John Shinn
Last Saturday at Oregon, the Sooners were already down 7-0 in the first quarter and the Ducks were knocking at the door again.
Oklahoma co-defensive coordinators Brent Venables and Bobby Jack Wright remember the moment well.
As a record Autzen Stadium crowd of 59,269 screamed like banshees, all they could hear was OU cornerback Marcus Walker screaming to a different tone, but it was music to their ears.
“When things aren’t going great and the guy says, ‘Put me in. I’m you’re guy.’ What more could you ask? That’s what you want,” Venables said.
The Sooners’ 34-33 loss to the Ducks will be remembered for a lot of different things, but it could also go down as the game Walker asserted himself as a mainstay in the Sooner secondary.
It’s something OU has been looking for. Reggie Smith has been dominant at one cornerback. He’s locked down receivers all season.
But the other side has been a revolving door. D.J. Wolfe started 11 games there last season, but lost his job after poor performances against Alabama-Birmingham and Washington.
Lendy Holmes took over in the second quarter against Huskies, but struggled early against the Ducks.
Walker was the only option the Sooners had left. Luckily for them, the junior from Waco, Texas, was literally chomping at the bit to be thrown into the fire.
“Everybody wants to compete,” Walker said. “That was just the competitiveness in me coming out.”
On his first play, he broke up a fade route in the end zone, forcing the Ducks to settle for a field goal. He finished the day with five pass breakups and was solid in every sense of the word.
Wright said Walker gave the Sooners something else.
“He played great,” Wright said. “He was a spark.”
And a spark is something OU’s defense has been looking.
The unit has been plagued by inconsistent play in all three games. The problems have been too vast to peg on one position.
The Sooners have struggled against the run and the pass, and given up big plays in both.
But mistakes in the secondary get magnified.
“There’s no margin for error back there,” Venables said.
Walker is well aware. His first appearance in the Sooner secondary was on the hottest of hot seats.
Back in 2004, OU was trailing Texas A&M; by two touchdowns at Kyle Field. The Sooners’ national title hopes were dimming as Aggie quarterback Reggie McNeal kept burning them for big plays.
Walker was nine games into a redshirt season, but that all changed that afternoon.
The coaching staff sent him out there to stop the bleeding and he was a tourniquet. He stayed in that cornerback spot all the way through the Orange Bowl.
Most, including Walker, figured he’d be a mainstay the next three years, but it wasn’t meant to be.
He missed spring practice in 2005 to repair an injured shoulder. Then he injured the other shoulder prior to the 2005 season.
He played as a sophomore, but the injury had a lingering effect on him. He only played in six games and only had eight tackles.
“He’s gone through a lot of rehab and a lot of tough times where he had to sit and wait and work his way back,” Wright said. “He’s done that and he’s done that with the right attitude … He’s developing into the kind of player we thought he could be that first year he got here.”
Walker will join Smith as the Sooners’ starting cornerbacks when they face Middle Tennessee at 6 p.m. Saturday at Owen Field.
It will be Walker’s first start since OU faced Southern California in the 2005 Orange Bowl. It’s a night he’s fought long and hard to reach.
“It’s been a long time for me,” he said. “I’ve been down. I’ve had to battle with injuries and it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to play. I think now that I’m 100 percent, I can run around and compete at a high level. I just want to show what I can do.”
John Shinn366-3536jshinn@normantranscript.com
