The Unspoken

Originally Published: Aug 9, 2010 5:52 PM CDT

It’s a policy that’s been in place for years at OSU, that no first-year football player does interviews. So we’re left to wonder just how fast Justin Gilbert and Chris Dinkins are, how strong and athletic Joe Mitchell and Shaun Lewis are and just how vocal any of the newcomers have been.

The policy isn’t bad, just a bit inconvenient for the media, and when you have a player like a Dez Bryant making circus catches and scoring touchdowns and you can’t talk to him then it’s magnified. But the policy is there to protect so many of those freshmen who haven’t been exposed to the question and answer sessions with experienced reporters and writers. To let them watch and learn before speaking.

So we go to the upperclassmen for information about those new guys. And when Orie Lemon tells us that Shaun Lewis is a "beast," and that he’s seen how impressive some of the young ones have been, even during the summer, then you can begin to paint a picture of what it all MAY look like. No one will really know until the season begins whether Gilbert will be able to use his explosive speed returning kicks, or if Dinkins can continually burn opposing defensive backs, or if Joseph Randle will truly challenge for snaps in the Cowboy backfield, but at least right now there’s hope. Hope in the as yet unseen, and unheard.