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FORGOT ABOUT DRE: STEVENSON RETURNS WITH 3 TOUCHDOWNS
Running back makes emphatic comeback from suspension CALEB MCCOURRY @CalebMac21
Ben Arave, a long-time mentor of Rhamondre Stevenson, wanted the senior running back to know his time for a comeback was close. On the Friday night before No. 24 Oklahoma’s 62-28 rout of Texas Tech, Arave, who was a part of Stevenson’s formative high school and JUCO years, sent him a text letting him know that Saturday night was going to be a big night for him. “Hey, just play within yourself,” Arave said. “Just let the game come to you. You don’t need to go out and force anything. “You just need to go out and do you.” With his first touch of the ball in the first quarter, Stevenson ran 6 yards for a touchdown. It was his second touchdown in as many carries, counting his score in the 2019 Big 12 Championship. In the 10 months between that game and Saturday night, Stevenson waited patiently while sitting out due to an NCAA suspension handed out before the 2019 Peach Bowl. Stevenson is back. If his three firsthalf touchdowns didn’t make that clear to the world, his T-shirt under his jersey that read “I’m back” certainly did. To OU, who started off the season with less success at running the ball than it’s used to, it’s a breath of fresh air. Head coach Lincoln Riley announced to the team Friday night during a meeting that Stevenson and defensive end Ronnie Perkins (who was also sitting out due to a suspension) were going to play, and it meant a lot. “We were extremely excited,” redshirt freshman quarterback Spencer Rattler said. “When Coach Riley said that, we all got chills.” The return of Stevenson brings a big boost to OU’s run game. Before
TEXAS TECH ATHLETICS/POOL PHOTO
Senior running back Rhamondre Stevenson celebrates after scoring a touchdown during the game against Texas Tech on Oct. 31.
sitting out the rest of the game after the 10-minute mark of the third quarter, Stevenson averaged 6.7 yards-per-carry (the highest since Seth McGowan’s 5.8 against Missouri State) on 13 attempts, and finished with 87 rushing yards plus 13 receiving yards. The Sooners finished with 213 rushing yards, the most of the season. His running abilities looked effortless against Texas Tech’s defensive line. All three of his touchdowns came from the red-zone, with his last two showcasing his strength in barreling his body past the goal line. With his third score, Stevenson is the first Sooner to run for three touchdowns in a game since Jalen Hurts in
2019, and the first running back to do so since Kennedy Brooks in 2018. But before Stevenson’s big game came the waiting, a task Arave said was frustrating for his former pupil. Through the months of the COVID19 pandemic, the uncertainty of there even being a season and Stevenson even having to quarantine during the first week of the season, his status of being able to play has been week-to-week. Through it all, Stevenson has been focused. He trained all through the time of the team being away from campus from March to June, and he helped out the Sooners as a scout-team member — a humbling position for a running back
who ran for 515 yards and six touchdowns through six games in 2019. Stevenson has also been diligent in school as well. In the spring semester, Stevenson made OU’s Dean’s List. “It’s just stepping stones, and it’s all part of the learning process in life and in football and everything else,” said Arave, who was watching Saturday’s game from his home in Las Vegas. “I do think that he’s maturing. He understands what’s ahead of him, and that vision’s becoming clearer. And so he’s more focused on the things that matter now.” Now that he’s back, Stevenson can help an OU team that Riley has said is still finding its way to being more complete. After facing two early-season
setbacks in back-to-back losses to Kansas State and Iowa State, bringing back two key pieces in Stevenson and Perkins on both sides of the ball is a critical jump in OU’s quest for a sixth-consecutive Big 12 title. “It was certainly great to have them back,” Riley said Saturday night. “Two quality players, but then just the emotional lift. “The key for us is we have to have the same hunger and fight we did after a couple of those early setbacks, that got us playing the way we are as of late. We have to keep that and just stay on our climb.” Caleb McCourry
caleb.a.mccourry-1@ou.edu
Pandemic stalls class of 2020 job searches Recent graduates adapt to changing workplace, rethink career plans JONATHAN KYNCL @jdkyn
OU’s Class of 2020 graduates face the stark reality of entering the workforce during an unforeseen crisis that has spiked unemployment rates. The COVID-19 pandemic raised the unemployment rate for recent college graduates from 3.9 percent to 13.2 percent, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. This has made the first post-graduate hurdle for many OU alumni — finding a job — seemingly impossible. “I think this year in general is just vastly different from other years in terms of the job market, and that there weren’t many jobs available,” Sam Brown, an OU 2020 graduate with a degree in broadcast journalism, said. “I always joke that (class of 2020) students chose the worst time to graduate from college, just because there’s so few jobs out there and so many people looking for one.” Brown said many in his class didn’t know the extent of the changes that the pandemic would force. “I think a lot of us didn’t know how much our lives were going to change whenever this pandemic really first started,” Brown said. “It was a little worrying at times. I just kind of tried keeping my head up because I can only control what I can control.” Even with the job market becoming more competitive, the number of OU students receiving a job hasn’t seen much change in currently
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MEGAN FOISY/THE DAILY
available data, according to Director of Career Services Robin Huston. “We have not completed gathering all of our data from last year, but right now 2019-20 data is close to what we saw in 2018-19,” Huston said. “A large number of students had secured post-graduation employment before the pandemic began, and we have seen that the majority of those offers were honored. Some had delayed start dates, but we didn’t hear of many rescinded job offers.” Huston said many students will need to settle for jobs that might not be what they had hoped or dreamed for. “It’s important to keep an open mind about the type of job they are looking for. Now might not be the best time to find that ‘dream job’ that
they had hoped to secure,” Huston said. “In the meantime, any position that they can find that will give them valuable experience, will be great for their resume and will stand out to employers in the future when that dream job does become available.” Huston also said Career Services is trying to help students navigate through the online application process. “The beauty of what we do is that all of it can be done virtually when necessary,” Huston said. “That means that students can still take advantage of all of our services, i.e. appointments, walk-ins, mock interviews and presentations/events. We have added some resources on our website such as phone/virtual interview tips.” Another class of 2020 graduate
with a history degree, Lauren Rudd, was hired for her job in April but said the online application and interview process was one of the toughest parts of the job hunt. “I applied to a million things through Indeed, LinkedIn, and all that stuff, and I really didn’t get a lot of responses,” Rudd said. “Everyone in my cohort got hired through a Skype interview, even though they usually do them in person, and right now we’re all working from home through March 2021, at least is what they’ve told us. So that kind of sucks, too.” Rudd also said marketing yourself in an online interview can be easier now that every student in their class graduated into a pandemic. “Marketing yourself that you went through class and you were
adaptable during this pandemic, like that was one thing I talked about in my interview,” Rudd said. ”I’ve really had to learn to be flexible with handling a workload or just stuff like that, so just twist how you show your circumstances.” Zack Frye, a psychology major who expected to graduate with the class of 2020, decided to take a gapyear due to COVID-19. “School was kind of draining for me a little bit there and then like the pandemic started to put it over the top,” Frye said. “Unemployment skyrocketed, so it’s just weird to look at that right now. It’s definitely been a struggle but this gap year helped me find the things I really want to do.” Frye said the pandemic has acted like a full restart on his job hunt. “I want to still do stuff I’m passionate about, using the degree of psychology and stuff to really apply that to my own career,” Frye said. “But when I finally do it, it just all depends. How the world’s working right now has to be such a big restart because so many things have changed.” Both Rudd and Brown agreed that going through this experience has given them a new perspective and reinforced their resilience. “I learned a lot about myself, I learned that I’m going to have to work and fight to get what I want in this industry,” Brown said. “The whole period of unemployment really made me tougher, in a sense, just because I got used to it and so just having the same mentality and not giving up is something that really, really helps me out during this time, and I think will serve everyone well.” Jonathan Kyncl jkyncl@ou.edu