Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford wore a knee brace on his left knee during the Washington game, but it was only as a precaution. The coaches decided to make him wear it after watching New England quarterback Tom Brady suffer a season-ending knee injury during the first week of the NFL season.
“A quarterback gets in the prone position where his leg is exposed and guys are flying at him,” offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson said. “Everybody (the quarterbacks) was wearing them today in practice on the front leg.”
Idle plans
The Sooners don’t play again until Sept. 27 when TCU comes to Owen Field, meaning this week is the first without a game since preseason practice. The players have already received some extra time off. OU didn’t practice Monday.
OU coach Bob Stoops said practices will still be pretty intense throughout the week.
“We’ll get after it today (Tuesday) and tomorrow and Thursday. Our Tuesday and Wednesday will be pretty heavy,” he said. “We’ll go against each other to try and keep each other sharp. We’ll do that Tuesday, Wednesday and part of Thursday.”
OU can afford to keep practices physical. The only significant injury involving its two-deep depth chart is to defensive tackle DeMarcus Granger. He suffered a sprained foot in against Washington. Stoops said there still isn’t a timetable for how soon Granger will return.
“Hopefully he’ll be back for TCU. We’ll just have to see how it goes,” Stoops said.
More special
OU’s special teams were better against Washington than the previous week against Cincinnati. Even Stoops admits the Sooners have been little more than average in that area.
“I thought with the number of kickoffs we had, that we played pretty well,” Stoops said of the kickoff coverage against Washington. “We had three inside the 20 and a bunch of others inside the 25. So, that part improved.”
He did point out another negative.
“When we punted we always seemed to punt into the end zone. We need to down a few of those at the ten or better. We had one penalty on kick off return and we didn’t have many other opportunities.”
The Sooners are currently 93rd in the country in kick return yards allowed (23.54) per game and 65th (34.09) in net punting.
Sticking to the plan
OU has moved up to No. 2 in both national polls. Reaching the BCS title game has gone from a hope to priority among fans in the process.
Stoops said that factor won’t alter the way he sees the season in the big picture.
“We’ve only played three games. We haven’t even played a conference game yet,” he said. “In the end you have to get better and that’s all I think about and concentrate on. We just try to get better from week to week and what are we going to concentrate on today in practice.”
John Shinn
366-3536
jshinn@normantranscript.com
OU Sports
Just a precaution for Bradford
OU Football Notepad
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