STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) -Dez Bryant sees all the hype that Texas Tech’s Michael Crabtree receives and thinks it’s deserved. He’d just appreciate it if someone threw some love his direction, too.
Oklahoma State’s star receiver has the perfect chance to get himself some publicity, when the No. 8 Cowboys (8-1, 4-1) face Crabtree’s second-ranked Red Raiders (9-0, 5-0) on Saturday night, the latest in a string of Big 12 South games with national title implications.
“Every time I turn on the TV, all I hear is (ESPN analyst) Kirk Herbstreit talking about, `He’s the best receiver in the country.’ That started to get to me a little bit, but I really don’t let it get to me too much,” Bryant said.
“It still does motivate me to go out there and play my hardest and to show him there is another guy out there.”
117.1 yards per game, four spots ahead of Crabtree, although he has 10 less receptions.
But Bryant doesn’t have any interest in being compared to Crabtree, who won the Biletnikoff Award last season as the nation’s top receiver. He just wants to get his due.
“Me personally, I really don’t like being compared to nobody because I’m me. I’m my own player,” Bryant said. “Like I said about me and Crab, we’re two different players and we play in two different types of offenses and that’s a big difference. That’s enough said right there.”
Bryant, who is 6-foot-2, has a knack for winning jumpballs against opposing defensive backs and also showed off his speed last week by getting behind the Iowa State defense for an 80-yard touchdown catch.
It was the first time in his career he had four receiving touchdowns in the same game, although he’d already had two games this season with three touchdown catches and a punt return TD.
The 6-foot-3 Crabtree, who is averaging 102.3 yards receiving, has been hurting defenses the past two seasons with his quick-strike catches and his ability to make moves after he gets the ball. Just see his last-second, 28-yard TD that beat Texas 39-33 last week and extended his streak of games with at least one touchdown catch to 12.
`They’re both great receivers, but they don’t run the same routes as we do, and they don’t have the same style of offense as we do, so it’s going to be different for us facing Dez than it would be facing Crab in practice.”
Bryant was still learning the offense hadn’t yet emerged when the Cowboys beat Texas Tech 49-45 last year in a shootout in Stillwater. Crabtree had 14 catches for a career-high 237 yards and three touchdowns, but it’s perhaps more memorable that the potential winning touchdown pass clipped off his hands with 11 seconds left after Oklahoma State’s Ricky Price got a tiny deflection on Graham Harrell’s throw.
“I watched that play in the summer because it was something I wanted to work on,” Crabtree said after last week’s win against the Longhorns. “Graham and I practiced that a lot. It was never about motivation, just me not wanting to make that same mistake again.”
If not for all of the huge numbers the Big 12’s quarterbacks are putting up, Crabtree and Bryant might find themselves more prominently mentioned as candidates for the Heisman Trophy. McCoy, Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford and Missouri’s Chase Daniel received most of the attention earlier in the season, but Harrell and Crabtree are starting to enter the mix too after their last-second connection vaulted the Red Raiders to No. 2 in the BCS standings.
being overlooked by Heisman voters because they’re rarely available for interviews. He said that Crabtree, who wasn’t available to reporters this week except immediately after Saturday night’s game, does interviews “almost as a favor to us.”
“Too bad. That’s tough. I don’t care. That’s a complete alibi and an excuse,” Leach said. “It’s irresponsible journalism and they ought to quit their jobs.”
Regardless, the loudest statements Crabtree and Bryant can make will come on the field, and with the other player there in person to one-up the other.
“They’re both big, they’re both fast, both elusive and they’ve both got great hands,” Price said. “They’re both playmakers.”
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Associated Press writer Betsy Blaney in Lubbock, Texas, contributed to this report.
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