BEDLAM: Sooners have gotten better every week since Cotton Bowl loss

Commentary

By Clay Horning

The history is there even if it can be hard to remember. It was once bandied about as a Bob Stoops era constant, that Oklahoma is a program that gets better.

The Sooners were 2-3 in 2005 but lost just once the rest of the season. Not bad for the only “down” season of the era. It was the rise of the Sooner defense that wouldn’t let go of the 2000 national championship. If not for Sam Bradford’s concussion, last season would have been remembered that way.

OU even became more dominant in 2003 and 2004. It was the first week of January, in New Orleans and Miami, where they ran into trouble.

But this season stands apart.

Ranked No. 1 soon after the season began only to fall after a Cotton Bowl loss, the Sooners are clearly putting their best selves forward now. Whether that’s enough to play for a championship is beside the point, though continuing that trend Saturday at Boone Pickens Stadium makes envisioning another late-season Bedlam surprise very difficult.

Also, this season, perhaps unlike any other, OU has done it with so many young faces. Redshirt freshmen and sophomores fill so many key positions.

It could begin with seniors. Earlier in the week, Stoops said they’ve “really taken a stronger role than maybe in some other years.”

But it has clearly filtered down.

“Our guys have taken a really good attitude to practice … They really do have a great appreciation for what they have to accomplish during the week to be prepared to play,” Stoops said. “They’ve acted like that every week.”

There have been two big on-field issues this season, the first being the alarming lack of a running game. The solution began with upperclassmen on the offensive line, and a sophomore, DeMarco Murray, and a junior, Chris Brown, doing the honors.

But that was more a case of guys finding the game they and everybody else knew to be there all along. That and offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson simplifying things enough to let everybody go play.

The real success story is on the other side of the ball, where OU now starts two redshirt freshman linebackers in Travis Lewis and Austin Box, a redshirt freshman and sophomore, Frank Alexander and Jeremy Beal, at defensive end and even two sophomores in the interior line in Gerald McCoy and Adrian Taylor.

Lewis, with more than 12 tackles a game and tied for fourth in the Big 12 with three interceptions, may be playing at an All-American level when, had it not been for a preseason injury to Box, might not have played at all.

Box is also taking a star turn. Last week against Texas Tech he made three tackles for loss and nine in all in just his fourth-game of full-time duty.

Meanwhile, Box and Lewis’ partner, Keenan Clayton, on the strongside, leads the conference in forced fumbles. Clayton’s a junior, but playing linebacker for the first time. Even with the loss of Ryan Reynolds, perhaps the Sooners’ best defender until suffering a torn ACL against Texas, the group is much more team strength than weakness.

Alexander and Beal have made the loss of Auston English, the preseason Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, go almost unnoticed, and the entire line put pressure on Texas Tech’s Graham Harrell last week like no other team this season.

Don’t forget, that Heisman Trophy frontrunner who takes all the snaps is also just a sophomore, and Ryan Broyles, at more than 17 yards a catch, is another redshirt freshman.

The future is bright, but that’s a topic for another day.

In the here and now, as unclear as the Big 12 South and all the BCS implications that may eventually decide who represents it next week against Missouri, where the Sooners can take their level of play is equally unclear.

The direction, however, is very clear. Up.

Clay Horning

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cfhorning@normantranscript.com