Skip to main content

News | Minnesota Vikings – vikings.com

2026 LEG - AP Story Header [College]
Adrian Peterson’s Epic Football Journey Part II: Oklahoma Sooners Phenom
By Rob Kleifield Oct 14, 2026

Clint Ingram blurted out, "Like Paul Bunyan."

As spools of time are unwound and stories are narrated, they have a distinct sound. It's as if Adrian Peterson was a folk hero, and the recollection of his lightning speed and thunderous style are tall tales.

"It's crazy to mention, but out of his uncles and cousins, like Adrian is one of the smallest guys of everybody," Ingram shared. "And, if you go to Palestine, Texas, you will hear all these stories of these guys picking up cars. I actually saw one lift a car up. His uncle, his mom's brother, his name was Pookie, and he was like 'Popeye the Sailor Man.' And he picked the car off the ground and the wheels came up. Like, it was some unseen stuff. And they all had that mentality. It's like a tribe, man."

Ingram, a 2006 third-round draft pick and former Sooners team captain, was as tight as anyone with Peterson at Oklahoma. He's two years older — precisely, they share a birthday March 21 — and had a headstart on Peterson, but their bond was special. "Blood couldn't make us any closer," Ingram attested.

Competitiveness was one thread that tied them at the hip.

"He'd say, 'Oh, that's this color,' and I'd say, 'No, it's that color' and then he's ready to wrestle, and he'd want to wrestle for 20 minutes. That's where he got his name from — 'All Day,' " Ingram reflected on their 20-plus year friendship. "Whatever it is he's doing, he's going to do it until it wears everybody else down.

"I didn't see nothin' other than what I saw all the time," Ingram added of A.D.'s effervescence. "If we were somewhere and were going to get something to eat, I would intentionally speed up just to get to the door, or whatever it is, before him because I knew how competitive he was. If you get it before him, he's like, 'Hey let's do that again,' like it was a race. Like, 'Man, we weren't racing, I just got here before you.' He's like, 'No, no, let's try it again. Let's start over.' I mean that's just a part of who he was, so I never saw anything different. I just saw somebody who didn't want to lose at anything."

Ingram helped host Peterson on his official visit to OU but admitted he didn't fathom what lay ahead.

"They had done an article on him, talking to him about how he felt about going to college, and he was like, 'I wish I could just go straight to the NFL. I think I'm as good as Emmitt Smith right now.' And the guys on the team actually didn't take too fond of that," Ingram said. "They're like, 'Man, y'all reading this? Y'all seeing this?' I just kind of overheard it in the locker room and looked at it and laughed at it."

It took a single session in shorts and shirts for the upperclassmen to concede to the freshman.

"Once we got out to the first day of 7-on-7s, they threw Adrian a swing pass, and I was outside linebacker, and we went man-to-man — and this is the first play, everybody was just going through the motions," Ingram recalled. "I gave a nice little burst, and it sounded like a dadgum parade running down the field, he was hitting the ground so hard. And he ran all the way to the end zone. It was 60, 70 yards.

"He just ran all the way down like a lunatic," Ingram quipped.

Absolutely captivated, he hustled back to the huddle and notified his teammates. Ingram told them, " 'Hey, if this kid runs the ball with pads on the way he ran the ball just now, everything he said in that article was 100 percent true.' And it was off one snap, one pass, one run. I mean, it all made itself clear."

Bills Assistant Director of College Scouting and former Sooners defensive lineman Alonzo Dotson added, "It's not like we weren't a well-to-do team. So, for an article to say that, we were just like, 'OK, all right, this guy thinks he's — I know you can't quote me here — top [stuff],' you know? Well, I [kid] you not, man, his first practice, his freshman year, full pads, we had a practice inside the stadium and, on the first play of the scrimmage, Adrian took the ball 80 yards for a touchdown on the first-team defense.

"Everyone looked at each other like, 'Oh, [snap], we got one.' There are a million stories," Dotson said.

Peterson, ultimately, accomplished more within four months on campus than any first-year college football player in history. From Sept. 4, 2004-Jan. 4, 2005, he inscribed his name on the sport, recording the most rushing attempts (339), and yards (1,925) to that point, and becoming the first true freshman runner-up in Heisman Trophy voting — still the highest placement for someone a year out of high school.

"It looked like he was a junior or senior from Day 1," said Vikings Legend and former Texas Longhorn Brian Robison, first facing Peterson's greatness in the 2004 Red River Rivalry. "And I just remember thinking whenever we were preparing for him, it was like, 'This dude's years beyond what he should be.'

"He had this little head nod deal, and Viking fans will know exactly what I'm talking about," Robison flashed back. "But he had this little head nod deal when he got in the open field — when he really just was trying to crank it up and run away from people — and that was something you didn't want to see."

adrian II photo 1 2560

People marveled at Peterson's introductory season. It ratified his upper-echelon talent, and it bore a widespread belief that if anyone could go from high school to the pinnacle, Peterson could have done it.

"With no hesitation, I would say yes," said Marcus Walker, the U.S. Army All-American DB who met Peterson on the track circuit in high school and roomed with him at Oklahoma. "We had a record number of players get drafted for our school [in 2005], but he was the best player on the team."

Peterson's ascension in Norman persevered through injury setbacks and withstood entire defenses plotting to stop him.

They rarely did.

A.D. became the first OU running back since the 1970s and fourth overall at the time to break the 4,000-yard rushing barrier. His 22 100-yard games rank second to Steve Owens' 23, and his half-dozen 200-yard games is tied with Samaje Perine for second to Billy Sims' seven.

"He was literally a god on campus," 12-time Pro Bowl tackle Trent Williams said. "That was my first exposure to real stardom. The only reason he was in college was because you had to go for three years."

Peterson gave every bead of sweat a purpose, and in doing so eternally impressed every onlooker.

"I think he's the best player to ever tote a football," Ingram said. "And that's with gaps and breaks and time off and injuries and everything else under the sun. I mean, when he was healthy and he had the ball — even the greatest guys who've ever played, a lot of them agree — he was a force to be reckoned."

'All I see is the blue Oklahoma sky'

Jammal Brown heard from family on his mom's side in Crockett, Texas about a kid roughly 35 miles away that was "the real deal." Brown, the 13th overall pick in 2005, was indifferent to the hype, though. Oklahoma, after all, was a perennial power and attracted recruits from hotbeds bigger than East Texas.

"I was confused with the name, too," Brown said candidly. "I'm like, 'How come y'all don't call him A.P.?' "

Brown learned why — the truth about Peterson — when Head Coach Bob Stoops started moving up team drills so A.D. didn't exhaust himself going from the offense's 20 to the end zone on every rep. "It's not like you could tell him to slow down," Brown said. "Once he got the ball, it was all day, he was gone."

Peterson's speed, strength and stamina were differentiators, but his love to be great was his separating trait. Cale Gundy remarked, "The man above touched him. He was freakish and powerful. … But he [also] had passion. He loved to play ball. That's what he wanted to do. He just wanted to play, play, play."

Gundy, who instructed running backs at Oklahoma for 16 seasons (1999-2014), likened inside-run drills in that era to "bloodbaths," and the defense that current coach Brett Venables led was "physical as hell."

For three years, A.D. prospered against the daily challenges. He hit holes with a velocity that was exclusive to propulsion test facilities — until he got to town — which forced OU's staff to deepen his alignment in certain sets. As a freshman Peterson was so invaluable to the program that coaches outfitted him with a blue jersey, as worn by Sooners quarterbacks, to keep him safe from his own fury.

Dotson recalled Stoops even having a jersey custom made for Peterson to wear in spring practices later in his career. The numbers stitched on it made Peterson stick out more than he already did. They were blue instead of white.

"Coach Stoops was like, 'Don't [bleeping] touch him!'" Dotson roared with laughter.

AP060408026023

The extra measures to shield A.D. didn't always protect teammates in his path.

"I stopped, but he didn't," Curtis Lofton said with such clarity of Peterson pulverizing a lane in one practice that it sounded like yesterday. "The first thing that hit the ground was the back of my head.

"I almost did a [backward] somersault, he hit me so hard," Lofton added, stupefied. "I actually have a horseshoe underneath my chin from the metal clipping on his helmet. From that moment I wanted to fight him, but I knew if I fought A.D. I would have to fight everybody else on the team, so I took my pill."

Growing up, Lofton pined to play for rival Oklahoma State, but said he decided to pledge the Crimson and Cream because of Peterson, who changed his mind on his official visit. It worked out all right. The linebacker earned 2007 All-America honors, and Atlanta selected him 37th overall in 2008. He was uniquely privileged to square up the fabled running back in college practices and professional games, and he grew to love Peterson's "1,000-mile-per-hour" disposition so long as he was on the good side of it.

On Nov. 26, 2005, Lofton could have been bracing for the pain train. Instead, he basked in a 42-14 win in the Bedlam Series that featured Peterson rumbling for 237 yards and scoring from 84 and 71. It was an encore from the prior year when the Cowboys failed to wrangle A.D. as he ran for 249 in a 38-35 victory.

"Man, he made them look like — you know when you're in high school and you go back to the elementary school and you're helping, you're out at recess with those little, little kids," Lofton painted a visual of Peterson's 2005 spectacle. "That's what it seemed like out there when A.D. was playing them."

"It was phenomenal," Ingram apprised Peterson's college play overall. "It was as advertised."

adrian II photo 3 2560

Peterson didn't begin his storied OU career as the starting tailback — Kejaun Jones held that honor — yet he rotated in right away and ripped off nine consecutive 100-yard games out of the blocks. Smack dab in the middle of that streak, he met Texas for the first time, and the steers were stacked. Vince Young at quarterback. Cedric Benson in the backfield. Four future Top 20 draft picks on defense: Michael Griffin, Michael Huff, Derrick Johnson and Aaron Ross. It was a monumental day — a rivalry, duh — but moreover the chance for a young man to show his home state what it lost when he went across the river to play for Oklahoma. Gundy estimated A.D. knew 75-80% of the opposing players in that matchup.

The Sooners strategized a plan to dupe the Longhorns by "showing that we're running power," Gundy said, but in reality log blocked the edge defender crashing inside and bounced Peterson to the outside. Gundy recalled the tweak working like a charm on a first-and-10 rush when OU was backed up at its 4.

"They weren't ready for it," Gundy said of the '28 back' play call that resulted in a 44-yard gallop by Peterson. "We were like, 'Whoa!' We thought he was just going to take it to the house right off the bat."

A.D. never sniffed the paint in that game at Memorial Stadium. Jones accounted for OU's only touchdown in a 12-zip win — but he was the lone player that season to run for more than 100 yards against Texas, which limited opponents to 96.7 rushing yards per game in its 11 other contests (and won all 11 of 'em). With tender disdain for the memory, Robison said, "The only thing we can hang our hat on is he didn't score a touchdown. But at the end of the day, he ran for 225. What does it really matter?"

Brown, recognized as the Outland Trophy winner, a.k.a. college football's top lineman that season had fun pointing out Peterson was mortal. He remembered laying a key block on Derrick Johnson to help spring A.D. for 44, but he also didn't forget that Peterson fumbled going out of bounds three plays later.

"He ran so hard he damn near used the ball trying to run somebody over … and I remember giving him an earful, you know, telling him, 'Man, don't be a stupid freshman, think about the game! You trying to get an extra yard — get out!' " laughed Brown, adding A.D. refocused in a wink. "If you watch him and he gets to running, the head gets bobbin', it's almost like he's not there. Like in the huddle, he's so locked in. He won't blink. He's damn near biting through his mouthpiece. … And that's what I loved about him, too.

"That each day," Brown noted, "you were going to get the most out of him."

It didn't matter who was in front of A.D., either. It's not an exaggeration to say he practiced the way he played. Even dressed in bright armor and with teammates like Lofton coming to balance but deferring to his blue jersey, Peterson "would chase people down on the field just to get some contact," Ingram said.

Williams, a future lock for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, confirmed claims that Peterson was different.

"I don't know if it's glorious, but the thing that sticks out is my first time ever [getting reps] with the starters in practice. One of the things the older guys told me was, 'Hey, you got to get out of the way because when he comes through it's like a train on the tracks. He's not stopping. He's running through everybody,' " Williams remembered. "And of course, my first play I go in there and I'm in the hole and, literally, he just knocks me smooth off my feet running through me — all I see is the blue Oklahoma sky.

"Still is embarrassing, man, getting run over by a guy 100 pounds less than me," Williams chuckled. "But that's when I realized, you know, it's a different tempo, man — he's a different breed of back."

'Those stories are mythical'

Berry Tramel's gut instinct is that Peterson was ready at 19 for the NFL.

"Hardly ever do you see a college football player who could do that the way NBA guys used to do it, but Adrian could have," said Tramel, whose first season on the Sooners beat was 1979, overlapping with the last hurrah of Oklahoma's Heisman-winning RB Billy Sims before Detroit selected him first overall.

Tramel is a veteran journalist of the Sooner State and regularly covered Peterson's heyday. He said the only 21st Century running back in the sphere of his skills and overwhelming dominance is Derrick Henry.

adrian II photo 4 AP 2560

From Tramel's vantage point, Peterson was "as reliable of a big-time player as anybody" that played at Oklahoma — in any era — and speculated that if he graced the gridiron for OU in the 1960s, before they switched their offense to the wishbone, or for Southern Cal in the 1970s out of its famed I-formation, opponents would have whittled to nothing but atoms in the air grasping and flailing.

"He'd have carried 50 times a game and had 360 yards because he had unbelievable stamina; he never seemed to get tired," Tramel said.

That ability was innate but also sharpened in the shadows and the sun — in the weight room, and on the grass and track, in the hours of the morning when less-motivated people dream of shortcuts.

"I'm 65 years old and confident in my manhood," Tramel prefaced his awe of A.D.'s yoked frame that turned media heads. "He had the best physique of any Sooner ever — wasn't any question about that."

Peterson prescribed the good old-fashioned grind. His method was indomitable, his results unrivaled.

"I probably shortchanged him on his work ethic," Walker decided. "Some of those stories are mythical."

Like, the time Peterson left everyone in his dust … without bending his knees.

"Everybody was dog tired, and this dude, both of his legs were cramping," Malcolm Kelly recalled Peterson during an offseason workout where legendary Oklahoma strength and conditioning coach Jerry Schmidt guided players from a lift to the track for 200-meter repeats. A cautious trainer (pointlessly) excused A.D. Kelly said his response was, " 'Whatever. I'm getting out here, doing my thing regardless.' "

Then, still amazed, Kelly said, "This dude, straight-legged, no exaggeration, he won every single rep in the 200s. Like, straight-legged, running like 'Tin Man,' and won every single rep. I will never forget that."

One of Lofton's favorites seared into his memory was the sight of Peterson practically levitating with triple-digit dumbbells clasped in his hands. Lofton said he never saw Peterson fatigued and placed him in "a completely different category" — 1-of-1 material — than all the "freaks" he came across in the NFL.

"We're jumping up on a 36-inch box and I was like, 'OK, I'll grab the 30s,' thinking I was doing something," Lofton recalled. "And A.D. walked over with hundreds. And I'm like, 'I know he's not about to do that. I know he must be about to do some lunges or something. There's no way he's about to jump up on this box' — and it was like he just floated, floated through the air with ease. It was just like, 'Wow.' "

Lofton added Peterson famously loved to "talk noise" to Schmidt, whose career began serving Tom Osborne at Nebraska and has involved teams that played in six national championship games, as well as seven Heisman Trophy winners. "He was like, 'That's all you got, 'Schmitty'? That's all you got!' And the rest of us were like, 'Hey, man, we're just trying to make it, dog.' But he always had another gear."

Except for once, when Peterson's humanness shook his teammates to their cores.

"Coach Schmitty was notorious for Junction Boy-type of old school workouts. He'd try to grind you up, spit you out, and truly break you down to build you up," explained Dotson, who played at OU from 2003-07 and is in his 14th season identifying talent in an NFL front office. "But Adrian? It never fazed him. It was a true God-given — touched by God — like the stamina he had, it was just, you were born with it.

"We would have early morning winter workouts, we're talking about 5 a.m., and there were different groups that went, and this one time, I think I was the second group behind Adrian's group, and he's throwing up and everybody was like 'Ahhh [man]! We are not gonna make it! Nobody!,' " Dotson cracked up. "Everybody was just sick to their stomachs — like, 'Man, if Adrian ain't making it, we are screwed!'"

The way A.D. operated on the field and in the weight room was unbelievable — even to players 3-to-4 years older than him such as Brown, who subscribed to the hype he heard from his family the moment Peterson gave him a reason. He did during a workout. Players were doing power presses, but Peterson wasn't completing the full movement. He was hang-cleaning the barbell and he did it 10 times in a row.

"I remember this good," Brown said. "Coach Schmitty came over and was like, 'Bro, you're doing it wrong. You've got to clean it then press it.' And without putting down the weight, he knocked out 10 more reps, cleaning then pressing. He re-corrected it right then and there with no wasted time, and it had to be about 235 on the bar. I'm like, 'Damn, he didn't even put that weight down! Who is this cat?' "

Allen Patrick, one of Peterson's contemporaries in the running backs room, transferred to Oklahoma from junior college in 2005 and credited A.D., who pushed him daily, for getting into the best condition in his life. "It was a struggle for me, but it wasn't for him! You know what I'm saying?" Patrick exclaimed.

"I always tell people there wasn't no easy workout. You either go in and you're going to fall off or you're going to barely make it, but to see Adrian and how he approached those workouts, there was something different about him," he said of Peterson foiling Schmitty's designs. "He had this different animal in him."

It was a hyper-focused relentlessness, and the memories of it will endure like his on-field legend.

"He loved pushing people. Just the process of, like I say, the process of what it takes to be a great football player — he enjoyed the process more than he enjoyed what it looked like on Saturday," Kelly commented. "That's what it looked like to me. That's what I experienced from him. I think Saturdays were always a byproduct of how much he exhausted himself in the process of preparing for the games."

As Dotson debriefed some of Peterson's feats that were footnotes in his journey when they happened but fantastically depict the greatness that made him a headline waiting to be written whenever he lugged the football, Dotson echoed the essence Nelson Peterson felt when he dubbed Adrian "All Day."

"His father, when he nicknamed him that, that is the truest nickname ever," Dotson expressed.

The All Day energy played a serious — sometimes humorous — role in Peterson's story. Once, Stoops wasn't pleased with the team's attendance in the classroom, so he laid down the hammer and made the players run stadium stairs at 4 a.m. The punishment, per se, didn't have the intended effect on Peterson.

"Coach Schmitty's wearing us out, and Adrian is going up and down these stairs like nothing is phasing him, and he is talking," Dotson said incredulously. " 'If this is the case, I ain't never going to class!'

"We were all pissed off at him, like, 'Hold on man! God! Argh!' " Dotson added. "I'm telling that story because when I think of Adrian, I think of — you know how you have wealthy people in the world and then you have the Top 1% of wealthy people in the world? That's [the class] I put Adrian in because we had an abundance of incredibly talented players on those teams, and brother, Adrian was the Top 1%."

'It's damn sure his DNA'

People petitioned Peterson to push for entry into the NFL after high school, but waiting was wise.

It allowed him to mature his skills and forge an important chapter of his legend in the NCAA. By his seventh game — in quicker fashion than any freshman at the time — Peterson broke 1,000 yards. His streak of nine consecutive 100-yard games to begin his career was the best by a freshman then and now.

Uniquely, Peterson kept redefining his own potential.

"He came into camp looking like a receiver the way his size was. He was lean, and I never had seen anything like it," said David Robinson, an Oklahoma WR in that era who is a prominent skills trainer.

"Everybody knows how angry he ran with the ball in his hands, but he was so fast," Robinson noted. "People did not give him enough credit for his speed. Like, Adrian was a 10.3, 10.2 guy on the track, weighing 220 pounds. So it was special to see him at his size outrun those angles when people were trying to catch him. Of course, it was impressive to see him be angry and run through guys and run them over and treat them like little kids — but outrunning those angles at his size was very, very impressive."

5 (1)

Peterson's body of work, from his physicality to his mentality to his box score abnormalities, was stunning. Packaged in a 6-foot-1, 220-pound build, his floor was high and his ceiling was incalculable.

"When I think about 'I am football,' I think about Adrian Peterson. Like, you don't want to say it's someone's identity, but it's damn sure his DNA," Dotson said about the running back who went on to play a decade-and-a-half in the league. "What we (scouts) would say about Adrian is that when 2-8 is on the field, he tilts the field in your favor. He is the 1% that tilts the field because the [talent gap] is by a slim margin — everybody has talented players. But when you have 2-8 out there, he actually tilts the field in your favor. We always say with players like him, the report writes itself. You don't have to think of a bunch of adjectives. You don't have to try to be creative. His report writes itself. That's how good he is."

Evaluations, like his statistics were stupendous — but they don't hold a candle to the moments he made.

One great scene as a Sooner played out in A.D.'s third game and provided an initial breakout — if you don't count him rushing for a "buck" and then 117 against Bowling Green and Houston — as he racked up 183 yards and a pair of touchdowns in a convincing win over Oregon. The visual of a specific play portrayed a phenom.

"There's a great picture around town that was photo'd and framed," Gundy recalled of a 40-yard touchdown trot by Peterson against the Ducks in 2004. "It literally looks like a horse coming around the corner of the Kentucky Derby, and there is Bob, Coach Stoops, his best friend — a guy named Matt McMillen (Oklahoma's longtime Director of Football Operations), and then Bob's best friend from Youngstown, Ohio, whose nickname was 'Snake' (his real name was Jim Braydich). The look on these three guys' faces was like, 'Holy [crap], what in the hell is going on right here.' It's the coolest picture ever."

Gundy added: "His buddy Snake used to say, 'Bob, when are you gonna let the Ferrari out the garage?' "

Another piece of Peterson's lore, of which anyone he's met corroborates is the grip of his handshake. Nelson Peterson, who I can confirm also has a firm clamp, quipped that his son is catching up because "As I get older, he still is getting stronger."

Tramel recalled, with a shudder in his voice, Peterson returning to Norman from the NFL to host a camp for children. Tramel never considered Peterson as the chatty type, "But that day he was happy to see several of us" in the media cohort. Smiling, the pro back approached the scribe, and when he did, Tramel was worried that Peterson "cracked five bones with his handshake."

Tramel noted it was "the only handshake I ever experienced that was anything like Danny Hodge."

"They say [Hodge] could take an apple, just squeeze an apple into mush. I mean, I don't think that's a wives' tale. I think he went around doing that," Tramel sized up A.D. to the legendary Olympic wrestler. "You sort of just winced as you started to shake his hand cause you knew it was going to hurt. I don't know if he knew he was doing it — no idea — but shaking hands with Adrian was something to behold."

It's one of Adrian's idiosyncrasies in common with Nelson — something perceptible that he acquired when he was young before his father was incarcerated. Although Nelson's ability to impact Adrian's growth didn't cease when they were separated, it took on an alternative form. After college games that Nelson was fortunate to watch on television, they got on the phone, and he critiqued his son. Adrian listened to what he did well and what he did poorly, and clinged to the words of his father, his first coach.

"I tell people all the time, Adrian would never cheat you out of anything," Nelson said.

And so, as the legend goes, Peterson turned to the grindstone. He leaned on teammates and coaches and friends and family, including his mom Bonita and stepfather Frankie Jackson and overcame adversity, and he looked forward to the day Nelson finally would see him play for the first time since grade school.

That moment, described by Gundy as "an unbelievably special day" arrived Oct. 14, 2006, in Oklahoma's sixth game of the season and on home grass against Iowa State. Peterson put on an absolute show with 183 rushing yards, two touchdowns and 45 receiving yards. But a fluky finish to a 53-yard dash to the paint with 6:38 left in the game made it Peterson's last until the Fiesta Bowl, due to a broken collarbone.

Watching Adrian perform was "very, very, very emotional," Nelson recalled.

6

The build-up and significance of the moment touched Peterson's teammates, as well.

"That same week, his dad came to practice and, under the situation, we had never seen his father in person," said Dotson, adding Adrian always spoke highly of Nelson. "There was a lot of fanfare around our program at the time, and we were used to seeing people at practice and so we're at practice this (one) day, and we're like, 'Man, who is that new recruit? You see that new recruit?' I swear to you, everybody was just whispering, like, 'Damn, that dude looks good. What position does he play?' Everybody's chiming and then we see Adrian go run up to him."

They hugged one another, Dotson said, and then everybody freaked out, " 'Oh, [snap]! That's his dad!' "

The episode that weekend was electric — and not because the Sooners took care of business, 34-9, but because Nelson was there — and Adrian's eyes gleamed, " 'Yeah, my dad's going to see me work.' "

"I'm in ministry now, and one of the things is the connection between you and your father — it's a special bond," said Lofton, the former linebacker. "And to never have your father physically in a building, and then he's coming for the first time in your life, it's hard to truly put into words."

Kelly echoed, "I don't know if I could put into words how special it was for him. He had just great reverence for his dad, man, and that was from the very beginning, just all these

stories about how his dad used to push him, and even when he would talk to his dad on the phone."

Twenty years later, Nelson remembered that day as "a blessing."

"The atmosphere of being there," he said, was overwhelming. "Seeing my son on that field participating with that OU uniform on, you know, there's so many great running backs that have been through there."

But only one Adrian Peterson.

'The heart of a lion'

When his team had an off week in 2003, Kelly drove from Longview to Palestine to make his own judgement on a player that was doing things that seemingly toed the line between myth and reality.

"I walked away like, 'OK, yeah, this dude is, I mean he's the best player I've ever seen,' " Kelly said about watching Peterson run wild in high school, busting whatever doubt there was that he was make-believe.

Fast-forward to 2005, Kelly's freshman season, and his conviction somehow surpassed his peek at A.D.

"I just remember going out there that first practice and seeing him touch the ball for the first time, and I was like, 'OK, a dude that size isn't supposed to move like that,' number one. And then when I saw him finish, just his intent every time he touched the practice field, I was like, 'OK, I think I'm doing it, but I'm not really doing it.' Like, this is the cream of the crop, the very best, this is what it looks like," Kelly said. "I knew then in college, I was like, I'll never play with anybody else as good as this dude."

Kelly said confidently, "He has to go into the conversation as arguably one of the best players to ever do it. I think if you want to have that conversation and A.D. isn't in it, you're doing a disservice to the game."

adrian II photo 7 2560

Plain and simple, Peterson was a generational talent. Williams, who was picked 4th overall out of Oklahoma in 2010 and has more Pro Bowl accolades this century than any o-lineman, would know.

Blocking for him was a singular endeavor.

"It's definitely very, very different and the reason being is the confidence you get when you got 28 behind you, you know, like, 'I don't have to dominate this block,' " Williams said. "You know he's not getting taken down with an arm tackle — guys don't even want to stick they arm out when he flies through that hole. They'd rather live to fight another down instead of getting their arm ripped off."

Of course, avoiding A.D. wasn't an answer, just delaying the inevitable toll he administered.

His foray into college football was unprecedented. The 2004 Sooners had über experience, with 10 players picked in the NFL Draft the following spring, but a ripe East Texas legend was their pacesetter. They rode the teenager's impact to 12-0 and a subsequent appearance in the National Championship game (the Orange Bowl that year) where USC's dynasty, led by Matt Leinart, interrupted a phenomenon.

Peterson didn't perceive that bump in the road as such, though, because of his wiring.

"He doesn't see a loss. He doesn't see defeat. He doesn't see anybody that's able to do anything remotely close to what he can do. Whether they can or not, he doesn't even see it," Ingram detailed.

"It's almost like he's delusional, but then it ultimately turns out to be reality, so it's hard to put into words, but the world has pretty much had a chance to see and it's the reason why he is who he is and has accomplished the things that he has," Ingram added. "Because to go to the lengths that he's gone in life, you've got to be almost crazy to even attempt and try to do the things that he's done and to sustain and try to maintain, consistently, who he's been throughout. It ain't nothing that's coached. It ain't nothing that's — it's just something inside of him. And it's been there since the first time I saw him."

It resides in his chest cavity. It pumps his All Day energy. It's the strongest muscle in his body.

adrian II photo 8 AP 2560

"He got the heart of a lion. He got the heart of a lion," Williams said twice, solemnly. "I always tell people, man, Adrian has got an infectious smile, got a firm handshake, he's a great guy to be around, very friendly. But he's been through a lot, you know. His life has had a ton of roller coasters from childhood all the way up and through college. … He went through 10 times what I would think a human being is supposed to be able to handle. And so, in my opinion, just seeing what he had to battle through — and seeing the product he put on the field and seeing the way he represented himself — I think it just all comes back to his character and his heart. His heart is what propelled him past his athletic abilities."

His heart, and his trust in the man above.

"The biggest thing of all is his faith, which he expresses and speaks on, but I think people think it's cliché," Ingram said. "They think that it's just something that he's saying because a lot of people just say they want to make sure that they give all the honor to God. But if you look back and you read back, you'll see that he has always and forever said it. But being a person who's close to him, I know for a fact that his faith is unmeasurable and it's a testament to all the things that he's been able to do and accomplish because people can only dream about a lot of the things that he does, and just as normal as breathing."

Lofton said, "God blessed him with so much ability," and he honored it.

Like cribbing a handoff, Peterson took his gifts in stride, bobbed his head and ran like he was destined.

back to top