The Football Brainiacs

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Bob Stoops, a number of his assistants, and some players met with the media Saturday afternoon. Here is what they had to say.

For those that cannot see the video, I’m adding a transcript of what was said thanks to one of our new contributor. Hopefully this helps somewhat and again, apologies for the video format issues.

Bob Stoops

Opening Statement: “I’m really excited about the way the team has looked the past couple of days. Very evident of how they worked through the winter, spring, and summer. At every single position, we’re bigger, stronger quicker than we were you a year ago. Even the guys returning after another year of training have really made improvements have really looked good. Coach Schmidt and the strength coaches have all done a fabulous job with them and maybe one of the best summers we’ve ever had as a group and that’s really a positive sign of the groups character is coming in”

-From the get go the buzz around the quarterback position has done a complete 180. Trevor is the guy. Period. “Trevor in the last couple of days it’s evident is much more consistent making the plays that are there and really starting to feel comfortable.”

-Mentioned having Tyler Evans back has helped bolster the interior O-Line. Evans has missed, not one, but two season now to injury.

– Stoops went out of his way to mention Durron Neal as a guy making big strides. “Durron Neal has stuck out to me in just three days along with of course Sterling has really been exceptional. He’s really taken it to another level, but Durron Neal is a guy who in the last few days has really made a lot of plays”

-Julian Wilson’s move to be the other starting corner has pretty much solidified, “Julian Wilson really looks good. Looks great at corner. We recruited him at corner out of high school, he’s got great speed, great size, and range. He’s a guy that’s played now, he’s a fifth year senior, he’s played for the last three years and the last two years in a starting role. You can tell his experience even out at the corner position”

-At the open safety job “The safety guys where we needed a few guys to come through: Hatari Byrd and Ahmad Thomas aren’t Freshmen anymore. They’ve always had the size and strength, now they’ve started to figure things out mentally and are really coming along in that other safety spot where we really needed someone.”

-On the D-Line “Everyone else up front is still there. I feel we’re much further along, of course a year ago at that time everyone wondered who would play D-line, now there isn’t any wonder about it. We’ve got a lot of really good players up there who have really made great gains. Every one of them again is bigger/stronger than they were a year ago and that should help us”

-On entering year 2 in a new defensive scheme “scheme-wise we’re light years ahead of where we were a year ago in what we’re doing, the wrinkles we want to add to it, how were handling the different formations were seeing from the offenses. We worked through all of that a year ago and really refined it and its made a big difference”

-Bob actually made a point to talk about how impressed he was with special teams. Obviously he pointed out Michael Hunnicut saying, “Michael Hunnicut is a guy that truly can be an All-American, he has that kind of potential.” But that’s not a huge surprise to anyone. However, it seems the head man has a lot of pride and respect for his current long-snapper Wesley Horky, “Wesley Horky is a magnificent long-snapper if there can be such a thing. He snaps it back there with a spiral everytime. It’s just your operation time has been reduced significantly when you have a guy that can do and that really helps you protection wise and he’s really consistent with it and a guy who can run a little bit and cover”

– Stoops, “Michael Onuoha with academic reasons won’t be with us here this year.”Onuoha would have made the 2014 season his 3^rd year as a defensive end for the seasons.

-Things did get a little testy regarding the recent misconduct surrounding both Mixon and Frank Shannon. Obviously Stoops announced he couldn’t speak to either the Mixon situation and said that nothing had changed regarding Frank Shannon, who was part of the morning “Meet the Fans “ session signing autographs. So instead of specifics questions were fired about whether or not Coach Stoops believed that his program had an image problem.

• His initial response: “That kind of relates to some of these issues that aren’t resolved so for me to express anything like that probably unfit”
• The reporter rephrased the question clarifying that he wanted to Stoops to reflect on any image problems he felt were ever present in OU Football. Stoops responded “I’ve been here 16 years so there’s a long track record of what we’ve done here so reflect on that”
• Still on the hook the reporter asked Stoops to describe “the line in the sand you draw when it comes to second chances and third chances…” Stoops answers, “There isn’t any line in the sand you know, all situations are different”

-He spoke briefly about playing with Trey Millard at tight end last season and made a point that he believes Aaron Ripkowski is pretty close to being what Millard was for them a year ago.

-On Samaje Perine “really powerful, incredibly bright, you don’t have to tell the guy something more than once so he has really been impressive”

-On Dimitri Flowers “He’s really made another big jump. We loved him in the Spring and looks even better now that he’s had that winter, spring summer to train he’s really improved his strength and made some plays”

-On Jordan Phillips, Stoops believes he’s made good progress coming off injury and still managed to get stronger. That being said Stoops admitted they’re going to manage him a little more carefully than most giving him a day off to make sure he’s fresh and more importantly healthy by August 30^th.

-Stoops is impressed with both Kenyon Frison and Orlando Brown. He said Frison came in at 6-6 320, and Brown came in at 6-7 ½ and 340 pounds. Both mammoth prospects can apparently run really well and have good feet despite the weight and have coach pretty excited.

-Steven parker has impressed Bob, “He’s been really good, smart at picking things up which at the safety position they have a lot to think about and he’s doing great there.”

Mike Stoops

–        Mike came in with a weak and gravely tone to his voice saying he was rusty himself coming back into practice. A theme he didn’t sway far from throughout his time at the podium.

–        Mike’s message was clear from the get go and he gave us a little sample of what he’s preaching to his defense in 2014 “We can get better defensively then we were a year ago, but again it’s a whole other year. We have to start from ground zero and work this group into a position that can consistently compete every time we step on the field and work on our discipline our attitude and our technique and that will carry us through 12 or 13 games. That’s the attitude we have to have and strive to be as good as we can be.”

–        He wasn’t overly impressed his first three days though “I was hoping for more early on. We have to knock some rust off and get back out there and have that same hunger and desire we had a year ago. That’s probably my biggest fear as a defensive coordinator is that you become complacent and there’s no place for that in football. If you do that you’re going to get slapped and it’ll happen quickly and we need to make sure we’re not taking anything for granted this year with so many positives and how we ended last year.”

–        Mentioned that they’ve learned a lot more about the scheme they’ve been working in and how they had to adapt a lot last year with starting by defending the spread and then having to adapt to teams running power on them. He cited the Texas game as an example of getting exposed when people go big, but then quickly reminded everyone they improved by the bowl game.

–        Still excited about the youth and talent to the team reminding us that Hayes, Chuka, and Julian will be the only three seniors on his starting defense.

–        Mike also came away impressed with the little he’s seen of Steven Parker saying his movement, coverage ability, and attitude are all in a great place for his age, but that he’s not seeing quite everything just yet. “He’s got a chance to be a great player if he just continues to keep doing what he’s doing”

–        Question came up about potential new Nickel with Julian moving to corner and Mike said that Hayes would switch to the Nickel leaving Ahmad Thomas and Hatari Byrd as the two deep men. He also wouldn’t count Parker out in that situation either to plug a hole at safety with Q playing the nickel.

–        In discussing his defense the fine line between a defense that makes plays and gives up a few, “That’s the beauty of the bowl game, we were able to stay aggressive because once our offense got going I thought we were going to be able to keep up and that makes a big difference in how you call plays and how aggressive you can be when your offense is putting up points.”

–        On Striker “We’re going to play him and move him around and use him in a lot of different places as a rush guy, but we need to drop him too… we don’t want people to know he’s always coming. You know you have to keep people honest”

–        On Quentin Hayes “The safeties are critical. They move the wrong way they’re gonna give a big play. I think with the experience Q got a year ago he’s just coming into his own and as good as he played a year ago I don’t think we’ve seen the best of him and I think this will be a great year for him. We ask him to do a lot of different things in our defense and he’s become a more consistent and more reliable p[layer and that bodes well. He needs to continue making plays. I think he has the capabilities and the athleticism to do that”

–        On Dominique Alexander “I think he’s done well coming off a great freshman year. We want to keep him focused because he can be a tremendous player for us and a playmaker. You can see, he finds the football very well and plays way beyond his years. Hopefully he continues to progress because I don’t know if I’ve seen a linebacker play that well as a true freshman as he did. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a guy like that play that well that early”

Josh Heupel

-Coach Heupel came in as excited as Coach Heupel can be about the offense and in particular how Trevor has continued his development. “He has a much better understanding of defenses. He sees rotations and pressures better. You incorporate those two things with understanding our offense at a higher level he’s much more decisive in decision making.”

-Talked briefly about Trevor’s running style and an increased effort to emphasize sliding or getting out of bounds. Trevor’s runs consist more of perimeter style runs and the occasional draw but no downhill power runs like we’ve seen Bell run in the past. While Heupel made this an important point about protecting the body, when asked about a potential run on third down he said, “When it’s third down? Be a player and go make plays. You guys remember Sam Bradford getting flipped around against Oklahoma State, right? At the end of the day you got to be a competitor and go find a way to win.”

-Obviously Trevor is set in stone as QB 1, but it sounds like the competition for the back up spot is wide open. Baker Mayfield’s eligibility is up in the air, but Heupel showered both Justice Hansen and Cody Thomas with praise saying they both progressed and how they are continuing to progress. Heupel made sure to note that if you look at the ages of the guys in the quarterback room now, Trevor is the oldest and he’s just a redshirt sophomore.

-Of course there’s plenty of Blake Bell talk “I asked him if he wanted to be part of the quarterback picture for old times sake today and he shook his head no, so he’s enjoying playing tight end and transitioned really well and you would expect him to. He understand’s coverage he understands space from seeing form the quarterbacks point of view. “ Hepuel was really impressed with Bell’s ability at tight end saying he’s been hugely impactful even in the run game. “He dramatically changes the ability for play action pass because of his size that we haven’t had since we lost James Hanna”

-Final notes from Heupel are that he mentioned both Trevor and tackle Darryl Williams have had a huge impact on the team being leaders and influencing others work ethic. He also noted that Trevor has always been that way, but now that he has the experience under his belt he’s able to speak with a louder stick.

Jay Norvell

–        Noted how much Sterling has continued to improve in every way. Believes he’s been more accountable for the whole team and not just his own game, and has become more of an outspoken guy with his younger teammates. Even said he reminded him of the way Broyles approached work in his final year with the Sooners.

–        Really impressed with Miciah Quick early on saying that he’s really mature and fast at learning things at this stage in his career.

–        Mentioned Mark Andrews as coming in and being a really big, tough, and athletic target that’s been really “difficult to handle” on the field.

–        Said Dallis Todd is a good young prospect and is excited about his future, but you definitely get the sense he’s not as far along as a couple of the other guys. In fact Norvell said, “Quick’s probably a little closer to playing right at this point than any of them”

–        Had some interesting thoughts on the continued recruitment of DGB and how that whole process began. “We are constantly looking to improve our roster. All the time. In the last couple years at some creative times of the year. We connected with Justin Brown in August before the season started; Jalen Saunders was a transfer in the spring, LaColton Bester we found at the end of spring recruiting. I think in that kind of mindset he (DGB) became availble, we had a relationship with him, we felt like we knew the factors that were important for him to have success and that we could put him in that kind of environment”

–        Norvell’s note about environment was really stressed in his time at the podium saying that they felt DGB was not unlike some of the guys they’ve had and currently had in that they have moments were they’ve been immature and made mistakes at times, but that they can still mature and turn into a fine student, person and player for them. “He’s done a great job so far. He’s learning how to do things the Oklahoma way. Which is different, it’s not the same as a lot of other places and so he’s learning an awful lot in a short amount of time”

–        Interesting note is that Norvel l said he wanted ex-Sooner Justin Brown to talk to DGB about the transition as he went through a similar switch during his collegiate career coming from Penn State. The way Norvell phrased it made it sound like this call happened, but no true confirmation on that.

–        Norvell also had praise for Jordan Smallwood saying that he had dropped close to 10 pounds and running better than he’s run his entire life. He said Smallwood is a disciplined guy who’s good at doing the little things like monitoring his diet. Said he’s a big physical guy who, like so many other guys, has the chance to make a name for himself this season.

–        Worth noting that Norvell sounds confident that with guys like Smallwood making strides that practically overnight the receivers fans will see on the field will get a lot bigger and a lot stronger, which can really help the run game.

Trevor Knight

–        On being the starter from day 1 of camp, “This year it is a little bit different. Going into the year being the guy, it is a confidence booster, which lets me focus on other things. But the same things hold true you still have to work as hard as you can. You’re still competing against yourself and you’re still competing against the guys around you.”

–        Trevor also had praise for both Sterling and Durron confirming that both the coaches and the quarterback are seeing these two guys as the top two three days into practice.

–        On being asked about being a playmaker for his team, “I consider myself a contributor now. In high school your one of the guys, you’re a playmaker. At this level you gotta get the ball in your playmakers hands so I would say being a dual-threat guy and make some plays with my feet, but I don’t want to be a playmaker I want to be a distributor.”

–        Knight echoed Heupels comments about protecting his body by sliding or taking the run out of bounds several times throughout his time at the podium.

–        On DGB “Dorial’s come in and done a great job, he’s really fit in really nicely and hes working really hard too. For his sake I hope it works out for him sooner rather than later, for any young guy you want them to come in and be able to play. To be in his position I bet it’s a little rough, but he’s come in and worked really hard and I hope it all works out.”

–        On when teammates get in trouble, “I hurt for them. We all make mistakes, you know. It’s just how you respond to it. Obviously being an athlete you have to put yourself on the pedestal and not do some things you shouldn’t do and have a conscious mind of that, but things are going to happen and I’m not here to bash them or anything like that. I want to be here for them, that’s what a team is for. So I’m not on one side or the other, I hurt for them and I hope they can work through their mistakes”

–        Knight also made it a point to say that this team is the closest group of guys he’s been around since he’s been at OU. Yeah that’s only three years, but he believes it’s a special group of guys.

–        Trevor and Blake are still great friends and with everything Trevor and the coaches have to say about Blake, we’re expecting to see this become a consistent connection going forward.

Eric Striker

–        One of the first things that should strike fear into the hearts of OU’s 2014 opponents was Strikers early point that he’s gotten even stronger and faster than he was last year citing Coach Schmidty’s summer workouts as being hugely productive for the entire team.

–        On moving around in the defense, “It’s nothing really new. I’m really used to it. Still dropping and blitzing, there’s not much of a change. Playing a little bit of man and that’s the only really change”

–        When asked if the move was for NFL hopes, “This is for the team. This is the position I’m at to help my team win and has nothing to do with the NFL.” Boom.

–        Eric definitely is holding himself to higher standards to help the defense improve and said that the defense as a whole can improve in 2014 by just staying calm in situations when faced with high-tempo offenses and staying true to their assignments.

–        When asked about the perception that Oklahoma Football is all about offense over the past few years Striker looked astonished. “Has it been that way? Just straight offense? I thought the defense here has always been good. We look at it as if the Offense can put 7 points on the board then that’s good enough”