Let bygones be bygones: Ray and Sims have become friends since SEC Championship Game
The last time Missouri defensive end Shane Ray and Alabama quarterback Blake Sims collided on the gridiron, Ray was ejected for targeting.
That was last December at the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta.
In the two months since, the two have actually become friends, bonding with one another in Boca Raton, Florida, of all places.
"Me and Blake train together, so I talk to him every day," Ray told reporters at the NFL Combine on Saturday afternoon. "Honestly, it's a football play and it happened. Me and Blake are actually pretty good friends."
The play in question occurred midway through the second quarter. As Sims was releasing a 58-yard touchdown pass to DeAndrew White, Ray came in from the left side and delivered a massive hit. Although he wasn't tardy with the hit, the top of his helmet did catch the quarterback on the chin, which immediately drew a penalty flag from the official.
"I don't think it was helmet-to-helmet at all," a still-frustrated Ray told reporters afterward. "My hands contacted him first. I was two steps within the quarterback. That doesn't make it an illegal hit."
"It was just football," said Sims when asked about the hit following Alabama's 42-13 win. "He hit me. I felt it, you know, he's a very big guy. He's a great player at the same time. He's just playing football the way he does."
It's difficult to say if there ever was any animosity between the two parties following the incident, but either way, it has long since dissipated.
"I talk to his family," Ray said at the Combine. "They say any time that I'm in their area, I'm welcome to have a place to stay. I got over it and he got over it."
As for what the SEC Defensive Player of the Year took away from his conference championship game experience ...
