They wanted him out, gone.
In fact, Oklahoma strength coach Jerry Smith actually got down on the player's level and started screaming for him to get out of the drill.
This was not quarterback Sam Bradford's finest moment.
In fact, he hadn't had a fine moment yet. He had yet to throw any of his 86 career touchdown passes. He certainly hadn't won a Heisman Trophy. It was 2006 — the summer before his freshman season — and he was unknown.
"I was going too slow," recalled Bradford, who was supposed to be duck-walking in a sand pit, one of Oklahoma's strength and conditioning drills.
He was being kicked out of the pit. But then something happened. Bradford pleaded to stay in the pit. He didn't want to leave it without finishing the drill, without proving that he belonged.
"I heard Sam begging so that he could stay in there working," Oklahoma tight end Jermaine Gresham recalled. "I'm not going to say what he said or did, but it was funny."
It wasn't funny when Bradford finished the drill. It was the first sign of what was to come.
Since earning the starting job in 2007 as a redshirt freshman, Bradford has come out of the gates like nobody else before him. Entering his junior season, he already has won the Heisman Trophy. He's already led the Sooners to the national championship game — last season's 24-14 loss to Florida — and he already has set a school record with 86 career touchdown passes.
The 6-foot-4-inch, 223-pound quarterback led an Oklahoma offense last year that scored 716 points and 99 touchdowns on the way to a 12-2 season. He was a possible No. 1 overall pick in April's NFL draft, but he decided to return for another year of college football.
Basically, Bradford is Colt McCoy wearing a Sooners jersey.
"We lost two games last year," Bradford said when asked if he can improve upon his sophomore season. "I feel like I was responsible for part of the losses in both of those games. So obviously there's room to improve.
"It might not be statistically, but in the win-loss, a loss is on me. I'm the quarterback, the leader of this offense, so I feel like I want to improve on that. To not lose a game this year, that would be a great improvement."
Doesn't that sound like a certain Longhorns quarterback?
In fact, Bradford and McCoy are friends. Despite their intense on-field rivalry, the two roomed together when they attended Peyton and Eli Manning's Passing Academy this summer in Louisiana.
"If you would have told me five years ago that I was going to become friends with the quarterback at Texas, I probably would have looked at you a little strange," Bradford said.
That's because Bradford, an Oklahoma City native, always has been about the Crimson and Cream. He grew up rooting for Oklahoma players like Jason White — now Oklahoma's quarterbacks coach — and Josh Heupel.
And Bradford might be more iconic than all of them when he's finished.
Bradford, who is one-sixteenth Cherokee, already is a hero to many of the 400,000-plus American Indians living in Oklahoma. He's had a street named after him at his Putnam City North High School, where he also had his No. 16 jersey retired (he wears No. 14 for the Sooners). He had a day named after him in Oklahoma City thanks to Mayor Mick Cornett.
When Oklahoma talked to him about erecting a life-sized statue of him in OU's Heisman Park, Bradford was hesitant. In fact, he told them not to right now.
"I don't want them to put mine up for a long time," he told the New York Daily News.
Bradford isn't comfortable with all the attention, though he handles it well.
"It's been different," Bradford said. "It's something I've had to get used to and something I really wasn't prepared for. I thought I was prepared to play football, but I didn't know so many things came with it."
Like during dinner one night this past spring, when a baby was plopped down in front of Bradford like a salad.
"Sign our baby," the couple asked, interrupting Bradford's meal at a restaurant in Norman, Okla.
Bradford found a Sharpie and signed the baby's onesie. Then he went on eating.
Nothing fazes the quarterback anymore. Nothing.
Alan Trubow writes for the Austin American-Statesman. E-mail: atrubow(at)statesman.com.