Oklahoma Sooners

The Big 12 has released the league's preseason poll, as voted on by a panel of media covering the conference.

Here's how the media picked the Big 12 to play out in 2012 (first-place votes in parentheses):

• 1. Oklahoma (32) -- 396 total points
• 2. West Virginia (7) -- 339
• 3. Texas -- 291
• 4. Oklahoma State -- 267
• 5. TCU (1) -- 260
• 6. Kansas State (1) -- 257
• 7. Baylor -- 162
• 8. Iowa State -- 121
• 9. Texas Tech -- 116
• 10. Kansas -- 46

Total points are on a system of 10 points for a first-place vote, nine points for a second-place vote, etc.

I'll have some thoughts on the poll next week when I return from vacation, and I'll also reveal my own personal ballot later on this month.

My one thought for now? Doubting Bill Snyder? Beware, voters. I'm shocked. More on Monday.

Until then, what did you think of the media's picks for 2012?

Five Sooners made the preseason All-Big 12 football team and incoming freshman receiver Trey Metoyer was named the league's preseason Newcomer of the Year, the Big 12 announced on Wednesday.

Receiver Kenny Stills, guard Gabe Ikard, center Ben Habern, safety Tony Jefferson and defensive tackle Jamarkus McFarland were named to the All-Big 12 team.

The team is voted on by members of the media, including SoonerNation's Jake Trotter, who detailed his ballot on our forum.

Here's the full team. What do you think?

The last two years, quarterback guru George Whitfield Jr. has tutored both Cam Newton and Andrew Luck, who both went No. 1 in the NFL draft. Whitfield’s latest pupil has been Oklahoma quarterback Landry Jones, who flew to California to work with Whitfield over spring break, then spent another week working with Whitfield in Norman in May.

After retiring from arena league football in 2005, Whitfield scoured the country, sitting in on meetings and watching practices of the major programs in college football. Along the way, Whitfield picked up a tip here, a drill there. By 2010, Whitfield had taken on Ben Roethlisberger as a client, and Whitfield’s curriculum began to create a buzz among the NFL and college football.

As he prepared for this week’s Elite 11 finals in Redondo Beach, Calif., Whitfield spoke to SoonerNation about his training with Jones:

Jake Trotter: How did you get hooked up with Landry Jones?

George Whitfield Jr.: I’ve known of Landry for quite awhile. Once his season ended, his dad and I had talked. Landry was going through the decision of ‘Do I come out, do I stay in, do I come out?’ type of deal. He had a very big decision. Once he made that decision -- and I thought it was a great decision for him -- he had talked to his dad and said, ‘Hey, this is the route we’re going to do.’ He said, ‘I really like what coach (Whitfield) is saying, I like his philosophy.’ He didn’t want to wait until after his next season to begin working on some of the things he wanted to work on.

So he touched base about coming out to California for spring break. At the time we talked, I hadn’t even met with Andrew (Luck) yet, so I thought we’d be in San Diego. Obviously Andrew (Luck’s pro day) situation developed to where we would be working out at Stanford. I called Landry back and told him I was going to be with Andrew at Stanford. He said, ‘Can I work out before and after Andrew? I’d love to still come out there.’ I hadn’t even thought about that. He said, ‘My dad and I will be there.’

And they came, and it was a great experience, from minute one. The guy is humble, grounded, a grinder. He sent emails with things he wanted to work on, things he thought he could improve, a bunch of questions about the quarterback position. The guy is meticulous. I thought, ‘Man, if he has this approach before he hits the field, what’s it gonna be like when he gets on the field?’ It proved out right. We had two great camps.

Trotter: Where is Landry special as a quarterback, and where can he and has he improved this offseason?

(Read full post)

Grantland.com has a feature on the life of Oklahoma offensive tackles/tight ends coach Bruce Kittle, who has lived an interesting life. Kittle is a former Iowa offensive lineman who worked as an attorney, mediator and pastor before coming to the Sooners in 2010 as the recruiting coordinator. Here's an excerpt:

Here's a list of things you can find at the Barry Switzer Center at the University of Oklahoma: a BCS crystal football. An inspirational quote from John Madden. A Sam Bradford statue. An assistant coach who reads the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The coach is Bruce Kittle, who's in charge of the Sooners' offensive tackles and tight ends. Kittle appears before me one afternoon with a shaved head and a goatee and an outfit that looks like it was bought that morning at the OU team store. He's a strange pilgrim in Norman. When Kittle was hired a couple years ago, he'd just returned from a vision quest that spanned two decades and had nothing to do with football. "I wanted to explore some of the unanswered questions the universe presents," he says. Kittle had spent time as a pastor. A prison mediator. A lawyer. I've come to Norman to ask Kittle why he once bolted from college football and how odd it must feel — after exploring the mysteries of the universe — to have returned.

Let's start at the beginning. In 1981, Kittle was a 290-pound offensive tackle for the Iowa Hawkeyes. He was the kind of thoughtful, tough guy who gets called "head-coaching material." "Overachiever," says Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, a former teammate. Translated: not an All-American, but destined for big things.

Read the rest of the story here.

Monday, Merv Johnson discussed his time as an assistant at Notre Dame. In the final half of his Q&A, OU’s director of football operations and color analyst for the Sooner Radio Network spoke with SoonerNation about his role in getting Troy Aikman to Norman, the best player he ever coached and his thoughts on the upcoming season:

Jake Trotter: You were the first one at OU to realize how special Troy Aikman was. How did that come about?

Merv Johnson: He was a kid from a small town over in Henryetta that really was a fine-looking specimen, all-around athlete, all sports and everything. Found out, we got him to agree to come to camp. I told Barry [Switzer], you need to look at him. Barry watched him throw, and that was it. There was no arm twisting. He watched him throw the football, and he was 100 percent sold.

Trotter: How did you hear about Aikman?

Johnson: He was kind of a local phenom over there, we get those things all the time. But once you go and eyeball him and see what a physical specimen he is, his personality, then you really get excited.

Trotter: Aikman is one of many Oklahoma kids who went on to great college careers. OU obviously has taken a more national approach to recruiting in recent years. But how important is it to still recruit the Oklahoma kids?

Johnson: It’s critically important. It’s hard. You want to recruit the best player available. When you break down the number of scholarships you have, it’s not very many. And then you count the positions on a team, it’s 22 positions and two kickers, basically. And you may be able to recruit only one linebacker, or two, as an example. And you want the best you can find. The best athlete, best player, the guy that you think can project the furthest. That guy might be off somewhere else, and there might be a pretty good one in Oklahoma. But you can only take one of them. It’s hard, it’s hard – the superstar that you’ve seen really makes you feel like you’ve got a shot. You hate to say, well, we can’t take you because we want to recruit this Oklahoma guy. By the same token, after a very short time, the way recruiting is so accelerated, the youngster in Oklahoma may say, well, they’re not interested in me, I’ going to go somewhere else. And so, it comes down to evaluation, and you can’t do a lot of that, because there’s only so many times you can go to their campus or their games. You have to do a lot of it by video. But you’ve got to collectively as a staff study that player, and make sure you’re OK if you can’t take the Oklahoma kid. You need those kind of guys that always love the program. But if their talent level is not the same, you have to get the best talent you can.

Trotter: So if the Oklahoma kid is even with the national kid, you suggest going for the Oklahoma kid?

Johnson: I think you’d go on it. It didn’t take them long to go on [Sam] Bradford, and guys like that. And I think they had an opportunity with camp here and him being nearby to see Bradford, the coaches recognized what a great future he had. That’s what you have to do. You can’t just let it slip by you that easily.

Trotter: Which OU team you’ve been around was the best?

(Read full post)