Daily Bull 7.17.17: On Christian Kirk and the importance of hard work

TAEK-OVER. ICYMI while doing normal Sunday things yesterday, here’s a handy sked for this next Sunday when it’s all Aggie games on SECNetwork. Do all your other stuff on Saturday. And remember to watch those Tennessee and Duke games all the way to the end no matter how bad it seems.

LOOK AT THAT MAN WORK. If you were only allowed to follow one college football reporter, our choice would be Bruce. For one thing, he’s a cool dude and comes on our podcasts sometimes. But more importantly, he’s got incredible talent and uses his access brilliantly to churn out really interesting tidbits about the human sides of the players, like this (something our own A&M beat guys can’t seem to figure out):

(That’s just one anecdote. For the full story with plenty more, follow the link.)
This shouldn’t come as a surprise for those of us who have watched Kirk play football now for a few years. Of course he has an amazing amount of natural talent, but he’s also almost always in the right place, always seeing the field, and never lets up. That’s from knowing the value of practicing with intent, then staying after practice to practice his practice. Lots of practice. Good football players can get by on nothing but talent. Great ones plug in some serious hard work to become legendary. We saw the same with Manziel to some degree: he caught a lot of flack for behavior, but so much of that 2012 season’s performance was dogged persistence. Lessons learned from being a scout team QB and punching bag for the 2011 defense. We saw it more recently with Myles Garrett, who combined immense natural ability with smart, efficient techniques to become a #1 draft pick. Now Kirk is poised to be the offense’s unquestioned leader in a season full of question marks. I think we can feel pretty good about his level of preparedness. “Hard worker” is one of the most overblown cliches in a cliche-littered sports hellscape. That just makes the real thing that much more valuable when you see it.