The Football Brainiacs

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With the first couple of weeks of fall camp now complete, OU fans (or at least those smart enough to also be TFB readers) have started to get a better sense of who/what they might see as the Sooners prepare to open this 2016 season.

Naturally there will be some carryover in this to our “2016 Breakout Candidates” post from a month or so back, but we also didn’t know some (most?) of what we know now. So why not revisit things based on the latest information available, right?

So with that said, here are the guys I’m most looking forward to seeing this season. Let us know in the comments who you’re most looking forward to seeing.

* Mark Andrews – I’m going ALL IN on redshirt sophomore. Sure, that’s not exactly going out on a limb considering the role he’s expected to play in this offense. But weren’t we all expecting the same to happen last year only to come out of game after game asking “why didn’t the coaches get Andrews involved more?”

Well if I can continue with the Captain Obvious line of thinking, I expect Sterling Shepard now playing on Sundays has created the perfect opportunity for Andrews to be the nightmare matchup, and one the coaches will actually look to exploit, we all wanted him to be last year.

I’m thinking 50+ catches (he had 19 last year) and 800 or so yards (318 last year). I won’t be amazed if his TD total (7) is somewhat comparable to what he did in 2015, if for no other reason than you still have Samaje Perine & Joe Mixon who I expect will get the majority of the red zone opportunities.

* AD Miller – Yes, I still have every intention of being “that guy.” And based on everything coming out of fall camp, I’ve been a number of reasons to have just as much confidence in that prediction now as I did back then.

* Rodney Anderson – Of course you have the aforementioned Perine & Mixon duo, but people have been raving about Anderson this fall and really ever since he arrived on campus a year ago. He was on the field for a reason last year in Knoxville, albeit on special teams when he was injured, even with Perine, Mixon and Alex Ross on that 2015 roster.

And with no disrespect intended to the now departed Ross, I think Anderson is going to be a considerable upgrade as the “third” running back. In a perfect world, you’d like him to have a different type of game than the two guys ahead of him, and he does to a certain extent. But talent is also talent and by all accounts Anderson is not lacking in that department.

Expect Anderson to get more carries than Ross did in 2015 because he has looked really good in fall camp so far, but also because OU is looking at the very real possibility of losing both Perine and Mixon after this season.

* Neville Gallimore – If you clicked that link up top, you already know I had Du’Vonta Lampkin as one of my ‘breakout’ candidates. And I have no problem honoring that original pick, but the guy on the d-line everyone seems to be taking about so far is the big man from Canada.

He has the ability to be a dominant player up front, something we all know after recent bowl games the Sooners are in desperate need of, and by all accounts the light switched on for him this spring/summer. Now whether he becomes that type of player in 2016 remains to be seen, but I can’t wait until we get the chance to see him out there for the first time.

* Michiah Quick – This one is clearly a product of fall camp and, simply put, I want to see what the hype coming out of camp is all about. If the TFB practice reports are to be believed (and I have a source that tells me they should be), then the coaches seem to have given Quick every opportunity to succeed and, in turn, he has taken advantage.

Whether or not Quick should have made this move a year (or two) ago is irrelevant at this point. He’s there now and if he can help contribute, then all the better.