We all look at the calendar and the year we just turned the page over and most of us would like to take a big hack and spit on it. The year 2020 has been stressful, contained a lot of heartache, a lot of disruption, and losses of many kind from human to financial to opportunity. There have been some redeeming facets to the past 12 months, in particular the final six months of the calendar. Most folks can’t wait for 2021 to gain a foothold and help us forget 2020.
There is a very athletic family in Bixby, Oklahoma that had some really good news and fun memories in 2020. The Presley family, which consists of husband and father Arthur and wife and mother Tia. Both parents were accomplished athletes in high school. Two older daughters Britney (at Oklahoma State) and Brandee (currently at Mississippi) were successful in track running sprints. Then there are the football playing boys, Brennan at Oklahoma State, Braylin is a junior at Bixby High School, and young Braeden is already getting attention in middle school.
If you are just reading about the Presleys then you really did bunker yourself in during 2020. The Presley brothers were changing reputations and mindsets. Kind of like Alabama Heisman Trophy winning wide receiver DeVonta Smith, who proved size doesn’t matter at receiver when you have elite speed, elite ball skills, and self-sustained desire. Smith, no doubt, will tell you that between winning the Heisman and a national championship with his Crimson Tide teammates that 2020 was pretty good.
Oklahoma State’s freshman Brennan Presley will tell you it was good too. Presley scored a critical touchdown on a jet sweep in the Cowboys win over Kansas State, but saved his best for last with six catches for 118-yards and three touchdowns in the 37-34 Cheez-It Bowl win over Miami, Fla. That got Presley on the same ESPN All-Bowl team as Ohio State receiver Chris Olave and the Heisman Trophy winner.
“It felt a little bit like high school, I’m not going to lie. But also, you’re playing Miami, number 18 team in the country, and they are always known for having a great team and just coming into this game, they told us in the scouting report, they have great athletes all over the field,” said the listed on the roster 5-8, 165-pound Presley. “So me going out there and doing that, it gives me a great sense of confidence to like know that I, you know, the things that I did in high school, I can still do now. And it gives me confidence to try and improve on that going into next year.”
“I think that game was one of God’s blessings in disguises. 2020 wasn’t all bad,” said younger brother Braylin Presley. Braylin, also listed at 5-8 and 165-pounds, wasn’t talking about his brother’s break out performance on ESPN in the bowl game, although he could have been. Braylin was talking about his monster game that included over 400-all-purpose yards and five touchdowns in a nationally televised 70-21 win by Bixby over Tulsa Washington, Yes, younger brother had his SportsCenter moment before older brother in 2020.
“I guess you could say that the Booker T. game changed my life — to play at a level that the five-star guys are playing at, and to do it on ESPN,” Braylin told Tulsa World sports columnist Bill Haisten earlier this year 2021. “After that game, I heard from schools that I hadn’t heard from before.”
He sure did, Oklahoma State offered, but so did Baylor, Louisville, Nebraska, West Virginia, Texas Tech, and others. More schools than ever contacted his older brother coming out of Bixby where the two brothers shared back-to-back Oklahoma Class 6A-II State Championship memories.
“I was shocked because I knew how good a player he (his brother) was,” Braylin told Haisten. “People talked about the size. (Heisman Trophy winner) DeVonta Smith said it himself: ‘Size doesn’t mean anything. It’s all about how much heart you have.’ I knew what Brennan would do on a collegiate platform.”
Brennan knew what his younger brother would do when he left him behind at Bixby. Seemingly every bit as electric (the best way to describe the Presleys) as Brennan, Braylin, playing running back, carried the ball for 1,744-yards and 25 touchdowns. He still caught 57 passes for 727-yards and 10 touchdowns. Yes, Bixby went 11-0 and won a third concercutive “Gold Ball.”
Braylin Presley was just named to MaxPreps 2020 Junior All-American Team. Presley is a four-star and virtually every player joining him on that team is either a four-or-five star recruit with somebody.
The 5-foot-8, 165-pound speedster rushed for 1,744 yards and 25 touchdowns and caught 57 passes for 727 yards and 10 TDs, helping lead the Spartans to an 11-0 record and third consecutive Class 6A Division II championship. Braylin ran for 305-yards and six touchdowns in a win over eventual Class 5A State Champion Carl Albert. He had multiple touchdowns virtually every week. He was the winning force in a regular season win over Class 6A-I Champion Jenks.
His career numbers of 4,892-yards and 77 touchdowns are video game-like.
Now, the major question Oklahoma State fans want to know is there a chance to have two Presleys lined up in the Cowboys offensive formation of the future. Let’s say it’s not a slam dunk, but it’s possible and having one already lined up as a Cowboy helps.
“OSU is a great program,” Braylin Presley said to Haisten and the World. “They’re obviously in the picture, but, honestly, I’m looking at every school that is recruiting me. It would be fun to play with Brennan again, but it’s got to be the right fit for me.”
Brennan Presley, who admits the college game is faster and he learned so much from the likes of Tylan Wallace, Dillon Stoner, and Landon Wolf, would love to be the older mentor teaching Braylin the ropes of the college game.
“He’s obviously had more offers than I did coming out of high school, so there’s not much I can tell him to sway him anyway,” Brennan Presley said in a more recent story in the Tulsa World written by Frank Bonner II. “I would love if he came here and played with me in Stillwater. I think that’d be a great thing for me and him and obviously OSU. So that’s a great thing. But it’s really just letting him do him and doing his own thing and his own process and letting him handle it his own way.”
Having seen these situations before, Braylin Presley needs to check things out and needs to have his own recruiting process. At the end of the day the family tie of brotherly love is a powerful thing. Oklahoma State has had the Woods brothers, the Koenig brothers, then the twin receivers in the Wallaces and now the Greens. You have to just let it play out and then see if that fit is right.
In the meantime, the Presleys are enjoyable to watch in different uniforms and on different days, Friday and Saturday.
