you are. But if you stay with us for four years, with your size and height, you'll get a scholarship somewhere.' Right away, you could see his athleticism for someone his size. And he was so young."
Jenkins' encouragement opened Sowell's eyes. He was introduced fulltime to the weight room. cheap air jordans uk By his sophomore year, Sowell was 315 pounds and was 350 as a senior when he became one of Mississippi's top 20 high school players.Sowell's redshirt season as a freshman in 2007 at Ole Miss was well spent, losing weight and getting stronger. But last year, when Sowell finally played, it was like starting over because he had to learn a new offensive system in Nutt's first year in Oxford.Sowell played in all 13 games, seeing action at both tackle and tight end. He caught his first career pass, a 1yard touchdown, in the 450 hammering of Mississippi State in the season finale.In the spring, the Rebels' coaches were hoping to see Sowell distance himself from any competition at his position. But that didn't immediately happen.Markuson, who now has coached two firstround NFL draft choices, said Sowell came on strong later on the spring once he understood he had to work hard for the job.
"I think part of it with Bradley and other guys is they think the position is given to them as a rite of passage, air jordan shoes australia that they have waited for the job, that they are next in line," Markuson said. "That's not the case."We told Bradley in the spring, 'You are replaceable, we can make some moves to where you are not the guy.' Everybody has to be challenged. Competition is always good. My job is to put the best five linemen out there. I think we got through that barrier with Bradley."Sowell said his first couple of weeks in the spring on the first team was a new world."I wasn't used to being a starter and I don't think I was doing bad," Sowell said. "But I think the coaches really wanted me to earn the spot, and I stepped it up to where I needed to be. I needed to have a sense of urgency, work hard every day and not be satisfied. People are a lot faster at this level."Snead said he's confident that Sowell has his back."It was a question going into spring, how Bradley would step up, and I think he did an excellent job," Snead said. "He proved himself. And working out in the summer with him, he's gotten bigger, stronger and more athletic."Markuson knows Sowell will have growing pains that will only be overcome with repetitions and experience. He remembered when he was on Nutt's staff at Arkansas, he took baby steps with Shawn Andrews, now an allpro tackle with Philadelphia after being taken in the first round of the 2004 NFL draft."We started Shawn in his third game as a freshman at Alabama," Markuson said. "We were struggling early and after we started him, our line got better. It tells you that even though they are young, you've just got to throw them in there, live with the mistakes, keep coaching them and they get better."
sdfgg0813