NORMAN — Bob Stoops' "weak link" remark directed at Oklahoma's offensive line last spring was literally staggering.

"It was like somebody caught you with a right hook," said guard Brian Simmons. "I was like, 'Whoa.' "

It seemed Simmons and fellow linemen like Trent Williams, Cory Brandon, Jarvis Jones, Stephen Good and Ben Habern had a choice to make.

"We talked about, OK, maybe if we weren't having a good spring, have a good summer," OU offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson said of the maligned line, "so we can have a great preseason."

The summer reviews were positive. Habern, a potential heir to four-year starting center Jon Cooper, began texting quarterback Sam Bradford to work in extra snaps. Williams and Simmons, the senior combination on the left side of the line, began shepherding underclassmen.

"They were the ones trying to get us going," said Good, a sophomore expected to help replace Cooper as well as 2008 starting guards Duke Robinson and Brandon Walker. "They were the ones telling us, 'Hey, let's go, let's do this right.' "

So has the encouraging summer fed into preseason camp, as Wilson hoped?

"We're still a work in progress," he reported. "But it's been a good attitude and a good work ethic, and they're there every day and they're going at it every day. I think the talent's good. I think initially we didn't like their attitude and their work habits.

"But right now through the preseason they've been as good as anyone. That's very pleasing."

A lot of the progression has been natural. Last spring, Williams was coming off his third year of starting, but the only other lineman to have started at OU was Simmons (two games in both 2007 and '08). Everybody was getting situated.

Now?

"Guys are starting to communicate and talk," Simmons said. "The offensive line isn't just a bunch of big guys running in one direction. You've got to have communication."

Last spring, newcomers like Good, Habern and Jones, who was coming off a redshirt season after transferring from LSU, were a bit shellshocked by the Sooners' loaded defensive front seven. Now, they're used to blocking the likes of Gerald McCoy and Jeremy Beal. And they're much better for it.

"We feel like if we can block 'GK' (McCoy) in practice, who is probably one of the best D-tackles in the nation, we can block anybody," Williams said. "Auston English coming off the edge, Jeremy Beal coming off the other edge... Adrian Taylor is a force inside... Yeah, we have our hands full every practice. It definitely makes us better, though."

Jones, in the process, became "the big surprise of training camp," according to Simmons. "He just has a little tenacity, a little mean streak to him."

Good became, in Simmons' eyes, "probably the hardest worker on the offensive line."

Williams, the group's All-American candidate at left tackle, became as big a handful as he was at right tackle the past two years.

"You've got to come with it if you're going against him," defensive end Frank Alexander said.

So the weak link is getting stronger, practice by practice. Truth is, the drive to improve stems from Stoops' comments, at least in part.

"When Coach came out and said that in front of the media, it kind of got our attention," Habern said. "We were like, 'Wow. We definitely need to step it up.' It helped us change a lot. It helped us want to push ourselves harder."

Not that that's the sole motivation.

"As much as anything we've addressed (the line's development) with some competition, and getting on the field and coming to work," Wilson said. "Maybe that's some motivation, getting called out, and we've talked a lot about that. But I think competition has been the best thing."

"It's like a heavyweight fight," Simmons noted. "Every day."

And now, unlike last spring, OU's linemen are punching back.

No new status update on OU’s Balogun