Tulsa World: Notebook

TULSA WORLD HOMEPAGE | Sunday, November 22, 2009 | WIRELESS

OU | OSU | TU | ORU | HIGH SCHOOLS | COLLEGE FOOTBALL | COLLEGE BASKETBALL | NFL | FANTASY | OUTDOORS | GOLF | PROS | ALL

HOMEPAGES

SPORTS EXTRA BLOGS

		Sports Editor Mike Strain
		Sports Columnist Dave Sittler
		The Picker Entertaining & Infuriating

LOCAL PROS

ALL SPORTS

PHOTOS & VIDEOS

OUTDOORS

FIND A STORY

Search the World's archives

EMAIL ALERTS

SOCIAL MEDIA

RSS FEEDS

CONTACT US

BUY PHOTOS & PAGES

Buy a published photo by clicking the "Order this Picture" link on the photo. For a full-color page reprint, call 732-8198 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday or order online.

TULSA WORLD

ADVERTISE ON SPORTS EXTRA

Learn more about the site.

Newspaper View Print this story

Bookmark

Notebook

By JOHN E. HOOVER, World sports writer
Published: 9/4/2008 2:12 AM
Last Modified: 9/4/2008 3:21 AM

Cincinnati kid: Fans who think the Sooners are in for a non-conference walk-through like they were last season — 79-10 over North Texas, 51-13 over Miami, 56-3 over Utah State and 62-21 over Tulsa — would be wise to look a little closer at Cincinnati. Bob Stoops certainly has.

"I think their quarterback, (Dustin) Grutza — they have all their receivers back, and he's started a couple of years (2005-06 he passed for 3,431 yards, 20 TDs and 24 interceptions). It's not like he's a first-time starter. He has excellent experience as well running the offense and he's played well. Last week I think he had three or four touchdown passes and he really played well for them.

"It's a big challenge. They've probably got one of the best, if not the best, punter in the country from a year ago. They tied for the (national) lead in takeaways a year ago and I can go on and on. We recognize it as a major challenge in this season. We're just focusing on having a great week of practice and being ready to play on Saturday."

Getting serious: OU's coaches respect the Bearcats, and the Sooner players are buying in.

"I think our practice (Monday) there was a lot of intensity," said quarterback Sam Bradford. "It went a little longer than usual. We know this is a big game. I think it's something we've talked about all summer. We've known they're coming in here, we've known they've had us marked on their calendars for quite a while now, so we know this is a very big game for them and it's also

a big game for us."

Points taken: Oklahoma lost a shutout on the scoreboard against Tennessee-Chattanooga early in the third quarter when new deep snapper James Winchester's punt snap sailed over Mike Knall's head, and Knall chased it down and knocked it out of the end zone for a two-point safety. Winchester — son of former OU punter Mike Winchester and a Sooner walk-on — was one of two snappers Oklahoma used.

"Ben (Hampton) was excellent on all the PATs," Stoops said. "James was a little excited on his first one. The rest were perfect. I asked him what happened. He said, 'I don't know, coach, it felt perfect.' I said, 'It sure wasn't.' You want to be excited, but you have to control it and just execute. The guy's been fabulous for three weeks, so hopefully that was just a one-time deal."

Sims update: Junior college transfer David Sims, a safety from Butte (Calif) College, still has not finished his academic work and has been unable to enroll at Oklahoma.

OU expects to know his status by the weekend, OU spokesman Kenny Mossman said.

Tickets remain: A limited number of tickets is expected to be available on Thursday morning for OU's Saturday game against Cincinnati. Tickets are $62 each and can be purchased by phone at 800-456-GoOU or online at tulsaworld.com/ousports. Kickoff is 2:30 p.m. By JOHN E. HOOVER, World sports writer

Newspaper View Print this story

Bookmark

COMMENTS

Add your comment

Show: Most Recent Comment First

0 comments have been made for this team so far. Tell us what you think below!

Reporting Comments

If you see a comment that violates our terms and conditions, please help us by clicking the "Report this Comment" link next to a comment. That will alert the web staff to review the comment. Thank you. -- Web Editor Jason Collington

Add Your Comment
In order to post a comment on this article, you must sign in to Tulsaworld.com. If you do not have a site account, you can create an account for free.