Oklahoma Sooners

Oklahoma Sooners coach Bob Stoops discusses the devastating tornado in Moore, Okla.

Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops wants to make sure teams are rewarded for scheduling tough games.

During a Sooner Caravan Stop in Tulsa a week ago, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops had quite a bit to say when asked about the gap between the SEC and the Big 12.

Among Stoops' comments, published in the Tulsa World were

“Well, it depends on what gap you’re talking about. What are the bottom six doing?”

“"So they've had the best team in college football. They haven't had the whole conference. Because, again, half of 'em haven't done much at all.”

Stoops’ main point was that from top to bottom, the SEC was not better than the Big 12.

Edward Aschoff did a thorough evaluation of the SEC's dominance. Here's another perspective:

In order to evaluate this claim, it is necessary to eliminate the “propaganda” that Stoops was referring to. The BCS Computer Rankings do just that by basing its rankings purely on numbers.

Looking at the six computers that comprise the BCS rankings, Stoops’ claim has some validity (though it is important to note that the SEC has four more teams in its conference).

The SEC’s average computer rank was 35.1 (out of 124) and 10 of its 14 teams ranked in the top 50 in the nation.

The Big 12’s average computer rank was 36.9 and eight of its 10 teams ranked in the top 50 in the nation.

The Big 12 beat up on itself in conference play, but in non-conference games its teams went 30-9 (.769 win percentage), which ranked second in FBS behind the SEC which was 55-12 (.821 win pct).

Entering bowl season, the Big 12 was 26-4 against non-conference opponents, which was the best record of any conference in FBS.

This is not necessarily to say that the Big 12 was a better conference than the SEC. Our final conference rankings show that they are not.

But if anyone is looking for a way to back his claim, the unbiased computers are a great place to look.

Inspired by Florida's "#ComePlayWRFortheJoker" campaign, our recruiting writers looked at other ways schools can sell themselves on the trail. Here's a look at recruiting pitches for the Big 12:

Baylor Bears
What they’re selling: The new 45,000-seat, $250-million on-campus stadium that will open in 2014. Recruiting is an arms race, and players like fancy stadiums and locker rooms, and Baylor’s upgrade puts them finally on the same level playing field as everybody else in the Big 12.
What they're missing: Help on defense -- specifically at defensive line and defensive back.

Iowa State Cyclones
What they’re selling: Paul Rhoads. He grew up miles from the campus and has helped turn around Iowa State with a physical and fundamentally sound style of football.
What they're missing: A true home-run threat at receiver.

Kansas Jayhawks
What they’re selling: Charlie Weis. He’s taken risks (juco infusion), repaired relationships with area high school coaches and widened KU’s recruiting pool.
What they're missing: Wins. When you’ve won only one conference game in three years, a little bit of everything is missing.

Kansas State Wildcats
What they’re selling: Bill Synder. The plan has worked for years in Manhattan. K-State doesn’t care how many stars a player has attached to his name, a player only earns an offer from K-State unless Snyder personally signs off on it after a lengthy review. It’s a plan that produced a No. 1 BCS ranking and a Big 12 championship in 2012.
What’s missing: I’ve been told by coaches for years that the most difficult position to recruit is defensive tackle. That’s why you often see even average defensive tackles rack up double-digit offers, and finding good depth at defensive tackle has been very difficult to do at K-State.

Oklahoma Sooners
What they’re selling: Oklahoma is proud of its football tradition, and few schools can match the Sooners’ track record for success, facilities and ability to prepare you for the next level.
What they're missing: A renewed focus on evaluating players. It’s what differentiated Bob Stoops’ staff when they started, and it’s how they found players like Sam Bradford, Josh Heupel, Juaquin Iglesias and Donald Stephenson. All at the time were considered to be three-star recruits but wound up being impact players for the Sooners.

Oklahoma State Cowboys
What they’re selling: Their ability to evaluate and develop offensive talent.
What they're missing: Elite players in the Lone Star State. With the best facilities in the conference, it might be just enough to get kids to visit.

Texas Longhorns
What they’re selling: Few in the nation can offer up the type of atmosphere, fan base, tradition and total student-athlete package like Texas can.
What they're missing: A true a difference-maker at quarterback. The last two Heisman Trophy winners have come from Texas high schools, and the Longhorns didn’t recruit one heavily and recruited the other as an athlete.

TCU Horned Frogs
What they’re selling: The Horned Frogs recruit to their style of smash-mouth play on both sides of the ball and don’t care how many stars a recruit has. It hurts them some in the recruiting rankings, but it helps them win a lot of ball games.
What they're missing: BCS conference depth. Heading into their second season in the Big 12 after a 7-6 season, the biggest thing the Horned Frogs need to do is to build the roster to be able to compete year in and year out in the BCS conference.

Texas Tech Red Raiders
What they’re selling: The Red Raiders went through a transition that brought Kliff Kingsbury to Lubbock, and the early reception has been nothing short of positive.
What they're missing: The Red Raiders have never had issues putting up points on people, but under Tommy Tuberville and Mike Leach there was little defense being played.

West Virginia Mountaineers
What they’re selling: WVU is a force in the Atlantic region, can recruit well in Pennsylvania and is arguably one of the best schools at identifying offensive talent in the JC ranks.
What they're missing: The 2014 class will have to be all about rebuilding in Morgantown, as the needs are mounting while several impact players have moved on.

Five years ago, Daniel Franklin emerged from the mountains of north Georgia as one of the top linebacker prospects in the nation.

He signed with Oklahoma, which had just won its second consecutive Big 12 Championship a month earlier. Franklin had his football life mapped out. "Honestly, I thought I was going to come in, start as a freshman, be an All-American and be here three years and get drafted," Franklin said.

Of course he would. Franklin ranked No. 92 on the ESPN 150, behind Andrew Luck (No. 61) and ahead of Mark Ingram (No. 108).

Ingram won a Heisman. Luck finished second twice. Franklin? Something funny happened on his way to the NFL draft. By the five-star, blue-chip, stat-maven, Roger Goodell-hugging metric, Franklin didn't pan out.

In four seasons, he never started a game at linebacker. He spent last season as the long snapper on the punt team. In his entire career at Oklahoma, Franklin made one tackle. and that came in the next-to-last game of his final regular season. Franklin spent five years going from Sure Thing to Sure Wasn't.

And Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops wants a locker room full of Daniel Franklins.

"He did contribute," Stoops said the other day. "He was always positive, even when he wasn't playing as much as he had hoped. It takes a whole group of players like that to have a team. And not everybody is going to be the star. Not everyone is going to start. But your better teams have players like that who contribute in whatever ways they are able."

Franklin recalled the feeling he had when he arrived at Oklahoma and saw the size and speed of linebackers like Ryan Reynolds and Travis Lewis. He redshirted as a freshman. Fall turned into spring into summer. Another season came and went. Franklin began to understand that his football career had veered off the route he had mapped.

Read the rest of the story from Ivan Maisel.

NORMAN, Okla. -- Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops has had a dozen players get picked in the first round of the NFL draft during his tenure in Norman.

No one, though, quite like Lane Johnson.

The Oklahoma left tackle could go as high as fourth overall to the Philadelphia Eagles or fifth to the Detroit Lions in this week's draft. No mock draft has him going lower than No. 11.

“The more he plays it and the more he matures,” Stoops said, “he’s just going to get better and better.”

A little over two years ago, Johnson wasn't even playing offensive line. Four years ago, in fact, he was still a junior-college quarterback, whom the Sooners recruited out Kilgore, Texas, to play, well, they weren’t quite sure.

“When we recruited him and signed him, we did so on just what a big athlete he was,” Stoops said. “Not having an idea where he’d end up growing.”

Johnson started out as a tight end. The following year, he was moved to defensive end. Neither position seemed to fit.

But in the spring of 2011, starting right tackle Jarvis Jones suffered a torn patella tendon that would sideline him for months. That prompted the Sooners to test Johnson out at offensive tackle.

“We were always trying to find the best spot for Lane, and we knew even before then that [tackle] was a possibility,” Stoops said. “We were always looking because we appreciated how hard he worked -- like, we’ve got to get him on the field.

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During a simulated scrimmage in Oklahoma's first practice of the spring in full pads, Blake Bell used his BellDozing legs to escape the pocket, but the right-hander was rolling to his left to escape the rush.

Bell, channeling his inner Brett Favre, tried to find a receiver on the right side of the field, throwing across his body to try and make the throw. The toss predictably floated and was intercepted.

"He just shook his head," Sooners coach Bob Stoops said. "A classic example where it has sting a little bit and you’ve got to learn. Hopefully he’s learned a valuable lesson since then, that you can’t be careless with the football."

That's the bad news.

The good news is Stoops has seen plenty of evidence to suggest Bell absolutely learned his lesson from that early throw. The proof was in every throw from that point forward.

"Since that day, you haven’t seen a mistake like that," Stoops said. "Just being smart with the football is such a big deal."

In fact, it's the biggest deal for Stoops. For a yet-undecided quarterback competition, Bell's ability to take care of the ball bodes well for him keeping his status as the likely heir to four-year starter Landry Jones.

"The important part for all of them will be decision-making," Stoops said. "Who can make the right reads and decisions and getting the football where it needs to be."

He outplayed his younger competition, Trevor Knight and Kendal Thompson, in the Sooners' spring game, completing 14-of-23 passes for 213 yards and a pair of scores, validating a strong spring that left him looking like the Sooners' best option. Most importantly, he didn't turn the ball over, and both Knight and Thompson couldn't say that after the Sooners' spring finale.

Those 213 passing yards are one short of doubling Bell's total passing yards in 2012, but most college football fans know him best as the BellDozer, bulling his way to 24 rushing touchdowns over the past two seasons in the Sooners' signature short-yardage package.

"He’s always been able to throw the football well, we’ve just chosen his role to this point has been short yardage and goal line, getting the extra blocker when you’re running your quarterback," Stoops said. "Plus, he’s a big strong guy to fall forward and get a yard when there isn’t one there. He throws a great deep ball."

Oklahoma's rarely employed a mobile quarterback, but that seems likely to change this season as the Sooners' personnel no longer fits the statuesque style of Jones or predecessors like Heisman Trophy winners Sam Bradford and Jason White who helped Oklahoma win eight Big 12 titles since Stoops' arrival.

"All our guys, when we recruit them, it’s all about how they throw, not how they run. We’re just fortunate that this group of guys, along with throwing the football, have the ability to run, too," Stoops said. "We’ll see what that other dimension can do for us."

NORMAN, Okla. -- Defensive end Geneo Grissom wants the Oklahoma defensive line to ignite emotions from within opponents this fall.

“I want to make sure, when we step on the field, O-linemen are scared,” Grissom said. “I want our D-line to invoke fear in opposing O-lines.”

The Sooners' defensive line took some positive steps in that direction during the Red-White spring game at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on Saturday. Defensive linemen accounted for four of the five sacks in the game, including two from defensive tackle Rashod Favors and one apiece from Grissom and defensive tackle Jordan Phillips.

“I thought the D-line overall did a really good job,” coach Bob Stoops said. “I thought they got good pressure, and for the most part, playing the run, I thought they did a pretty good job.”

The Sooners' quarterbacks spent a good part of the scrimmage on the run evading pressure, a sign the defensive line is improving.

And in a game that featured 112 total offensive plays, OU’s defensive front limited the big run, with Brennan Clay’s 35-yard scamper ranking as the longest ground gain.

“We did what we had to do,” Grissom said. “You always feel you can get better and do better, but we were completing our assignments and doing what we’re being taught to do.”

The Sooners' defensive line isn’t quite there yet. While OU’s front was disruptive at times, it struggled to get pressure at times and got off to a slow start in the first quarter.

“We still need to develop playmakers up front,” defensive coordinator Mike Stoops said. “But I thought they got better as the game went along.”

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NORMAN, Okla. -- Safety Ahmad Thomas and receiver Dannon Cavil recognized an opportunity at Oklahoma. With wideout Kenny Stills and safety Tony Jefferson declaring for the 2013 NFL draft following their junior seasons, a starting spot and playing time opened up for the Sooners at both positions.

The lone freshman early enrollees who have fully participated in spring football, Cavil and Thomas are already making an impression on their teammates and coaches. It started with their smooth transition into the program during winter workouts.

“He's handled the workouts,” head coach Bob Stoops said of Cavil shortly before spring football began. “That's when you can really tell if a guy is ready for it, and he's gone through all the workouts like he's a junior.”

Thomas was the same way.

“He handled winter workouts like someone who’s been around for a couple of years,” nickelback Julian Wilson said. “He didn’t handle them like a freshman.”

The duo continued to impress this spring by displaying playmaking ability that could earn them on role on the Sooners’ offense and defense this fall. Thomas is a hard hitter who is displaying terrific instincts at safety. The departures of Jefferson and Javon Harris, OU’s starters last season, leaves a hole in the secondary and Thomas is making a case to slide into that gap.

“I’ve never seen a freshman like him,” cornerback Cortez Johnson said. “He’ll play a big part in our defense, most likely this year.”

Senior safety Gabe Lynn is taking on a mentoring role with Thomas but has already noticed his natural ability. Thomas' instincts have impressed along with his hunger to learn.

“He has good instincts,” Lynn said. “You really can’t tell he just came in, it fits right in. Ahmad wants to learn more so it’s very easy to help him, he’s asking questions all the time.”

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NORMAN, Okla. – As their competition continues, Blake Bell, Kendal Thompson and Trevor Knight will be evaluated by how many plays they make during Oklahoma’s spring game Saturday.

Coach Bob Stoops, however, will be most focused on those plays the quarterbacks don’t make.

“What all of them have to learn to do -- not have the really bad play that changes the game,” Stoops said after Tuesday’s workout. “You can't just gamble and try to make the big play and make the bad one.”

If Stoops has any complaint with the quarterbacks so far this spring, it’s been their penchant for the big mistake trying to convert the big play.

“They’re doing a pretty good job, but it seems like every day or scrimmage or team sessions there will be one or two plays where, ‘Ah, you better reevaluate that one.’ And it’s been all of them,” Stoops said. “I’m not sitting here saying they’re doing a really bad job. They’re doing a really good job.

“But some of those plays can be game changers, and you can't make them and gamble with the ball.”

During Sunday’s closed scrimmage, all three quarterbacks marched the offense down the field. Too many drives, however, were stalled out by sacks. Interceptions ended others. And that was with the quarterbacks being off limits to contact.

“They know they're not going to being tackled -- so they'll hold onto the ball a little longer, then let something go at the end and get a touchdown,” Stoops said. “But in reality they would have gotten hit in the mouth, the ball would've went straight up in the air and (the defense) would been running it back.

By all accounts, no one has pulled away in the quarterback battle this spring. All three have played well at times. In some cases, really well.

But the quarterback that ultimately secures the starting job figures to be the one that commits the fewest errors. On Saturday -- and beyond.

“There's enough good players around them that we'll be successful moving the football,” Stoops said, “if you trust them and don't gamble with the football.”

Roughly 90 percent of college football programs would be thrilled to win 10 games in a season. Oklahoma is not one of those programs.

Sharing a Big 12 title? That trophy is a whole lot less satisfying when there are seven others waiting in the trophy case since 2000 that weren't shared with anybody.

"Our expectations are different than everybody else. Everybody’s not Oklahoma," defensive coordinator Mike Stoops said. "When you have Oklahoma across your chest, you expect to win championships, and that’s never going to change here."

He knows firsthand. Stoops helped his brother, coach Bob Stoops, win Oklahoma's seventh national title back in 2000, and the Sooners came up short two more times, once losing in the title game with Mike Stoops in 2003 and again a year later with Stoops coaching at Arizona. Without him coordinating the defense, the Sooners gave up 55 points to USC, more points than any team has ever scored in the BCS National Championship Game.

Arizona fired Mike Stoops six games into the 2011 season, and the Sooners' struggling defense needed an offseason jolt, despite winning 10 games that same season. Mike Stoops returned and brought assistant Tim Kish with him to coach linebackers and help coordinate the defense.

"Sometimes change is good, new ideas are good always, and change is good sometimes," Mike Stoops said. "That happens for whatever reason, and whether it’s complacency or just being stagnant, those things occur. Just trying to reinvent ourselves is something we need to do."

In 2012, there were more late-season defensive struggles after a strong start, but yet again, a 10-win season and a shared Big 12 title weren't enough. Losing three games isn't good enough, and nobody wants to hear that all three losses came to teams that spent time in the top five last season. The Sooners want to get back to competing for national titles, and Bob Stoops went the route of coaching changes to help get Oklahoma back there.

Assistant coaches Jackie Shipp and Bruce Kittle were shown the door, along with offensive line coach James Patton. The Sooners scooped up Bill Bedenbaugh from West Virginia to replace Patton and brought in Jerry Montgomery from Michigan to coach the defensive line. Jay Boulware filled Kittle's spot on the staff after coaching tight ends at Auburn. The Sooners' reboot was complete, and they're working toward results in the spring.

"[They bring] a new perspective in some areas, new ideas. They’re not drastic changes," Mike Stoops said. "Obviously, the coaches we had in here were involved and knew our systems well, but there’s always little changes in technique and little things schematically that can help you, so we’re always looking for fresh ideas."

Ten wins tastes bitter when you're used to winning 11 or 12, which can be the difference between proving yourself as a very good team and a great team. Oklahoma won at least 12 games six times since 2000 and 11 games on three more occasions. Ten wins isn't good enough, and a few former players and one famed coach were more than willing to speak up about it, echoing fan concerns.

Barry Switzer started it in September when he told one local paper that the Sooners "just don't have the talent."

"We’re not as good as we have been," Switzer said. "We don’t have the Tommie Harrises or Gerald McCoys squatting down there in the middle [of the defensive line]."

Offensive lineman Jammal Brown, an All-American who played in Norman from 2000 to '04, said he was "mad as hell" about the Sooners' 28-point Cotton Bowl loss to Texas A&M to cap the 10-win season, calling the Sooners "soft." CBS analyst Spencer Tillman, a Sooners running back in the '80s, said Oklahoma lost concentration on what made the program great in the first place.

Considering the Sooners let Shipp go at the end of the season, it's hard to believe Bob Stoops didn't agree in part with what Switzer had to say. As for the rest of it?

"We may not be as skilled at some of the positions as we want to be, but our toughness and pride is what made Oklahoma what it is, whether it was Bud Wilkinson or Barry Switzer or Bob Stoops, I think that’s the common thread that goes to being a great team," Mike Stoops said.

"Some of those, from the outside, may have felt like we didn’t have that common thread between us. I never felt that; I always thought our teams played hard and together. They’re certainly entitled to their opinions, you know. We’ve got to look at ourselves, and if it’s true, we need to change it. The things we needed to change, we’re working on changing, and nobody knows our program like we do.

"There’s areas we certainly need to get better at, and we’re aware of those. Some of those take time. Some of those take adjustments each day to get better."

The Sooners lose a four-year starter at quarterback in Landry Jones from last year's team, along with seven starters from Mike Stoops' defense. The task of winning more than 10 games seems difficult in a Big 12 that's deeper than it has ever been.

"We just need to get better, again, individually and schematically and play better across the board and come up with better ideas and a better scheme. We’re not far off when you look at the big picture," Mike Stoops said. "We had a chance to win 12 games, we lost them all late in the game and down the stretch and didn’t make the plays we needed to, but again, we’re not that far off."

Nobody collects Big 12 title crystal bowls more than Oklahoma. The Sooners got another one last season (debate the merits of it all you want, but it resides in the Switzer Center no matter how much you complain) when it shared a Big 12 title with Kansas State.

That gave Oklahoma eight Big 12 titles since 2000, five more than any other team in the league. The Sooners have done that with a bunch of different quarterbacks, and they'll have to add another name to that list this year if Oklahoma is going to win its ninth Big 12 title.

Do you believe the Sooners can reload and win the Big 12 yet again with several players who are far from household names this spring?

Oklahoma returns just four starters from the defense that got off to a strong start but struggled late last season, never more so than in the loss to Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl. Landry Jones quarterbacked an offense that bailed out the defense in dramatic wins against West Virginia and Oklahoma State. Without an experienced quarterback, any defensive shortcomings might be more exposed this season. Even with the personnel losses, though, could those defensive shortcomings be fewer in Year 2 in Mike Stoops' defense? The defensive line needs a lot of work, and there is a lot of turnover there, but the offensive line will be a strength.

What do you think of the Sooners' chances? Do you buy that Oklahoma will be in the mix yet again, despite all the turnover? Or will Oklahoma come up short and settle for an average season that doesn't come with a Big 12 title trophy?

Vote in our poll.

NORMAN, Okla. -- It’s hard to remember now, but just two springs ago, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops called then-sophomore linebacker Corey Nelson the “best player” on his defense and said “it’s not close.”

Nelson is a senior now. And, finally, it appears the Sooners are going to give him the opportunity to deliver on Stoops’ proclamation.

“I’m really looking forward to playing again,” Nelson said. “(Not playing) has ignited a fire under me.”

Nelson has reason to have fire in his belly this spring.

After a promising freshman campaign followed by that dominating spring, Nelson figured to be on the cusp of stardom two seasons ago.

Sporadic playing time since, though, has stymied Nelson’s development -- to the point he thought of joining fellow linebacker Tom Wort and leaving Oklahoma.

“We had conversations, multiple conversations, just throughout the season, just talking about how frustrated he was, and how frustrated I was at times,” Nelson said.

Those frustrations stemmed from the Sooners’ defensive regime change from Brent Venables to Mike Stoops.

While Venables built his defenses around his linebackers, Mike Stoops consigned Wort and Nelson to plugging gaps and funneling tackles to the safeties.

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In January, linebacker Tom Wort stunned everyone from the fans to the Oklahoma coaches when he revealed he was skipping his senior year of college to enter the NFL draft. Wort struggled to adjust to a new scheme and new position coach, as the Sooners de-emphasiszed the linebacker position the second half of the season to try and combat the spread offenses of the Big 12. After OU's pro day Wednesday, Wort spoke with SoonerNation in his first interview since deciding to declare for the draft:

SoonerNation: What went into the decision to leave, how did you make it?

Tom Wort: The fact I graduated was a huge part of it. I came to OU to get a degree and play football. I just thought it was my time to take my shot at the next level.

SN: I don’t think there’s any question last season was an adjustment for you with the new scheme, the new coaching staff defensively. Did that play into the decision at all?

Wort: Somewhat, but for the most part, I just wanted to get to that next level. It’s been my dream. I had the opportunity, I got my degree, so I decided to take it.

SN: When did you make your decision to come out?

Wort: Right after the Cotton Bowl. I took about a week, and then came and talked to coach [Tim] Kish and told him, and then got ready for training.

SN: How did he and coach [Bob] Stoops react?

Wort: I talked to coach Bob Stoops, Coach Kish first. He said he understood and wished me the best.

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