“Happy birthday queen”: Oklahoma’s Billy Bowman Jr. shares warm birthday wish for 4x NCAA champ fiancee Jayda Coleman
Oklahoma star safety Billy Bowman Jr. celebrated his fiancee Jayda Coleman's 23rd birthday on Instagram by sharing a heartwarming story.
Bowman proposed to the Oklahoma outfielder on Jan. 1. The four-time NCAA championship winner met Bowman when she played for the Sooners' softball team. The caption of the birthday story was:
"Happy birthday queen! Goat Year! The world is yours, enjoy your day!"
When Billy Bowman Jr. attended the SEC Media Days at the Omni Dallas Hotel in July, he was asked about Jayda Coleman. He said (as per The Dallas Morning News):
“She’s amazing. She’s the better half. She’s the better athlete, for all y’all out there. She is.”
Their tie goess back to their time in Dallas, where Bowman graduated from Denton Ryan in 2021 and Coleman was a six-time All-State honoree at The Colony. Both committed to Oklahoma and worked toward making a name of themselves in their individual sports.
“It helps because you have somebody who’s going through the same thing, and so I feel like we know what each other are going through,” Bowman added. “And we deal with the same issues, literally the same stuff.”
Jayda Coleman is a college superstar in her own right because of her hand in helping the Sooners win four consecutive Women's World Series titles and the making of the WCWS All-Tournament team in 2022 and 2023.
“Jayda, particularly, being an All-American, being the player she is, and just her being my fiancée, it’s amazing,” Billy Bowman Jr. added.
“It is something that a lot of people dream of, so I won’t take it lightly. Being able to be with her and live out our dreams together, being two prolific athletes from the same university, it’s amazing.”
Billy Bowman Jr. showed optimism about Oklahoma's defense
The Sooners' defense ranks sixth in the nation because of veteran stars like Billy Bowman Jr., Danny Stusman and more. While talking to Sports Illustrated after a practice, Bowman said that the team needs to "eliminate" the big plays.
"That's something we've done better at rather than, you know, the past couple of seasons, we gave up a lot more big plays. And then just tackling better. I feel like we've tackled good for most of the season. But first, Tennessee, there was a lot of missed tackles."
The defense has helped the team significantly, as it has been the key difference-maker in the team's three wins this season. If the defense keeps on improving, the team's performance against the upcoming opponents will also see success.
The Sooner play the Hugh Freeze-led Auburn Tigers on Saturday. A strong opponent that suffers from QB quadry, talented running backs and receivers, Oklahoma's defense will have a big role to play, as they will need to stop Auburn's run game and offensive weapons.