Greatest OU Tight End Of All Time

[r5TPsooner]

The greatest coach and QB seemed to fire up a nice discussion thread so keeping with the theme, vote for who you think is the greatest OU tight end of all time. If I failed to leave someone off, I have added "other" for you to right in.

[stoopified]

Anyone who voted for any te other than Keith Jackson is terribly confused and should be rooting for Orange State.

[stoops the eternal pimp]

Matt Anderson

[r5TPsooner]

BTW, Trent Smith leads in almost all statistical categories.

[TheUnnamedSooner]

1. Keith Jackson
distant 2nd - Stephen Alexander

The rest aren't even on the same level

[TheUnnamedSooner]

BTW, Trent Smith leads in almost all statistical categories.

Only because he happened to be on the team when tey started throwing the ball a lot.

[Soonerus]

BTW, Trent Smith leads in almost all statistical categories.

No offense but Trent does not hold a candle to Keith Jackson...

[stoops the eternal pimp]

Jason Freeman

[r5TPsooner]

Don't shoot the messenger fellas.

[JLEW1818]

ya I was the one who voted for trent smith, stats.

[Soonerus]

ya I was the one who voted for trent smith, stats.

You should watch some film of Keith Jackson...amazing...

[JLEW1818]

oh ya the 88 yard run. Never seen him play so I had to go with Smith.

[r5TPsooner]

oh ya the 88 yard run. Never seen him play so I had to go with Smith.

Great choice IMHO.

[Soonerus]

oh ya the 88 yard run. Never seen him play so I had to go with Smith.

He had much more than the 88 yard run, including one of the best catches ever to help win a last minute Nebraska game..

[r5TPsooner]

I never saw Keith Jackson drop a pass at Oklahoma. Of course, they only threw it to him 10-20 times a year.

[Sooner_75]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2ctTxZZ1Yo&feature=related

My vote is for Keith Jacskson..

[JLEW1818]

He had much more than the 88 yard run, including one of the best catches ever to help win a last minute Nebraska game..

Don't get me wrong he was great. Seems like Trent Smith is not getting any credit though. What did Smith do not good?

[Soonerus]

Don't get me wrong he was great. Seems like Trent Smith is not getting any credit though. What did Smith do not good?

duh...

[Sabanball]

Keith Jackson--'nough said. You gotta remember--when he was playing, the team did most of it's throwing in the pregame warmups... He was catching passes before catching passes was cool...

[RiddlerOK]

Been watching OU for 40 years and Keith Jackson is head and shoulders above the rest of the tight ends. If Jermaine Gresham could actually block, he might approach Keith's capability one day. All you have to do is look at what Keith did once he entered the NFL. That should tell you how good he actually was. Did Trent Smith ever make All-Pro?

[RiddlerOK]

You left Forrest Valora and Victor Hicks off the list. They happened to be pretty good tight ends as well. :)

[JLEW1818]

Been watching OU for 40 years and Keith Jackson is head and shoulders above the rest of the tight ends. If Jermaine Gresham could actually block, he might approach Keith's capability one day. All you have to do is look at what Keith did once he entered the NFL. That should tell you how good he actually was. Did Trent Smith ever make All-Pro?

Thought the question was "best OU tight-end" ever? Not NFL tight end?

[AlbqSooner]

Immediately before the catch in Sooner 75's post, the camera scanned the OU sideline. Bosworth looked into the camera and said, "Sooner Magic baby! 18 Seconds is plenty of time." Then the Sooners broke Nebraska's heart yet again.

[Vaevictis]

wCqQePdljtU

A tight-end reverse for 88 yards? What the hell? What. The. Hell?!

That was pretty much the reaction of a friend of ours who was a Nebraska fan.

Yeah, I'll take Keith Jackson :)

[starrca23]

Don't get me wrong he was great. Seems like Trent Smith is not getting any credit though. What did Smith do not good?

It isn't that Smith was lacking, it's just that Keith Jackson was GREAT at every part of the tight end game.

Kind of like: Reggie Miller is good, but he ain't MJ.

[Taxman71]

I was inches away from Keith on the end of his 88 yard TD run against the Huskers in 85, but....my favorite memory was the bomb he caught from Jamelle in the Orange Bowl later that year which effectively sealed the NC for us. Not as spectacular as his catches in Lincoln the next year, but memorable. I can still see his stride on the cover of the Oklahoman the next morning.

[stoops the eternal pimp]

Willie Roberts

[soonerfan28]

Willie Roberts

I was going to ask why he wasn't on here. The guy was awesome.:D

[mikeelikee]

Albert Chandler was pretty good, too. He caught a few passes from Mildren. Still, Keith Jackson was easily the best.

[freshchris05]

Trent Smith was a hell of a TE. We went to the same school and i remember him when i was younger but i cant give him the nod....


Keith Jackson = greatest TE of all-time...

[stoops the eternal pimp]

I was going to ask why he wasn't on here. The guy was awesome.:D

I thought so...He only dropped 2 or 3 passes while at OU

[NormanPride]

There are only a few TEs in the history of the game that can be considered at Keith's level, so this is kind of a moot point. Trent did a lot for us while he was here, but Keith was a monster like AD was.

[Flagstaffsooner]

Bill Jennings?:rolleyes:



A recent Sports Illustrated online poll listed current Nebraska Athletic Director Steve Pederson as the number one "enemy of the state", implying a great deal of animosity harbored by fans towards the athletic program's current skipper. Due in large part to his handling of the controversial firing of legacy head coach Frank Solich and a publicly awkward replacement search. A full 26 percent listed Pederson as their whipping boy, out-polling the likes of former Oklahoma head coach Barry Switzer and current Kansas State chief Bill Snyder.
"I'm not too upset by it. I guess I'm looking at it as if 74 percent think I'm doing OK." Pederson recently told a columnist from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
But Pederson is by no means the first to suffer the slings and arrows of outraged Husker fans. There have been several that have walked there before, and to a greater degree. Nebraskans are notably friendly to foes, but they can carry a mean streak when they are crossed. Even if it means eating their own. Several historical events bear that out.
Following the 1953 season former Nebraska head coach Bill Glassford endured an outright mutiny from his own players. Tiring of what they perceived as his autocratic ways, 35 members of the team signed a petition calling for the resignation of the coach they called the "Baby-faced Assassin." Practices were unbearable and their health was disregarded, they claimed. The Nebraska Board of Regents agreed that the controversial coach must go. However, Glassford invoked a clause in his contract that guaranteed him the job through 1955, with a subsequent five-year option of his choosing. The university had no choice but to keep a coach that the players disliked.
The controversy managed to soften Glassford a bit, but he lasted only through the 1955 campaign before walking away. Glassford said he could no longer take the "verbal abuse" that had been showered down on even his wife and son. His 1955 team publicly showed support and admiration for their coach saying they "sincerely feel Nebraska is losing a great coach and a good friend."
But the Husker venom would not stay suppressed for long. After a one-year stint as head coach Pete Elliott, the Huskers entered into their most controversial era under Bill Jennings.
Jennings was considered one of the top assistants under legendary Oklahoma head coach Bud Wilkinson during the Sooners' glory days and was regarded as one of the best recruiters in the country. He was a likable gent with an easy-going manner that swept people off their feet at first meeting. But Jennings met his match when it came to guiding a whole football team.
By most measures, Jennings' tenure at the helm of Nebraska would be considered a dismal failure. He recorded a winning percentage of just. 310, the worst of any non war-era coach at Nebraska. His teams never won more than four games in a season and he won just one game in his first year. Jennings did make the most of the few wins he did get, defeating a fourth ranked Texas team 14-13 in 1960, topping Pittsburgh and Minnesota in others, and claiming Nebraska's biggest upset ever when his Cornhuskers ended Oklahoma's 74-game conference win streak 25-21 in 1959.
But Jennings had difficulty in dealing with the media and the public. At a speech in 1960 Jennings raised more than a few eyebrows when he claimed "I don't think this state can ever be great in anything...our football team is about as good as anything we're trying to do."
Jennings was able to ruffle feathers both near and far. Nowhere more so than back in his home state of Oklahoma.
Jennings had developed a long-standing feud with Wilkinson after reports that it was Jennings who fueled an NCAA investigation that lead to an Oklahoma probation. Oklahoma officials claim Jennings had objected to the Sooners' recruiting advances towards a Nebraska high-schooler and threatened to reveal to the NCAA that, while he was working at OU, Jennings himself had overseen a slush fund for recruiting. Wilkinson called the bluff and self-reported the accusations to the NCAA. Jennings never admitted to making the threat and denied the handling of any slush fund, but he did feel enough of a threat to his own safety that he hired special armed guards to protect him when the Huskers went to Norman for a game in 1960.
The final game against the Sooners in 1961 was the straw that broke Jennings' back. Despite having a comfortable two-touchdown lead at halftime, the Huskers self-destructed and lost 21-14. Following the loss the quiet murmur of discord swelled to a roar.
"The radio stations just spewed hatred at him," remembers Noel Martin a player on the 1960 team. "I think it really hurt his feelings."
Players on his team publicly denounced the entire coaching staff openly in the media.
"It's just a damn shame to see a good football team go down the drain," said Husker center George Haney after the game.
Others questioned Jennings coaching plans.
"The practices were just unbearably long. We were just exhausted by the time game day arrived," remembers quarterback Dennis Claridge.
The Daily Nebraska newspaper, in an editorial, called for Jennings dismissal the following week.
"Coach Bill Jennings has not lived up to expectations for five years and a need for change should be crystal clear to all, including Coach Jennings." It said.
Jennings would indeed be dismissed by the end of the month, but not before getting in one last jab.
Speaking at one of his last functions as a coach Jennings lashed out at the Nebraska football mindset saying "there is an intense desire to do something good in this state, like elect a President or gain prominence in politics. But we can't feed the ego of the state of Nebraska with the football team."
Jennings would be gone, and just as quickly Nebraska would enter into an era of unprecedented success with, beginning with head coach Bob Devaney's reign.
But even as the years pass, Jennings' former players still hold some resentment over past sins of Jennings and his staff.
"It was just pitiful," said Haney in a recent interview. "I was sick and tired of everything (the coaching staff) had done and I would have done anything to have kept that group of coaches from coming back (in 1962)."
Several players were angered when Jennings refused to forward letters to them sent from professional teams that were pursuing the players for contracts. Former Husker center Mick Tinglehoff said he first learned of the postal snub when he finally made it to the pros.
"(Norm) Van Brocklin, who was the coach then of the Vikings, asked me why I had never answered any of the letters. I never received them."
Tinglehoff said he was angered when he learned about the withholding of the letters "and I had a chance to tell Jennings that to his face." Time did heal some wounds for the former coach. Jennings was elected to the Nebraska Football Hall Of Fame in 1996 and later interviews showed he had shed most bitter feelings he may have had towards the school. Jennings passed away from cancer in July of 2002. http://media.huskernews.com/vimages/default/vnews/dingbat.gif

[soonermix]

ya I was the one who voted for trent smith, stats.

stats are nice and a somewhat fair way to measure players performances between generations but stats are not the end all be all measuring stick to determine who is better.

[swardboy]

And Jennings was elected to the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame because?....

[r5TPsooner]

If Jermaine has a statistically big year next season he will move way on up into the company of Sooner greats.

[JLEW1818]

Keith Jackson it is!

[r5TPsooner]

I knew that he was popular but not THAT popular. I honestly thought that Zabel, Smith, and Alexander would have faired a little better.

Next up, Wide Receivers.

[NormanPride]

Well, it's not that we don't love them... It's just that Keith was so damn GOOD, it's hard to vote for anyone else. Like, who's the best DT we've ever had? Well... duh... :)

[soonermix]

I knew that he was popular but not THAT popular. I honestly thought that Zabel, Smith, and Alexander would have faired a little better.

Next up, Wide Receivers.

there would have been much more discussion if this was a poll for the Second Greatest OU Tight End Of All Time.

[ousoonerfan]

Keith Jackson

[Outopia]

K.J., then Zabel,,, then the rest. A lot of good ones, for sure.

[RedstickSooner]

If Keith Jackson played for us today, we'd throw to him every other down, and he'd be unstoppable. He was big as a tackle, fast as a back, with hands as good as any wideout playing the game. He was the kind of player you get when you start editing stats in Madden.

[insuranceman_22]

You left Forrest Valora and Victor Hicks off the list. They happened to be pretty good tight ends as well. :)


I don't remember Hicks, but I do remember FV's catch to win in the Orange Bowl......Still, KJ was the man at TE.

[OU_Sooners75]

Here is my top 5 (I know not all will agree).

1. Keith Jackson, Is there a better tight end in the history of the NCAA, let alone OU? He is also named as one of the greatest TE's to play in the NFL.

2. Stephen Alexander
3. Steve Zabel
4. Trent Smith
5. Willie Roberts

[VA Sooner]

Keith Jackson... 240+ pounds and able to outrun (or run over) defensive backs. Caught unbelievable passes like the heart-breaker for Nebraska and the long bomb from Holieway in the Orange Bowl. And all during the time of the wishbone.

I'm looking forward to watching Gresham this upcoming season. Bradford still has a lot of targets to hit and the offensive line is a wall.

[badger]

Now would be a good time to remind you that Keith Jackson played for the Packers and helped us win Super Bowl XXXI :D:D:D:D

[batonrougesooner]

This is a no brainer.

Keith Jackson.

[okieslp]

I have to agree with the consensus choice. Keith Jackson was a man among boys and had he played on a team that passed first and ran second, I have to believe that TE records would have KJ all over them.

A MAN among boys. A great slobberknocker kind of player. Unafraid to mix it up. He could block and catch. Super Stud!

[oudivesherpa]

He is on campus right now. His greatness is still to come.

[JLEW1818]

Never saw Keith live, i'm not very football smart, but after watching his highlights if he played today....... ummm WOW. Ya he would be pretty darn good.

[Jdog]

BTW, Trent Smith leads in almost all statistical categories.

Except yards rushing and clutch catches.

Three End arounds against NEB for 136 yard - one went for 88 yards.

Clutch catch against PENN STATE for an Nat'l Championship

Clutch GAME winning Catch in Lincoln.

He was the only receiver at OU that I would trust to make a play more than Mark Clayton.

[TDArkansasOhMy]

Arkansas own, Keith Jackson. Or one of Keith's quotes in the booth, as he provide color for Razorback games, "Oh, He be the one"

http://www.switzertalentagency.com/images/talent/kjackson.jpg

[BarryBnds]

Keith Jackson was voted the OU offensive player of the century. Case Closed!

[Lott's Bandana]

Pride and 75 got it right. KJ has been called the greatest college TE of all time by the national media, even lately after all this time has passed. Trent Smith was awesome, I remember sitting in the end zone in Lawrence and watching him skool the J'hawks with close to a half-dozen touchdowns. The game where Jason presented his calling card...

Jackson - best all-time
Smith - best since wishbone

Gresham appears to be a morph. This year could be great fun!

[Octavian]

Keith Jackson is the greatest tight end in college football history.


Heisman or not...Jackson is arguably the greatest player in the history of the program.