PHIL LOADHOLT (6-foot-8, 337 pounds)
Thought this was interesting and maybe not a lot of people omay have noticed … but there’s a trio of former Jayhawk Conference all-stars playing in Thursday’s BCS title game for Oklahoma and one for Florida.
Offensive linemen Phil Loadholt (Garden City) and Brandon Walker (Coffeyville) both start, and are both seniors, and junior LB J.R. Bryant (Garden City) is a backup who helps the Sooners on special teams and has 18 tackles this season. Florida has defensive tackle Troy Epps (Coffeyville). I covered Loadholt and Bryant when I worked for the Garden City paper and got to see their exploits first hand — definitely followed Walker and Epps, too, as they’re former Red Ravens like myself. Walker had 102 knockdowns in 553 plays last season and he and Loadholt are both All-Big 12 guys. A knockdown is when you put a defensive player on his back … I think they used to call them pancakes?