OU football offseason updates

[TulsaWorld]

OU's "Meet the Sooners Day" event announced for Aug. 2

Oklahoma football’s “Meet the Sooners Day” will take place from 1-3 p.m. Friday, Aug. 2 at Memorial Stadium, the school announced in a media release Monday afternoon.

The annual preseason event offers fans an opportunity to meet and interact with Sooners players and coaches at the beginning of fall training. As in years past, “Meet the Sooners Day” will be open to children aged 14 years and younger. Those children, allowed to be accompanied by one adult, will have access to an autograph session beginning at 1:30 p.m.; the session will open for Sooner Jr. Kids Club members at 1 p.m.

Adults are not permitted to seek autographs from players or coaches.

 

[TulsaWorld]

Reports: OU running back Kennedy Brooks not participating in summer workouts

Oklahoma redshirt sophomore running back Kennedy Brooks has been away from the program and is not participating in summer workouts in Norman due to off field matters, according to multiple reports. Brooks’ absence from the team was first reported by 247Sports and then by the OU Daily.

The five-foot-11, 209-pound running backs is reportedly not in the transfer portal, though his status with Oklahoma remains unclear. Head coach Lincoln Riley will next address the media on Monday at Big 12 Media Days in Dallas.

 

[TulsaWorld]

Preseason Big 12 poll: Media picks OU to win fifth straight league title

Oklahoma has won the past four Big 12 Championships and the Big 12 football preseason poll has pegged the Sooners as the favorite to win their fifth consecutive championship this season.

The preseason poll, voted on by the media representatives that was released on Wednesday, put Oklahoma at the top of the conference for the fourth consecutive year.

The Sooners haven’t disappointed the polls in the past three seasons. Oklahoma has led the preseason rankings seven times since 2011.

Their 12 championships, starting with their first one in 2000, are the most by any other football program in the conference. No other team has more than three.

 

[TulsaWorld]

Bob Stoops' autobiography coming out in September: What he writes about in the book

Before his "Salute to Stoops" celebration in April 2018, legendary football coach Bob Stoops was asked if he had interest in writing a book.

"I’m thinking about it," Stoops said before his statue revelation on the eve of the Oklahoma spring football game. "Possibly. We’ll see. I don’t know if there’s a market out there for it or not. So we’ll see."

The Tulsa World received an advance proof of "No Excuses: The Making of a Head Coach" this week. The 294-page copy was written by Stoops and ESPN reporter Gene Wojciechowski. It has an official release date of Sept. 10 and is published by Little, Brown and Company.

 

[TulsaWorld]

From Guerin Emig...

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Will there ever be a time the Big 12*Conference*gets out of its own way?

Commissioner Bob Bowlsby spent last Monday morning peeling off reasons his league has never been more robust. OU’s College Football Playoff appearance... Texas Tech’s Final Four run... Baylor’s women’s basketball championship... The $38.8 million per-school distribution last fiscal year.

Not bad.

So Big 12 officials coordinator Greg Burks opened Tuesday’s Media Days proceedings, took any momentum Bowlsby was able to generate... and ran it straight into the AT&T Stadium ground.

 

[TulsaWorld]

The recruiting journey of Broken Arrow's Andrew Raym, the state's No. 1 football recruit, in 8 key points

Andrew Raym was fishing with friends and family on Lake Eucha when he decided to go to OU.

He wanted to tell his father first. As the boys reached the shore, Raym sought out his father, Gerald. “Dad, “I’m going to OU.”

...

From the outside looking in, the 6-foot-4, 285-pound lineman would have seemed destined for Norman all along. Raym grew up in an OU family. As a kid, he always wore Sooners gear.

The Raym family went to games in Norman, and Andrew left dreaming of playing at Memorial Stadium. On picture day at school, Raym wore OU crimson and cream. In November 2017, it looked like it was all happening when he committed to OU as a sophomore. But Raym backed out and reopened his recruitment the following spring.

This time, he said, his commitment is for good.

 

[TulsaWorld]

From Eric Bailey: Union's Patrick Fields, Delarrin Turner-Yell taking control of safety spot

Alex Grinch said sophomores Patrick Fields and Delarrin Turner-Yell have solidified themselves at the safety spot after 10 days of fall camp.

The defensive coordinator would prefer to have more competition at the position and hopes to see that sooner rather than later.

On Monday, Grinch said he wants to see the second team and third team push the top group of players at the position.

“Everybody’s better with competition. Across the board. Certainly, we have competition at some points but maybe not as much as we need. We’ve got to get that corrected,” Grinch said. “There’s a message for some of those guys that don’t find themselves with the first group at this moment. If you’re just a two by default, and we wouldn’t put you in a game, you’re just that. You’re just a depth-chart guy. Not truly a rotational player for us.

“We need more of those guys to step up. We’ve got our best 11, gotta find a way to get 22 we can put in a game.”

Also, former Sooners running back Mike Gaddis, age 50, died Monday.

“He was on the way to winning the Heisman in his sophomore year. He was leading the nation in rushing,” Switzer told the Tulsa World. “I remember when he blew out his knee in the Texas game. He had already run (62) yards for one (touchdown) and making a cut and hitting open field and looking like he was going to score again and blew out a knee.

“Nobody touched him. He had a total knee reconstruction on that. It ended his career. He was going to be a great superstar.”

 

[TulsaWorld]

Both of these updates are from Eric Bailey...

OU notebook: What's competition been like to replace Austin Seibert at kicker and punter?

Jay Boulware may have one of the toughest jobs on Oklahoma’s staff this season.

The special teams coordinator has to replace Austin Seibert, who handled all aspects of the Sooners’ kicking game the past three seasons.

“Those guys have been working hard all summer and been training like the rest of the team,” Boulware said. “While the rest were doing seven-on-seven and all that stuff, they were doing kicking and snapping and holding and stuff like that. You can tell that that work has gotten them to this point where they came into camp ready to go and not having to build up to that point. I’m really excited about what those guys can do.

“They haven’t played, (so) you don’t know what they are going to do when the lights come on. But from what I’m seeing in practice, we should be OK in that area.”

Lincoln Riley says a three-man competition — including five-star recruit Spencer Rattler — continues for quarterback spot

The history of Riley’s past two quarterback announcements: In 2015, Baker Mayfield was named the starter Aug. 24. Last season, Kyler Murray was the starter on Aug. 22.

The evaluation process is pretty deep, Riley said. He looks at drill work but pays special attention to the competitive portion of practices.

Stats during competitive sessions are helpful, he said, but not exclusive to what he’s looking for out of his starting quarterback.

“It’s a feel of who’s not only playing well and completing passes and doing their job well, but who’s running the group well. Who’s handling the group? Who’s communicating well? Who’s got poise when something doesn’t go right?” Riley said. “There’s so much that goes into it.

“So first, we stat our guys out — we’ve got a lot of different metrics to measure them. But also we don’t get away from kind of our gut feels of being around them. … We know what it looks like when it’s right.”

 

[TulsaWorld]

From Eric Bailey...

CeeDee Lamb, who is entering his third season at Oklahoma, is considered a veteran wide receiver.

So what does that make Nick Basquine, a soon-to-be 24-year-old who will play a sixth season this fall?

“Nick is an old specimen. He’s great. He loves to work. We always crack jokes on him every now and then,” Lamb said with a big smile. “That’s a sensitive subject. The man took us all in like we’re still his brothers. He’s battled the most adversity that we all experienced here. We’ve taken him in as a big brother and hope all is well this season.”

Basquine received a waiver to play a sixth season after suffering Achilles tendon ruptures in 2015 and 2017. The Norman North High School graduate is looking for great things in his final campaign at his hometown university.

“It’s probably one of the better (fall) camps I’ve had so far in my career,” Basquine said this week. “The biggest thing is being consistent. That’s kind of been my main point with the coaches and myself.”

 

[TulsaWorld]

I hope you all enjoy this series. Covers everything from players puking at their first practice with Jerry Schmidt, to where the coaches and players are now.

A definitive look at the 1999 Sooners, the team that ushered in a new golden era of OU football

 

[TulsaWorld]

OU football: Sooners are No. 4 in AP Top 25 preseason poll

OU has now been ranked inside the AP preseason top five poll a record 35 times, which equals half of the 70 AP preseason polls. Alabama and Ohio State (28 times each) are behind Oklahoma.

It is the fourth consecutive season Oklahoma has started inside the top 10. In 2017 and 2018 — Lincoln Riley’s first two seasons as head coach — OU was ranked No. 7 in the preseason poll.

Bill Haisten: Looking ahead at Jalen Hurts vs. Sam Ehlinger in the Cotton Bowl

In 2016, 247 Sports rated Hurts the best of all Texas senior high school quarterback prospects.

In 2017, 247 Sports rated Sam Ehlinger the best of all Texas senior high school quarterback prospects.

There’s your storyline Oct. 12: Can Hurts, as Riley’s third consecutive transfer quarterback who had been an elite Texas high school athlete, break the hearts of Ehlinger and Tom Herman?

'99 Sooners extra: Mark Mangino didn't just work in his office, he lived there

“It was kind of funny. All of us coaches lived in the Residence Inn when we first got there. Then when that initial recruiting period was over they said, ‘You guys gotta go find your own places.’ A bunch of coaches bought houses. I couldn’t buy a house. I couldn’t afford it. I still had a house in Manhattan. When everybody moved into their homes, I slept in my own office.

“A student secretary told me, ‘Coach, you looking for a place to sleep?’ I thought she had a room somewhere. Nope. She said, ‘Coach if you’re gonna sleep in your office, don’t sleep on the floor. We’re throwing out our couch at the sorority house.’ They had bought a new couch. She said, ‘Want me to have the guys bring it over for ya?’