Owens Talks 4-2-5 And Going Home In Week 1
Part 2 of 2. Read Part 1 Here.
In the summer of 2016, high school safety Gervarrius Owens committed to the new Memphis head coach, Mike Norvell. It was a good pickup for the Tigers, reaching two states over to grab a much-sought-after player from the OKC area. Luckily for UH, the good luck didn’t last long for our top conference rival.
By the end of October, Owens was more in-demand and de-committed from Memphis. He flirted with several schools including Kansas and Iowa State but on signing day, he chose to head to Kansas State. The allure of the Big 12 was hard to overcome, especially for a child of Moore, Oklahoma, raised right in the middle of the league’s footprint.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#dd0000″ class=”” size=”20″] My first game to be in Norman, you couldn’t ask for anything better. – Gervarrius Owens[/perfectpullquote]
After a summer at KSU, Owens left Manhattan and transferred to be closer to home. He headed to Northeastern Oklahoma, a school that is known for producing a lot of NFL talent. In the 2019 draft, the Norsemen had 3 former players chosen.
Owens started at NEO in 2017 with two guys that were drafted 6 weeks ago: Texas A&M TE Jace Sternberger (3rd round) and Utah State RB Darwin Thompson (6th). Several coaches on the UH staff believe Owens will be added to the list of NEO players in the NFL.
Owens redshirted in 2017 under head coach Clay Patterson, the same year that the fast-rising coach was named Southwest Junior College Football Conference Coach of the Year.
During this time, current UH DL coach Brian Early was recruiting the state of Oklahoma and NEO specifically for Arkansas State. It was at this time the two coaches got to know each other.
Patterson left NEO in January 2018 to become part of PJ Fleck’s new staff at Minnesota. Naturally, one of his first recruiting targets for the 2019 class was Owens.
After earning JUCO All-American honors last year, Owens again had several FBS offers to choose from: Matt Wells, the new coach at Texas Tech who had previously coached Thompson at Utah State, offered. So did Louisville and Southern Miss. But the relationship with Patterson was too much to overcome and Gervarrius signed with the Gophers.
Owens never made it to campus at Minnesota. Officially, the school acknowledged releasing him on June 1st, the day he tweeted he was heading to Houston:
I will be attending the University of Houston this fall? see y’all September 1st in Norman #GoCoogs #HTownTakeOver
— 3️⃣ (@gervarrius_3) June 2, 2019
GoCoogs.com: Why did it not work out at Minnesota?
Gervarrius Owens: It was really just personal issues we got into and we decided to part ways.
GoCoogs: After you got your release, were you in contact with many schools?
Owens: It was really Houston, Ole Miss, and Florida Atlantic a lot. But the coach that was at Ole Miss went to Florida Atlantic (Jason Jones).
GoCoogs: Besides Coach Belk, Coach Early, and Coach Etheridge, what else attracted you to UH?
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