Oklahoma isn’t the only team that has been hit by the injury bug. It’s next opponent, Missouri, has the same problem.
Defensive end Brian Smith, Missouri’s career sack leader, broke his right hip last Saturday in the Tigers’ 41-21 victory over Kansas State and is finished for the regular season.
Tiger coach Gary Pinkel still can’t explain how the injury occurred.
“If you saw that film, you’d say there’s no way in the world he even got hurt,” Pinkel said Monday. “He just kind of turned and kind of stumbled. There was not hardly any contact at all. It was just as freakish as you could ever imagine.”
The senior is tied for third in the Big 12 with 71/2 sacks this season, and has 311/2 over his career.
Sophomore Stryker Sulak will start in place of Smith.
“I’ll be moved to a starter now,” Sulak said. “Of course this was a big loss for us. (Brian) was a big contributor to the team mainly on defense. We just all have to step it up. Hopefully, he will bounce back from it.”
The loss of Smith should make for an interesting battle in the trenches when the Sooners face Missouri at 11 a.m. Saturday in Columbia.
OU lost sophomore right tackle Branndon Braxton to a broken leg in its 24-3 victory over Colorado. True freshman Trent Williams is expected to make his first start Saturday.
Williams played over 30 snaps last Saturday and is anxious to see what he can do as a starter.
“About 80 percent of the reason I chose Oklahoma is because I wanted to make an impact early in my career,” Williams said. “I didn’t want to sit on the bench until I was a redshirt junior or whatever. I’m real excited.”
Smith returns to practice
OU safety Reggie Smith returned to practice Monday after missing most of last week’s workouts last week with a leg injury.
He was used in a limited role against Colorado due to an injured right leg. He was only used in OU’s nickel and dime sets, while Nic Harris handled the safety duties in base alignments.
Sooner coach Bob Stoops said the reason for the switch was because the practices Smith missed earlier in the week.
Getting reacquainted
OU kicker Garrett Hartley and Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel were both teammates at Southlake Carroll (Texas) High School. They both played on the same teams in 2002 and 2003. Those teams went 35-1 and won a state title in 2002.
But Hartley isn’t expecting any big reunion Saturday at Missouri.
“We didn’t hang out much in high school,” he said. “We were friends and good teammates though. He’s definitely doing some good stuff at Missouri.”
Daniel, a sophomore, has thrown for 2,003 yards and 19 touchdown passes in eight games.
A&M; kick almost set
ABC notified the Big 12 Conference Monday it will televise Oklahoma’s Nov. 4 game at Texas A&M.; What the network has not yet decided is what time the game will start.
That decision will come Sunday when ABC will choose between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. The network has also selected Missouri at Nebraska for that date.
Both games will be televised locally on KOCO-5 (Cox Cable channel 8).
John Shinn366-3536jshinn@normantranscript.com
