Oklahoma QB Spencer Rattler Ready for 2021's Intense Spotlight, High Expectations

The Sooners signal-caller enters the 2021 season as the presumptive Heisman favorite and projected No. 1 selection in the 2022 NFL Draft.

Nobody in college football is under more pressure heading into the 2021 season than Oklahoma quarterback Spencer Rattler.

Expectations for Rattler’s potential 2021 campaign have always been through the roof going all the way back to his 5-star recruiting ranking in the class of 2019 and were heightened further with his strong finish to his first year as the starting signal-caller in Norman. 

And now, the time has almost arrived for the Arizona native to live up to the hype. How does he stay motivated amid all the preseason accolades?

“Because I haven’t got that stuff yet,” Rattler said this week. “I gotta go get it. As a team, we gotta go get a national championship. We gotta go get a Big 12 championship. So once we get that, we can celebrate after.

“But we gotta take those day by day and step by step to get there. Myself and the team. I think everybody on the team knows that for their own personal goals and the team goals. All the coaches know it. It just feels different this year. I think it’s going to be a fun year. I know we’re going to go do our job and have fun.”

Spencer Rattler :: Joshua R. Gateley / OU Athletics

For most, the spotlight and pressure Rattler is under would be simply too much to handle. After all, the soon-to-be-21-year-old has been given the keys to one of the blue bloods of the sport and is easily the face of college football.

But, for Rattler, he takes the opposite approach: there is no pressure since all he has to do is continue to be himself just like he’s always been.

“It’s just knowing who you are,” Rattler said about handling it all. “Not trying to be somebody who’s fake. Just being yourself. Staying humble. Being confident at the same time. Luckily, I had that light coming into Oklahoma and was kind of used to the cameras and the people coming up and all that type of stuff. So it really wasn’t a whirlwind when I got here. But you definitely have to stay sharper when you’re a quarterback here. It’s a big-time position. Very grateful to be here.

“There’s no pressure at all. That’s what we worried too much on last year was pressure and expectations and all that stuff. We just gotta go out, play ball and do our job. That’s really what it comes down to.”

There is a maturity with Rattler that is clear when hearing him speak about his platform and the stage he finds himself on. There is an awareness of the intense spotlight he is under that you don’t always hear from players in his position.

Perhaps it is, as he alluded to, the fact he was such a highly touted prospect thrust under the microscope at such a young age. Former Clemson quarterback and 2021 No. 1 NFL Draft pick Trevor Lawrence would be a strong example to that as well in recent history.

Rattler knows that his life is not like his other classmates at the University of Oklahoma, or really even like his teammates. He has to live his life differently.

Spencer Rattler / Bryan Terry-USA TODAY NETWORK

“I would say the toughest thing, it just comes with being at this position, is staying on your Ps and Qs at all times,” Rattler said. “Being in such a light, you have to be doing everything right. That’s something I take very serious.

“I’d say that’s probably — you can’t be a normal kid, a normal college kid, so I’d say that’s probably the toughest thing, but everything else, you just live life and have fun.”

It is hard to have more expectations than what Rattler and the Sooners are walking into in 2021.

The redshirt sophomore is the Heisman favorite and the projected No. 1 overall pick in next spring’s NFL Draft by many, with Oklahoma widely viewed as one the top contenders to win a national title.

Rattler has accomplished a lot in his life and has been provided with a boulder of responsibilities upon his shoulders to lead the Sooners back to the promised land.

In a lot of ways, he has reached many of the things he set out to do to this point. But now, the time has come to climb the mountain to the ultimate goals every young quarterback aspires to reach.

“I’ve been setting goals since I can remember,” Rattler said. “I just got off the phone with my quarterback coach awhile ago. Every box we’ve made, we’ve been talking about national championships, Heismans, since I was 8 years old. To be pretty close to it, and going for that goal, is something we’ve got to check off the box. So I’ve checked off a lot of boxes.

“I’m excited to see what boxes I can check off hopefully.”