Sooners will feel Habern's pain in the Cotton Bowl
Published: 9/26/2011 10:27 PM
Last Modified: 9/28/2011 3:05 PM
Ben Habern.
It's the following Saturday when the Sooners are going to feel their captain's absence.
I'm reminded of the 2009 opener. With Habern bothered by a bad back, Brody Eldridge started at center. Eldridge is considered the best pure blocker of the Bob Stoops era, and yet his presence couldn't keep OU's offensive line from being an absolute mess that night.
The Sooners faced an inspired opponent in BYU. They played before a hoarse Cowboys Stadium crowd of 75,000-plus. They needed a security blanket starting over the ball.
And while Habern was entering only his second season, he could have provided just that.
Two years later, the Sooners approach the Texas game without their anchor. Texas will be more inspired than BYU, and the full house at the Cotton Bowl will be a more frenzied scene than Jerry World.
Habern is fully aware of that. A year ago, he set the scene for the Denton (Texas) Record-Chronicle: "It's amazing. When we get on that bus Friday, we get a police escort all the way into Dallas. When we get there, there's cameras and fans everywhere. On game day, driving up to the Cotton Bowl, there's fans lined up and banging on the bus. When you walk out of that tunnel, you're just going downhill and all of a sudden you just see this huge bowl of fans split right down the center and, as you keep walking, they just keep getting bigger and bigger. There's nothing like it."
Habern breathed deep, settled in and helped OU win last year's Red River rumble. He's been helping the Sooners settle in and win games since that '09 opener, basically.
That will be a big missing ingredient until he returns from his broken forearm. It will be felt biggest of all in the Cotton Bowl Oct. 8.
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
