Chris Owusu remembers Andrew Luck as goofy, funny and smart

The most remarkable thing about Andrew Luck, his former teammate says, is that he isn’t remarkable at all.

New York Jets wide receiver Chris Owusu went to Stanford and played his college football with Andrew Luck, the quarterback who was taken with the first overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft. Then there was Owusu, undrafted that same spring after a senior season shortened to seven games by a concussion. But in those seven games Owusu had 35 receptions for 376 yards and two touchdowns. He’s been in the meeting room with Luck, the locker room and the huddle.

He’s watched the quarterback as they together grew from boys into men. They celebrated touchdowns and consoled each other in losses.

And now come Monday night football, Owusu will be on the other team when his team travels to play Luck’s Indianapolis Colts. The two teammates will share a field again butthis time on separate teams.

Luck has earned a reputation of going to the beat of his owndrummer. By midseason, his beard will likely look like that of a Civil War general’s and he still uses a flip phone, no iPhone here. Fame and stardom hasn’t affected him in the least and that was the case evenat Stanford when he was the proverbial ‘Big Man on Campus.’

“He’s knowledgeable about a lot of different things and his personality shows it in a way you that you might callis goofy. He’s an intelligent guy and he’s funny, really funny. If you want to say goofy, then it’s goofy,” Owusu told Metro.

“He’s a strong player and he’s humble about it. He plays the game and he works hard and that’s all you can ask of him.”

Owusu and Luck helped lead Stanford to an 11-2 record their final season of college football and a top-10 finish in most polls.

He was anointedthe No. 1 pick in the draft for a year before he left college. Since then, Owusu said his old college quarterbackhasn’t changed much. Luck is still goofy, still hard-working, still humble.

“At times you wished he embraced the stardom a bit more than he does. He’s done it the way he wants to do it. You can go and look at his cellphone. He doesn’t have asmartphone. He has one of the oldest cell phones I’ve seen ever. He’s humble, he does it his way and for him, that’s the right way,” Owusu said.

“He studied but a lot of things came natural to him. He was a hard worker and a lot of guys saw that and noticed it about him.”

Owusu in his own right is making a name for himself with the Jets. On Sunday in the season opening win over the Cleveland Browns, Owusu had four catches for 55 yards.