The Football Brainiacs

There have been reports that LB Frank Shannon might be out for the Baylor game this evening. Thought it sounds like he may try to give it a go. If he can play great!

If he can’t the Sooners will have now lost three of their best players in the front 6/7 (Phillips, Nelson and Shannon). True freshman Jordan Evans would likely start in Franks place and he would be alongside another true freshman, Dom Alexander.

It’s tough to continue to lose that kind of experience, talent and leadership on the field but Evans is a cover guy and could perhaps thrive against a team like Baylor. Evans excels at playing in space. He is also very disciplined for a true freshman. Baylor will split those receivers out really wide so Evans may be playing outside the box a lot which probably plays to his strength at this point in his very short career. I think he’ll be fine against the zone read as well but it’s hard to gauge how he will matchup inside against the run. Remember we reported last week that a recent sickness brought Evans down to only 207 lbs and Baylor has a great interior lineman that could be problematic if he gets to the second level. If the D-line can keep him pretty clean then he should be fine. But that obviously remains to be seen.

Bottom line is, if he plays disciplined, he has some tools that can be effective against what Baylor likes to do. But to me this game still comes down to whether Oklahoma can pound Baylor’s defense. If Oklahoma can’t run the ball or chooses to abandon it then the defense with or without Shannon probably wasn’t going to save the game.

BOOMER!