Midnight Strikes for the Sooners
On April 24, 2012, Stanvon Taylor got his long awaited offer from Oklahoma and that day the question became would he live up to his proclaimed fandom and quickly accept?
It was termed 'a ticking clock'.
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Well, on Friday afternoon the clock struck midnight and the offer turned into a commitment.
"Man, I've been thinking about it every day and talked to (former East Central head) coach (Travis) Hill finally and he was talking good so I went ahead and decided to do it," Taylor said.
There are few people that have Taylor's ear more completely than his former head coach but even the ever-trusted Hill couldn't talk Taylor into waiting just a bit longer.
"He told me to wait and go down there and take a walk around on campus without coaches and see how I feel. I really didn't even want to wait on that, so I called coach (Jackie) Shipp and let him know I was ready," he explained.
Taylor is a cool customer, much like Shipp, and so while there may not have been any screaming, backflips or even cheering that doesn't change that Shipp was excited about adding the Sooners third defensive commitment to the class of 2013.
"He was just like, I was trying to figure out what you were waiting on and he let me know that he was glad to have me and welcome aboard," he said. "I'm just so excited, he told it would be a great place for me.
"I've been talking to him a few times this week, so I think he kind of knew it was coming."
While Hill may have advised him to take in a bit more information and Shipp was anxiously awaiting his commitment, there was one person who was the final hurdle for Taylor to clear - his mother.
"Today, I talked to her today and asked her, and she said 'you know, let's go'. Told me you make that decision and that's all I needed to know," he said.
"It feels good now that I have it over with. Pretty much everyone knew what I was thinking, they kind of knew what I was going to do, and they kind of had an idea."
The Sooners had Taylor almost from the moment they offered but he says the timing of his commitment was born from all the other offers that were coming in as he picked up more and more national attention.
But in the end, he only had one thought going through his head the last few weeks.
"Shoot really, I experienced the big of the recruiting process, it was getting pretty heavy. I was getting a little bugged and it wasn't going to do anything but get worse, I'm glad it's over," he said.
"Really, why, wait? I'm a Sooner."