Former Tight End and Offensive Tackle Sam Grant shares stories of playing football for the University of Oklahoma Sooners. Grant talks about the mentoring from Coach Bob Stoops, catching a touchdown pass from quarterback Baker Mayfield and what it was like playing with current NFL players Joe Mixon (RB-Cincinnati) and Mark Andrews (TE-Baltimore).
Grant shares his journey from his high school days in Cleveland, Ohio, to an opportunity from Chesapeake to beating a Nick Sabin coached Alabama Crimson Tide football team in the Sugar Bowl.
Currently Grant works for Alamo Pressure Pumping out of in Oklahoma, however, he is stationed in the Permian Basin in West Texas.
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Below is the raw, unedited transcript from our artificial intelligence translator.
Sam Grant
Sam Grant. Alamo, pressure pumping.
Jason Spiess
Thank you for joining the program here today. Mr SAm Grant, former Oklahoma University or University of Oklahoma tight and an offensive lineman. How you doing today sir? Not too bad, not too bad. Well, I appreciate you coming on because as a former sooner, uh, there's, of course we're in football season today.
In fact, as we record this interview, I believe the sooners are playing Nebraska a little bit later on, if my memory serves me correctly. I didn't even look at my notes to be honest. Um,
Sam Grant
go ahead.
Jason Spiess
Go ahead sir. What was that? ...
Sam Grant
That's
Jason Spiess
right. That's what's going on. It's the 50 year anniversary. So they're gonna have all kinds of festivities. I think college gameday is there Fox, I guess would be Fox's game day, whatever their name is. Sorry, ESPN you did kind of jumped the gun on the branding. So good for you.
Uh, talk to me about your, before we get into Alamo pressure pumping, which we can talk about that in just a second. How long did you play at uh, University of Oklahoma and kind of name a few players that you maybe play with. Did you play under coach stoops,
Sam Grant
Yes, sir. Played under coach stoops for five years from 202012 to 2016. And I actually graduated school in 2017 in spring. And uh, I said played five years under coach stoops the now Hall of Fame Coach stoops and I can't say enough good things about him as a, as a player as a coach, you know, as a friend as a mentor, all those things. He's a great guy to play with, play forward play with. And uh a couple of guys I guess I played with one of the big one is making kind of a lot of news these days is
baker mayfield up in Cleveland now. So I played a baker uh lane johnson, another one to help kind of mentor me when I came in. Those two big guys that are doing real well. Mark Andrews I played with, he's got a I guess the biggest paycheck for for tight end. So he's doing really good over there for the Ravens. So a lot of players played with over the course of five years, a lot of them are doing real well in the league right now too, which is always good to see seniors do well of
Jason Spiess
course, up here in Dakota were either, depends on which side of the state you're on, you're either a Minnesota Vikings fan or you're a Denver broncos fan and I'm on the side of the state where we're Minnesota Vikings fans. I'm not but the people are and Adrian Peterson of course, one of the greatest running backs of all time played for Oklahoma who was the running back while you were
Sam Grant
there. We had some a J. P. Ryan and the two biggest names of SMA, J. P. Ryan and joe Mixon. Both those guys are doing real job, especially doing real well for these with Cincinnati now.
Jason Spiess
Yeah, yeah. In fact he just played the Vikings last week. They want to. Yeah, they did. So Okay, cool. And you were tight end and offensive line, is that correct? Awesome. So five years, huh?
Sam Grant
Yeah. Five years I came in and red shirted my first year, uh still traveled all the games. Me and a handful of other guys, the Knights brothers uh and Ty Darlington were a couple of guys that came in with coach stoops. You know, even when we were freshmen and redshirt and we were still able to travel with the team, you know, gain that experience on the road and all that. And then uh eventually uh, they asked me to put on some weight and move to offensive tackle.
So I put on about £50 when I was there from 240 coming into about 292 at my heaviest, so five years and £50 so did pretty good on that side. Got a lot bigger under coach Smitty, the head strength coach and I was there. So it was pretty fun, pretty fun. Five years and a lot of good friends and you know, a lot of lifelong friends and all that. I still talk to and hang out with today. Obviously
Jason Spiess
I remember when I was 16 I played for the North Dakota, a au baseball team and we had a national tournament in norman Oklahoma where you played. And what one of the things that we did is we were able to tour the Oklahoma sooners Stadium. And so as I stood there on the 50 yard line looking at all the stands, I thought my goodness, the entire city of Fargo could fill this stadium. And so it just and then of course I thought the same thing when I went out to the uh michigan at the university of
michigan, they hold 100,000 and state college P. A. You know, penn state that these are major. I mean 80,000, 100,000 people talk to me about these games, Talk to me about the energy that the humans created in these events that you were played in and then you participated in.
Sam Grant
That was awesome. All the home games, especially as it's fondly called the palace on the prairie there in norman they they put a bunch of money especially now in the south end zone to where they built it up. So it's all bolden now that wasn't like that when I started. But it's pretty cool running into, you know, especially as a freshman running into those, you know, 80 90,000 fans screaming and who knows God knows how many were outside of the, you know, actual stadium.
But oh yeah, you can just feel feel the energy, feel the, you know, everyone yelling. One of my favorite parts of our tradition is the roughnecks. Every time we score there's a good play or something. They got the shotguns in the south end zone and gets to be the north end zone.
That's pretty cool. You know, the fans eat that up and pretty good fans that we travel pretty good. And you know, it was always fun playing in different away games to, you know, a lot of tradition and the teams that we played in the big 12, which big 12? That's a yeah,
Jason Spiess
you're right there. I mean now they're down to the big three or big six, I think whatever is left. Um, what, uh, roughnecks? What I'm not familiar with my, in my mind, they're like the hogs from the Redskins and you know, just kind of, uh, you know, the dog pound in Cleveland. Is that what the roughnecks are?
Sam Grant
So I don't want to get totally wrong. But it's like a group of students that they started, I can't remember how many years ago, but it's uh, it's like a student group that comes to the games and they actually have shotguns in the north end zone. You know, they're blank shells and all that. But there are the guys that run out on the sooner schooner you see running out.
And uh, so they're, they're kind of a big part of the tradition up there and it's really cool that you hear the shotguns, you feel that, you know, the, the concussion in your chest and all that, you know, throughout the stadium and it really lights it up after after a big place and stuff like that
Jason Spiess
well, and it really shows how the oil and gas industry is really embedded in the culture. I mean, if they're called the roughnecks, that's an oil and gas term,
Sam Grant
Oh, absolutely. Other the oil and gas is huge obviously in Oklahoma texas, Oklahoma especially, I know the, like the late great Aubrey McClendon. He was kind of one of my little mentors, I guess you could say, help me get internships in school and everything through coach dupes, help connect me with him And he, you know, he donated a bunch of money to O. U. You know, through obviously Chesapeake and all that.
He's done a ton of stuff. Did, did a ton of stuff for Oklahoma and the surrounding areas, you know, and obviously I was just read a stat today, the oil industry that pays to think it was 32 billion in wages in Oklahoma, something like that. I read that this morning actually seen an article about it, but that was pretty, pretty substantial number. Yeah.
Jason Spiess
You think
Sam Grant
It's crazy once you break a bit how much it really brings in people think, oh yeah, it's real small. It's like, no, it's it's actually pulled it up right now. 32.7 billion and wages per year.
Jason Spiess
I mean, and that's just, that doesn't even include, you know, people like me and people in the cafes and the people that are, you know, hotshot uh, drivers that are considered transportation and trucking industry. So there's a lot more that goes into that number, that's not being reported as well. Not to mention the state, the state and government regulators that have wages to based on, you know, safety and compliance and etcetera.
So, um, boy, I didn't even think of that until right now. Boy, I could process all morning here on economic talk, but we're here to talk a little sports, sports sports so important. I gotta say it three times. Also we'll talk about Alamo pressure pumping and just a moment to, we've got to give your business a plug for crying out loud because we appreciate you coming on to talk a little football, share a little stories about baker, mayfield and bob stoops, coach stoops, excuse me.
That's like saying bobby Knight, like I'm buddies with them or something, Excuse me. Coach Knight, you know, I mean, we gotta have some respect, right for somebody who's in the Hall of Fame and been around for 50 years. They've earned it. They've earned it, you know? Uh Sorry. So Eddie, I wanted to ask you about, did you ever play in a dome?
Sam Grant
Um, yeah, I guess we played in the uh, the Mercedes Benz Dome down there in new Orleans for the Sugar Bowl
Jason Spiess
twice. Ok. Twice. So the reason I ask is, you know, as a performer, which I know it sounds weird, but, you know, I kind of, if I'm doing a speech or a presentation or if I'm going and you know, doing a, you know, introducing a band or something like that. There is a small performance that's involved. So I look at it as a performance and I have to actually take in consideration whether it's an arena or whether it's a dome because of the sound. And I didn't know, did you guys ever talk about
that when, you know, like prepping either the offensive line or the quarterback? You know, you know how a lot of times they'll bring in speakers to mimic the opposing crowd and that sort of thing. I don't know what level of resources you guys had at the college or what level of, you know, analytics and things like that. But did that, you know, noise navigation of the dome versus the arena ever ever come up in your career there
Sam Grant
a little bit? I mean, especially when you're playing big games, like a bowl game like that, they always talk about the crowd noise and I wish we, when we played in Louisiana, we played uh, Alabama the first year and it's a lot closer to Alabama than it is. Uh, Oklahoma, I guess that is as far as fans traveling, you know, as their presence there.
So they probably, I don't know if it was maybe 2 to 1. Maybe they almost doubled us, I'd say. But it was real loud and then during practices and stuff they had speaking to the resources, oh, you pretty much had the best resources for just about everything. They, uh, the staff would have giant speakers at practice. It would be whether we were practicing indoor outdoor to mimic, you know, crowd noise and doing when we were running, you know, 3rd, 3rd and long drives and doing drives at
the end of practice. So they, you know, they'd roll out all these giant speakers to get, get that real sense of the game where you can't communicate with your guys other other than, you know, you see like the quarterback will lift his leg up a lot of times on or the center will, will get tapped by the guard because it's so loud in there. You can't hear the cadence, it's all based on motion because a lot of people, I don't think really realize,
Jason Spiess
oh, I don't think people understand all the little tricks that can go into it and all the things that need to be combated. And you know, I mean when I heard about uh, what's the rumor? Tom brady has somebody watching his blind side and then he's got a little microphone or a little uh, speaker in his helmet that alerts him when he's gonna get hit from the blindside and that gives him a second to prepare his body, right? And that's considered cheating.
But is it really, you know, in all these different, when I started hearing those types of arguments with technology and everything, I'm going, oh, it's a whole new world out there, um, on different ways to have different advantages and different, uh, just level playing field if you will. So, uh, talk to me about just some of the equipment that you had and uh, some of the facilities that Oklahoma has,
Sam Grant
well, they had, especially after the new, the new rollout, they did the addition on the stadium, the whole south end of the end zone is absolutely phenomenally gorgeous. And they started building that, I guess, probably 33 years into my career. So we actually stayed in trailer locker rooms across the street from the stadium while they were building the building a new stadium.
So after they built all that, you know, the new, the new locker room has a whole indoor weight room. It's absolutely gorgeous. There's an indoor turf facility, you have hot tanks, cold tanks, you know, giant pools for their either hot or cold depending on what you're trying to, you know, go for for your body. I mean, you got all the training staff was unbelievable while we were there, you know, scott, who was the head trainer and gym, I guess he's retired since then. But those guys
were outstanding as far as the athletic training. Uh, you know, the strength staff, there's four or five strength coaches. You know, those guys are with you guys, you work almost work out more with the strength staff than you do. The actual coaches a lot of times during the year. And the facilities they had for that are absolutely phenomenal and the resources they have as far as, you know, uh, food and nutrition for after workouts and all that. It's pretty much second and done
Jason Spiess
so much. That is, you know, brought to you by oil and gas, you know, really at the end, I mean I'm not even talking about the things that's made of the transportation, I'm talking about the financial donations and you know, you mentioned the wages and we all these different things and you know, this is the crude life. So we, you know, we do want to circle back to how, you know, the oil and gas industry really is funding a lot of education, whether it be through the school tax system.
Uh, you know, in different counties, like if you go up to Watford City, they've got the Taj Mahal of Events Center connected to the high school and that's a great way to really collaborate and use a lot of these different resources together. And I see that in a lot of oil communities. Um, talk to me about your company, uh, this Alamo pressure pumping, what is it you guys do and how did you get into oil and gas by the
Sam Grant
way, I guess I'll answer the second question first. So getting into oil and gas coming out of high school, we grew up in Cleveland Ohio. And uh I went to an all boys catholic high school ST Edward uh which was one of the best schools as far as sports and education probably in the U. S. I know when I was there we were number two in the nation for football and our wrestling is you know, number, I'd say probably top three in the nation every year.
But long story short we had to do a project for your senior year to graduate. You know, if you want to be a lawyer, you go shadow a lawyer, you want to go be a police officer, you go shot, you know, do a ride along with police officer. So I was getting recruited for football and I always wanted to do engineering because I liked math and science and uh so for the shadow thing, you know, I'm looking at schools and all this and I was like yeah you should, you know, Oklahoma, they offered me and
all that. I was like you should look into this petroleum engineering stuff. You know. Also I watched some videos online and that's pretty cool. You know, it's kind of hands on kind of blue collar work, you know, kind of interesting big machinery kind of stuff I've always been interested in. And so I called the school and got a like a little three day shadow experience with Chesapeake out of uh out of uh, Cambridge Ohio.
So I worked with those guys for a couple days said, man, this is pretty damn cool. And that's where, that's where it all kind of started. And I wanna tell you study petroleum engineering and uh, got a job right out of school after football. ...
Jason Spiess
So what is it that you do within your company? And what is it that your company does?
Sam Grant
So we're a provider of hydraulic fracturing for obviously a plethora of uh, different GMP companies were mostly based out of, we're based out of midland and all of our works in midland New Mexico, that kind of area. So we're smaller amount pop company that we actually just got, uh, I got bought out by next year oilfield Solutions, which is actually my former employer before Alamo.
So it'll be interesting to see how that buyout merger goes. So, uh, we're going to be the leading provider of dual gas blend equipment, which is a pretty cool deal, especially with, uh, you know, especially with the cost savings that natural gas equipment gives over just running full diesel fleets. And it, uh, you know, it's a lot better for the environment and all all that type of stuff as well because you're using, it's all, you're not flaring that gas and you're using its power
equipment rather than, you know, just basically wasting the resources that we have. But I'm an engineer for. Um, and that's what I've been since I started working and no one feels, uh, engineer for hydraulic fracturing. So we just do hydraulic fracturing stuff and you know, provide good service to our customers. ...
Jason Spiess
Do you guys have a website? Is it kind of in in flux right now because of the buyout? What's the best way for people to um you know, contact you guys or your company if they want to give you some business.
Sam Grant
So if they want to, you can go to fracking dot com. And that's uh with just F. R. A. C. I. N. G. O. K. Is a lot of people spell fracking and uh so we're actually Alamo and next year company's subsidiary for now and we'll see as far as, you know, all the legal terms and all that. See how that shakes out down the road. But it'll be a fracking dot com to get ahold of us over at Alamo.
Jason Spiess
All right. So one last question here, um did you have the greatest moment that you know, whether it be, you know, either a conversation that stoops had with you or you know, something on the field, something, you know, just with your days playing at the University of Oklahoma, five years. Uh You know what, what what's a memory or two that you walked away with where you're like, damn. I'm so glad I did that.
Sam Grant
Uh Probably the biggest one is the biggest team one is when we beat Alabama in the sugar bowl, that was a big game obviously nick Saban and the program that they have down there is, you know, top notch, so getting a win like that is, is huge for team morale and everything, especially rolling into the next season. So probably that's the best, the best team moment, best moment for me.
I uh caught one touchdown or as, as an offensive lineman and it's just, you know, pretty cool. It's kind of rare that you see offensive lineman catch touchdown. But uh, it was from baker Mayfield on a play action pass, one of my favorite plays and uh, against Kansas and kind of kind of a cool deal. You know, not many people say you get catch a pass from a Heisman winning quarterback and obviously he's doing real well in the league, first round draft pick, all that stuff.
So I know a lot of guys eat that up. But there was a kind of special moment just especially for like the old line guys because they all, they all love that, you know, hey, you know, old line caught a touchdown. So that, that was, that was probably my biggest personal moment as far as his favorite on the field.
Jason Spiess
Oh, that's fabulous because not only did you catch a touchdown, it's from, you know, baker Mayfield who's obviously the marquee player coming out of that hole five years. Um, because he's a quarterback and first round pick and etcetera, but also it's a trick play man, I mean, yeah, it's a little trick play though, you know, it's kind of like, you know, you're the one everyone forgot. So you're like, ha ha ha ha because everybody forgets about the offensive line
Sam Grant
is a big, big blocking tight end and that's why they wanted me to move to tackle is always a better blocker than a route runner and all that. So that goal line package, we we hadn't run a play like that before. It was mostly, you know, short yardage goal line running place. So you do enough of that and, you know, Lincoln Riley the genius mind that he is, he's always coming up with different plays for his different players and whatever their tributes or, you know, one guy's
fast one guys, you know, really good at blocking whatever the case may be. You know, he's a genius to get his guys in a position to do, you know, something that they're good at.
Jason Spiess
Well in baseball, we used to always, you know, the shortstop and the and the picture and the, you know, they were usually interchangeable because, you know, it's kind of like how a lot of times a quarterback is still a linebacker in high school, it's just, you know, there's certain athletic abilities that just, you have to have in certain areas. So it's it's almost it's funny that the offensive lineman almost aren't used more because a lot of them are former tight ends, you know,
and so they have good hands, you know, So anyway, sorry guys, I just got a little sidebar there into sports, sports, sports. I hosted a sports talk show for about eight years so I can, uh, easily get into that the whole vein of topics. But hey man, thanks for coming on and hopefully some people can give you some business Alamo, pressure pumping.
Sam Grant
Yes, sir. I appreciate you having me
Jason Spiess
on, Hey, what's the name of the new company? Again?
Sam Grant
It's, uh, next year Oilfield Solutions are a big public company.
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The Crude Life Podcast: Sam Grant, Alamo Pressure Pumping