By GUERIN EMIG Sports Writer on Sep 2, 2013, at 1:19 PM Updated on 9/02 at 1:19 PM
OU SPORTS
You figured this might be a big week for Oklahoma well before the season ever began.
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Projected Oklahoma starters Chuka Ndulue and Cortez Johnson come off suspension this week. They can play defense against West Virginia Saturday night in Norman… if need be. That's no automatic, based on Bob Stoops' comments Monday afternoon.
Ndulue, Stoops said, "will have to earn his way on the field." That might not be so easy given the performance of OU's defensive linemen in the 34-0 blanking of ULM last Saturday.
Defensive end Charles Tapper was outstanding. Defensive tackle Jordan Phillips was practically the same. End Geneo Grissom played well. Linebacker-disguised-as-end Eric Striker was extremely active. Tackle Quincy Russell collapsed ULM's interior more than once.
It turns out the Sooners might just have some playmaking defensive linemen even without Ndulue, their leading sack man a year ago who has experimented both inside and out since last spring. The early-week guess is he plays against West Virginia, but does not start.
It sounds like that's a good bet for Johnson as well, now that he has given up his starting cornerback spot to freshman Zack Sanchez. I asked Stoops if Sanchez will hold it another week, even with Johnson due to return.
"Yeah, right now he will," Stoops answered. "It's been tight all along anyway. Zack has played really well through the summer. It's exciting to see him playing like that."
Sanchez didn't surrender much at all in the season opener. He fell right in line with an OU defense that hardly resembled the one from the end of the 2012 season.
It figured that Mike Stoops would need Ndulue and Johnson to return to really start putting the pieces back together, but that hardly seemed the case coming out of the opener. The two players could be viewed more as a luxury than a necessity, a pretty decent thing just one game into a new season.
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