The Football Brainiacs

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If you’ve spent anytime online of late, you know team related notes from this bowl season have been a little sparse. And we are still digging for some additional info we hope to have later tonight or tomorrow. But, for now, here’s a few quick notes we’ve been able to track down:

– First name that has come up as someone who has stood out thus far is true freshman cornerback, Jordan Thomas. This really doesn’t come as much of a surprise since he’s a young guy who was just starting to get some reps during the season, but it sounds like he’s had some nice practices leading up to the bowl game. We had a source tell us they didn’t see Thomas get beat a single time during the reps they witnessed.

– Not sure how his bowl practice has been, but we talked to a friend who worked with Marcus Green just before the trip (this person also trained Green some in high school) and was really impressed with the jump the OU true fresman has made during his first year in Norman.

Before the season, we were told that Marcus was someone who came in and really surprised the coaches. And even though he would eventually redshirt, he got a number of early reps in fall camp. It sounds like he continues to develop, which is always welcome news when you’re playing in the Big 12 and need to have at least four or five legit cover guys.

– A lot of what we heard about practice as of late hasn’t been contact based. It’s been more walk through, special teams, and 3rd down/goal line situations. Which is not to say the team has done no contact work, rather we just don’t have any info on that particular part of practices at this time.

– No surprise necessarily, but we’ve been told that the defensive line was consistently rotating two full groups, despite the scare with backup NG, Matthew Romar. You know Jerry Montgomery is going to have depth to run out there. Haven’t heard much on the young guys though as it sounds like most of the reps are going to the first and second team groups.

– Along those same lines, we’re told the LBs and DBs have been somewhat similar with most of the reps going to the 1’s. Some of the younger guys got in for a few situations but being as those groups substitute less and are already kind of young to begin with, it’s probably to be expected that the 2nd and 3rd team guys didn’t get a ton of reps. We’re trying to figure out if any of the young LBs stood out like Tay Evans or Curtis Bolton, but again we’ve heard their reps would have been limited.

– We did receive one not so pleasant not regarding practices, but we’d definitely advise you to take it with a healthy grain of salt as it’s just the opinion of one individual. But this person felt the intensity just wasn’t particularly high in practice. Our source said, in their opinion, it felt like a lot of guys just didn’t necessarily seem like they wanted to be there.

Whether that’s true or not, one would have to think that these players going into the season with such lofty goals and instead finding themselves in a middle or upper middle bowl is a bit of a let down.

– We are also trying to find out if Taylor McNamara made it out for the bowl game. We were told a couple months back that he was seeking and received approval to transfer. If he made it to the bowl game, however, then hopefully that means there could be a chance he changed his mind about leaving.

– UPDATE (3:01 pm): We have been able to confirm that Taylor McNamara did indeed make the trip to Orlando.

– UPDATE (3:03 pm): We are also told that Samaje Perine is looking good so far in bowl practices. We figured we’d note this because he had the injury at the end of the season. But it sounds like it isn’t bothering him.

– UPDATE (Mon., 9:53 am): We got a few more notes from another source. His take on the bowl season practices are that he hasn’t really seen a lot of guys standing out. That isn’t to say people aren’t necessarily playing well…he just means no one has really separated themselves. He did go on to mention that Parker has had some pretty good bowl practices and also mentioned Jordan Thomas. He said that Thomas still has a ways to go but will be really good in time. Also, noted that Bond has been looking better and better rushing the passer but as expected he is struggling a bit when he’s asked to drop in coverage. The more we talk to folks the more we get the sense that there isn’t necessarily some unknown name person that is just blowing people’s minds at the moments. It’s really more the young guys you expect to be growing like Parker, Perine, Thomas, etc.