Stoops on 20 missed tackles, Daryl Williams injury and people who 'don't know football'
Published: 11/19/2012 5:14 PM
Last Modified: 11/19/2012 5:15 PM
Takeaways from Bob Stoops’ Monday press conference …
--- Stoops said the Sooners missed 20 tackles in Saturday’s 50-49 victory at West Virginia. The instigator of many of the whiffs? West Virginia wide receiver-turned-running back Tavon Austin.
“When you break it down, (Austin) has 21 carries for 350 yards. The other guys have 20 carries for 60 and they ran the same plays,” Stoops said. “In the end, I understand, we definitely need to make some adjustments and that’s part of it for us, what we’re asking our guys to do.”
Stoops was asked how he defines missed tackles.
‘It depends on how much space. When you’re in position to make the tackle and you don’t make it, it’s pretty obvious what a missed tackle is,” Stoops said. “But, also, we’re aware that in some instances, we can do some things better technique-wise in the amount of space we’re giving a guy to tackle. Again, it’s a little bit of everybody and what we need to make some improvement (in).’
Again, though, 20 missed tackles?
‘We haven’t had that in a long, long time,” Stoops said. “But, again, the interesting part, I don’t want to sit here and not give Tavon Austin … his credit.”
Stoops was finally asked if he needed to do something radical to change things up.
“I think we’ve had a little too much faith with some of our base structure that we played,” he said. “We’ll make some changes.”
--- Offensive tackle Daryl Williams will miss the season’s final two games with a sprained MCL (medial collateral ligament), but could return for a bowl game, Stoops said.
Williams went down on the seventh play of the West Virginia victory. The OU coach was pleased with how the line did with the sophomore on the bench.
“Through the game, they did a really good job,” Stoops said. “I thought Landry had three or four occasions where he escaped the pocket and bought extra time and made some excellent throws on the run.”
--- Stoops was stunned when a reporter said people were still criticizing quarterback Landry Jones following the West Virginia game.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me. Again, there are a lot of ignorant people. People don’t know. People are pretty foolish in what their opinions are. I don’t know how they understand football,” Stoops said. “But any guy, away from home, that goes 38 of 51 for 554 yards with a scoring drive to win at the end with six TDs to one interception.
“People don’t know football. So, so what? There’s a lot of ignorance out there in the world when it comes to different things. They may be bright in whatever they do but they’re not very bright in football.’
Jones set a school record with his passing yardage and tied his school record with six scoring passes.
--- Stoops was not caught off-guard when Baylor defeated Kansas State. The Sooners are now tied with the Wildcats atop the Big 12 Conference, but K-State owns the tiebreaker.
“With all respect to Kansas State, I think what I want to say is it isn’t surprising because of parity throughout the conference,” Stoops said. “If you’re just off a little bit it doesn’t take much for anyone to beat you. Certainly a team that’s explosive as Baylor is offensively, anything can happen.”
Stoops will not talk about the Big 12 race.
“The only opportunity we have at any of that is to play well and win this week; that’s what we’ll talk about,” Stoops said.
--- Player’s quoteboard:
“It was the game we had to sit there and be in bad moods. We had to wait three, four weeks to play in the bowl game. We had to watch them celebrate winning the Big 12 off of us. Watch them get to go to the Fiesta Bowl. I actually saw their bus because I stayed in Phoenix for New Year’s Eve. I drove by the hotel they were staying at. It kinda put a bad taste in my mouth.” – Oklahoma’s David King, on taking OSU loss personally last year,
“I think we’re going to have to.” – Landry Jones, on if he is OK with cheering for Texas to beat Kansas State.
Written by
Eric Bailey
Sports Writer
