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OU could take cues from ' Cats
Sooners flounder, but KSU excels at special teams play.
  
By GUERIN EMIG World Sports Writer
Published: 10/21/2008  2:06 AM
Last Modified: 10/21/2008  3:25 AM

Sooners flounder, but KSU excels at special teams play.



NORMAN — It is hard to tell if the Oklahoma Sooners are playing special teams or Whac-A-Mole, the arcade favorite in which you beat one of those plastic critters down only to see several others pop up.

Saturday against Kansas, OU finally went forward in kick returns and coverage, only to have Jimmy Stevens miss two of three field goals and knuckleball some extra points about halfway up the goalposts.

The whole operation remains a problem.

Now for a potential solution: OU should raid Kansas State's playbook while in Manhattan this weekend and steal just one word.

"We-fense."

"In 2006 when we got here, Raheem Morris was our defensive coordinator. He had come from Tampa Bay," K-State coach Ron Prince explained. "One of the things he brought with him was this idea that when you play in the kicking game, this was a buzz thing or phrase that symbolized what we believed. It was easier for everybody to understand. You have offense, you have defense, but this is the one time where everybody on the team gets a chance to play together."

It might have been corny had the Wildcats not bought in. But they bought in, all in.

K-State leads the nation with seven blocked kicks this season. The Sooners, by comparison, have blocked one.

K-State has scored five special teams touchdowns, four after blocked punts and one on a punt return. The Sooners have scored none.

K-State ranks fourth nationally in kickoff coverage. The Sooners rank 110th.

K-State kicker Brooks Rossman, 7-of-9 on field goals after hitting a 53-yarder at Colorado last week, is the Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Week. Stevens is 2-of-4 on field goals and also has missed a pair of PATs.

"The top priority for us coming here was to establish ourselves as a very good special teams organization," Prince continued. "We felt that in the short term, one of the best ways for us to get on the map and win some games and make some things happen would be in the kicking game, while we were still learning our offensive and defensive systems. We felt in the long run if we could establish that, that would become a tradition very similar to what had occurred here before we arrived."

The Wildcats' special teams excellence, in fact, dates back to a time when a young co-defensive coordinator arrived to help head coach Bill Snyder in that area.

"As much as anything, we were just trying to create points," said OU coach Bob Stoops, who assisted Snyder from 1989-95. "We were a little stronger, maybe, overall defensively early on than we were offensively, and it was a way to create some points and field position. We felt like maybe if we roughed (the punter) we still had a great defense, maybe we'll get off the field the next three downs."

It was about attitude then. It still is now.

"I was on the punt-block team as a redshirt freshman. It was a place to make some plays and make a name for yourself," Ian Campbell, the K-State all-conference defensive end who blocked a field goal at Colorado, told the Manhattan Mercury. "You might only play a few snaps, but you're involved in a lot of hidden yardage."

Stoops, for reasons past and present, is fully aware of what he's facing this Saturday. He emphasizes special teams play every week, but, he allowed, "it'll get extra attention this week."



Guerin Emig 581-8355
guerin.emig@tulsaworld.com
By GUERIN EMIG World Sports Writer

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Shepard, (10/22/2008 12:27:06 AM)
It's a tough nut to crack working out the issues on Special teams. I think they need to put starters in there on coverage, change kickers, and let one of the stud WRs do the kick & punt returns. I'm comfortable with Iglesias, Johnson, or RB Murray, and what about Ryan Broyles? Those guys could turn it all around for you in a heartbeat.
 

 
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