Stoops not very happy with scrimmage

By John Shinn

The spotlight will always be on the guy who is playing quarterback for Oklahoma.

Most who were at Owen Field Wednesday for the Sooners’ first spring scrimmage were fixated on Joey Halzle, Sam Bradford and true freshman Keith Nichol.

But running back DeMarco Murray managed to take at least some of the focus away from the battle under the center.

The redshirt freshman amassed 129 all-purpose yards and scored a pair of touchdowns. He was was one of the few highlights in OU’s first workout under fans’ eyes.

OU coach Bob Stoops admitted he wasn’t expecting perfection so early in the spring, but what he got didn’t qualify as stellar.

“I didn’t expect it to be what it needed to be execution wise, but I wasn’t pleased with our overall intensity,” he said. “So I’m not very happy.”

The scrimmage was the Sooners’ fifth of 15 spring workouts. There isn’t a team in college football that looks like it’s ready to start playing games that count after such a short time.

But Stoops pointed at poor tackling and lackluster play on both the offensive and defensive lines as problems Saturday.

“I didn’t like the intensity on either side of the line of scrimmage,” he said. “It was too inconsistent, not enoungh toughness, not enough attitude. They show it at times, but it’s not what it needs to be.”

As far as the quarterback race, Halzle and Bradford took the majority of the snaps in the 90-play scrimmage. Both had their ups and downs.

Halzle completed 6-of-11 passes for 109 yards and one touchdown. He was intercepted twice. Bradford was good on 8-of-14 attempts for 117 yards with one touchdown, but he had one picked. Nichol was able to get out without a turnover and was 6-of-8 for 40 yards with one touchdown.

None of the quarterbacks were available to the media Wednesday.

But quarterbacks coach Josh Heupel said he saw enough encouraging things from the trio.

“You’re going to get a little bit of everything,” he said. “I thought our guys competed for the most part. There’s some things that happened early that our kids responded to and got back on track. That’s what you want to see.”

But Murray was the scene-stealer Wednesday.

He spent the 2006 season on the scout team. An early-season turf toe injury didn’t allow him to get into the mix when Adrian Peterson went down with a broken collarbone.

But coaches always said he would bring big-play potential whenever he got on the field.

It didn’t take him long to show why.

On the first play of the fourth series, he took a handoff from Nichol and raced 65 yards down the east boundary for a touchdown. He later added a 4-yard touchdown run and caught three more passes for 37 yards.

It was an important day for him. The scrimmage was his first action in front of fans since high school.

“I was nervous at the beginning,” Murray said. “(Running backs coach coach Cale) Gundy told me to relax and I started to and just played football.”

Murray had plenty of chances. Allen Patrick was held out due a bruise he suffered early this week in practice. Mossis Madu also stayed on the sidelines due to a concussion.

Murray split the running back duties with Jacob Gutierrez and Chris Brown. Brown rushed for 90 yards on 17 carries. Gutierrez added 28 yards on nine totes.

Quentin Chaney led the receivers with five grabs for 35 yards.  Brandon Caleb caught three passes for 32 yards and two touchdowns. The top yardage receiver was redshirt freshman Adron Tennell, who had four catches for 88 yards. 

 The other scoring pass went to tight end Joe Jon Finley.

Offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson said that was one of the encouraging things he took away from Wednesday night.

“We still do have big-play capability with Adrian being gone,” he said. “I think we showed that.”

Perhaps they’ll show even more when they hold their next scrimmage at 11 a.m. March 31. The Sooners will have a few more practices under their belt before they raise the curtain again.

John Shinn366-3536jshinn@normantranscript.com