Clay Horning
Random observations gleaned from an evening spent above Owen Field.
Because if you’re looking for fantastic dead-on insight, you need to understand a couple things.
These scrimmages tell us less than you think about this consensus top 10 team that continues to split its quarterback reps between three guys, that really likes its defense, especially its reshuffled secondary and that seems to have about three too many talented running backs for the number of balls allowed in play at any one time; after all, it’s not like any of genius media folk ever looked back after one of Bob Stoops quartet’s worth of Big 12 titles and said, “You know, it was all right there in that preseason scrimmage.”
• Hard to know what it amounts to, but Ryan Broyles, Norman’s own, is seeing the field in darn near every series. That’s right, it’s Broyles back there, fielding just about every punt, shuffling a couple times for his own amusement before handing the ball to a nearby official.
We’re not allowed to speak to freshmen (why, exactly, is great question), but has there ever been a more no-win position? Broyles can’t return the punt, show us his stuff and excite a hometown crowd. All he can do is drop it.
He didn’t.
Hey, at least he’s on the field.
Bully for Broyles.
• I still like Sam Bradford to win the job, a conviction first arrived at after watching the spring game and thinking only this kid seems to project the confidence everybody’s hoping to see and have in their quarterback.
On the other hand, it was Keith Nichol making the play drawing the most oohs and aahs from the pancho-clad fans inside the stadium, hitting Manuel Johnson with a Jason-White-right-in-stride strike for a 53-yard score.
A defining throw?
Is there such a thing?
As good as it gets, at least.
Bradford came back with a pair of touchdown passes to Adron Tennell, a 34- and 17-yarder, yet both belonged to the receiver more than thrower.
• Just thinking about it, if it’s not Bradford’s job, what’s next for Sam? Does the Sooner Nation hold anything for the Putnam North product then? Not for that reason, though it’s enticing, it remains hard to think an extra year in the system won’t eventually be worth starting the season opener.
• Whoever gets the job, you have to think the unsaid predicament of the winner will be his being the Sooner starting quarterback “for now.”
• What are these fans watching?
The only thing out of the PA system was a message trumpeting a pep rally. It was raining most of the time. Even if you know everybody’s number, there were several duplicates out there. It was raining most of the time. Nobody can tackle the quarterbacks. Everybody knew the winner and loser before it began. The scoreboard informed nothing of value (who knew both sides of Sooners had three time outs left the whole time?). And it was raining most of the time.
Consider it the essence of the Sooner Nation.
They just want to be close to this program.
They don’t stream Lloyd Noble Center to watch basketball practice and they don’t sit on the Mitchell Park berm for intrasquads. OK, maybe five guys do.
But thousands come out in the rain for Sooner football.
• I’m not sure my 11-year-old daughter couldn’t have jumped high enough for the block, but Garrett Hartley’s foot need not be questioned. Firing from 57 and then 61 yards, Hartley sent two trajectory-challenged bullets right through the uprights, even in the rain, even with his plant foot planting on some spongy turf.
If the Sooners need a 65-yard field goal, and they can stand on the defensive line’s shoetops, they’re in business.
• Minimalist Owen Field, nothing but white stripes, goalposts and the outline of numerals, couldn’t be cooler.
Clay Horning
366-3526
cfhorning@normantranscript.com
