Mike Gaddis has long been regarded as one of the foremost “what-if” stories in the illustrious history of Oklahoma Sooners football. In terms of raw talent, Gaddis ranks among the greatest running backs to don the crimson and cream, right up there with Joe Washington and Billy Sims.

Big, physical and fast, Gaddis started as a freshman in 1988 — legendary coach Barry Switzer’s final season — and appeared well on his way to a Heisman Trophy the next season before a devastating knee injury changed everything.

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Gaddis died Monday in his Oklahoma City home after a long illness. He was 50.

“He’d play for the Sooners today, I promise you,” Switzer said Monday. “He’d be their running back today if he was playing. This guy had it all. He was big and fast, could make people miss. He was a slasher.

“Hell, he was just a great back. He wouldn’t have started for me as a freshman if he wasn’t. The moment he hit the field, he was different.”

Switzer laughed Monday as he recalled the 1988 Bedlam game in Stillwater. Oklahoma State’s Barry Sanders won that year’s Heisman Trophy and rushed 39 times for 215 yards and two touchdowns against the Sooners. But OU won the game, 31-28, with the freshman Gaddis rushing 18 times for 213 yards and two scores.

“Everybody talks about Barry Sanders that night rushing for 215 yards … shit, Mike Gaddis touched it about a lot less than he did and he rushed for 213 yards,” Switzer said. “The first time he touched the ball in that game, he ran about 50 yards on their ass.”

Entering the Oct. 14, 1989, Oklahoma-Texas game, Gaddis — then a sophomore — was one of the nation’s leading rushers and being discussed as a serious Heisman candidate. And he rushed 14 times for 130 yards, including a 64-yard touchdown run before a debilitating non-contact injury to his left knee. He missed the rest of the 1989 season, then the entire 1990 season before returning in 1991 and rushing for 1,344 yards as a senior. His 274 yards against Oklahoma State that year are the fifth-most in a single game in OU football history.

Still, he was never the same. The Minnesota Vikings took him in the sixth round of the 1992 NFL Draft, but Gaddis blew out his other knee during mini-camp, destroying any shot he had at an NFL career.

Gaddis’ 2,726 career rushing yards still rank 13th in Oklahoma football history.

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Although injuries limited what could have been an historic Sooners career, he remains a trailblazing legend in the annals of Midwest City (Okla.) Carl Albert High football. The school, founded in 1964, didn’t win a football state championship until 1989 — three years after Gaddis was gone — but he was a big reason for the program’s explosion.

Carl Albert has now won 18 football state titles, including the most recent three Class 5A championships. As a senior there, Gaddis rushed for 1,989 yards and 25 touchdowns and was The Oklahoman’s 1986 All-State Offensive Player of the Year.

Switzer called Gaddis “the best back that I recruited in the state of Oklahoma.”

Sooners inside receivers coach Cale Gundy was from neighboring Midwest City High and was Oklahoma’s starting quarterback from 1990-93.

“You’re at Oklahoma. There’s been so many great players come through here,” Gundy said. “So many national award winners. Guys who have gone on to the NFL. But Mike Gaddis could have been one of the very, very best. If he could have stayed healthy, there’s no telling what could have happened.”

OU football historian Mike Brooks said Gaddis was the first Carl Albert football player to become a Sooner, paving the way for others like J.D. Runnels.

Runnels, the Sooners’ fullback from 2002-05, wept through an interview with The Athletic on Monday. Runnels’ family and Gaddis’ family were so close that he called him, “Uncle Mike.”

Gaddis was Runnels’ first phone call after he signed with OU.

“I’d put it this way,” Runnels said. “It’s like if you grew up in the same town that Michael Jordan grew up in. Everybody wanted to be Mike. Literally. He was a trendsetter.

“If you have a Mount Rushmore of Carl Albert, Mike Gaddis is the first name.”

(Photo: Tim de Frisco / Allsport)