By GUERIN EMIG Sports Writer on May 10, 2012, at 10:32 AM Updated on 5/10 at 10:32 AM
OU SPORTS
Cornerback Aaron Colvin returned for his senior year at Oklahoma to win some games, win some awards and put himself in prime ...
Keeping with the Big 12 vs. SEC theme of the week, I found something pretty cool from a year ago, when the two conferences ...
We're still more than a year and a half from the first College Football Playoff, and the first CFP selection committee, and ...
It seems like I just sat down to blog about the effect losing Kameel Jackson might have on the Oklahoma football team. My determination then: Not much of one… provided the wide receivers remaining in the program could set a fairly high leadership bar.
Soooo...
Here we are three days later. Trey Franks and Jaz Reynolds have joined Jackson outside the program with indefinite suspensions. This time, the effect is very real and extremely dangerous. Here's how...
* The Sooners are putting even more on Kenny Stills
Broyles' understudy the past two years, with 122 catches for 1,635 yards and 13 touchdowns, was going to be a major player before this mess hit the fan. Now, he's right back in the glare that blinded him some last season after Broyles hurt his knee.
A month ago after one of OU's spring practices, Stills said: "I hoped that I could go in there and step up and make the plays that Ryan did, but I felt like I failed to do that."
He admitted he felt the pressure of expectations, from media as much as opposing defenses. It was different, and it was difficult.
Going forward without Broyles, it might have been nice to have a little help from Reynolds, Franks and Jackson. Instead, it's Stills and a bunch of kids. Extremely talented kids, but you get the point. Not easy.
* There aren't a lot of places to turn for relief
With a somewhat gutted receiving corps, offensive coordinators Josh Heupel and Jay Norvell are likely pulling all-nighters. It's not quite as drastic as OU losing Jermaine Gresham and Sam Bradford before the '09 season ever really got started, but there has to be some wrench-turning going on.
The question is, What can the co-OCs do?
In their perfect world, freshmen Trey Metoyer, Durron Neal and Sterling Shepard live up to their bios (Metoyer already did some of that this spring). That way, game plans don't have to be tweaked too much.
Coaches won't know about the kiddie corps for a while, though. In the meantime, they could consider involving their tight ends a little more.
But then OU's tight ends are less experienced than their wide receivers.
They could consider ramping up their rushing attack.
But then with Dominique Whaley still mending from his broken ankle, and no sure thing in the backfield without him, how confident should they be about that?
It's an issue.
No, make that issues.
* The program vibe, thought to be improving, just took another huge hit
We've been over this before, but Bob Stoops is really battling some locker room/character/behavioral/entitlement problems. He referenced them repeatedly last December. When players started leaving the program around then, it appeared Stoops at least had a handle on them.
I asked him the day after the Insight Bowl if he thought the program had been, essentially, cleansed. His response, basically: "We'll see."
He could hope, or even assume. But he couldn't know for sure.
Well, we all know the answer to that six months later. It doesn't seem to bode well for 2012, and it's got to be driving Stoops completely mad.
-- Guerin Emig
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