DALLAS — Shawn Oakman is back at Baylor and amped for his senior season, even though he feels a bit persecuted.
The NCAA struck two blows against Oakman fashion statements this offseason, banning the overbuilt facemask and crop-top jersey.
“They’re targeting me,” he joked Tuesday at Big 12 media days. “I’m so sad. So sad.”
Sad that we’ll be seeing more of his face and less of his abs. (At least he now receives the full cost of attendance—more money to feed his three dogs, and the python he picked up at an exotic pet store in Waco. “I didn’t get to have pets as a kid, so now I’m making up for it. I wanna have a zoo.”)
The playful 6-foot-9 defensive end wasn’t kidding about the zoo: He plans to buy an octopus after college, when he ambitions to build a hall-length aquarium at his new house.
He was not kidding, however, about the NCAA’s latest dress code.
Oakman doesn’t buy the argument that Bane-style facemasks were a threat to the fingers of opposing players. Pointing out last year’s poster of his tightly-gridded bars, Oakman said:
“You think you could fit a grown man’s finger in there? There’s more space in the new facemask.”
The likely explanation behind these bans, Oakman argued, is the NCAA rulemakers have a fogey streak.
“If it’s not old-school, if it’s not what they like, they’re going to change it,” he said. “They’re coming for me.”
Ironically, his stomach-revealing crop-top was intended as a throwback.
“It was Miami in the ‘70s—I’m just trying to bring it back,” he said.
A potential first-round draft pick, Oakman admits his look may be less intimidating this fall, but not his playing style.
“People are going to be intimidated regardless. You get hit in the face so many times, you’re going to be intimidated. It’s not the jersey, it’s not the helmet—it’s what’s underneath that’s intimidating. It’s me.“