Tulsa World: OU Notebook: Sam's town

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OU Notebook: Sam's town

Sam Bradford

By JOHN E. HOOVER, World Sports Writer
Published: 8/2/2009 2:23 AM
Last Modified: 8/2/2009 5:44 AM

NBA star Kevin Durant was recently asked who's the most popular athlete in Oklahoma City, him or Blake Griffin. Neither, Durant said. Sam Bradford, Durant explained, is the king of Oklahoma City.

Bradford laughed at that story and recounted last year's All-College Tournament, where he sat with Durant for a few minutes.

They actually played against each other at a summer tournament in Las Vegas while the two were in high school.

"Oh, he was good. He was really good," Bradford said. "No, I didn't guard him. I didn't want that. That would've been a mismatch."

Football theory 101: OU coach Bob Stoops said "there could be something to" the idea that Southeastern Conference teams have better defenses while Big 12 teams have better offenses.

"Overall they could have better defensive personnel, I don't know how to quantify that," Stoops said. "But also, you look at quality of quarterbacks you're competing against and overall skill level. I know it's easier to play better defense when you're not going against a great quarterback. How to determine which is which, I'm not going into that. I've defended a fair amount of offenses and when that guy behind center isn't special, it's always a little bit easier just in general."

Internal motivation: One of the hottest topics from Big 12 Media Days last week was whether Texas had motivation to beat Oklahoma on Oct. 17 because the Longhorns defeated the Sooners last year, only to watch OU play for the Big 12 and national titles.

"I'm sure that probably hypes it up on their end a lot more than it does for us," Bradford said. "I'm sure it gives them motivation because they're saying, 'Hey, we beat you guys last year and you guys still won the Big 12 and got to play for a national championship.'

"But I think we have plenty of motivation in the fact that we didn't win the game last year. They beat us last year. I think that's motivation in itself to come out on the winning side of that game this year."

Tiebreaker talk: Some can't get past the idea that OU closed the season so strong that it passed Texas in the polls; that UT's head-to-head win should have been the deciding factor. Jermaine Gresham is not among them.

"I think there was a tiebreaker set before the season started. Whatever happened, happened and we won the tiebreaker. I don't know who makes the rules. I just play football," Gresham said.

"They beat us earlier in the year, right? Texas put a stomping on the University of Oklahoma and I was part of it. It didn't feel good. You may think they're a better team, but they lost to Tech and we beat Tech. I don't know how it all works. I just play football. I'm sorry it happened that way. I feel for them; I honestly do."

Defensive goals: With nine full-time starters back, many expect the Sooner defense to be the strength of the team this season.

Gerald McCoy has boiled down his team's defensive goals for 2009.

"We just want to be a real stingy defense, real selfish and not allow anything," he said. "When Tommie (Harris) and those guys were here, they had so many All-Americans because they were so selfish and stingy. They didn't give up anything. They were like dogs on the field.

"We want to keep that legacy up. We want to be that type of defense where if you watch us on film, you're like, 'Man, I really want to get past this week and get on to the next game.' We want to put fear in the offenses' hearts. That's the kind of defense we want to have. 'Those guys are animals. We're going to have some trouble with them.' That's the statement we want to leave." By JOHN E. HOOVER, World Sports Writer

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