Notebook: Stoops, Snyder have long history

By John Shinn

For the sixth time, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops will face his former boss and mentor, Kansas State coach Bill Snyder, Saturday.

Stoops spent seven seasons as a defensive assistant on Snyder's staff at Kansas State from 1989-95. The Sooner coach was also a graduate/volunteer assistant at Iowa from 1983-87 while Snyder was an assistant there.

"Coach Snyder gave me a break and gave me a full-time job at Kansas State when he came into the program," Stoops said Tuesday, during his weekly news conference.

Stoops still talks about being part of Kansas State's turnaround in the early 1990s and that it includes some of his best experiences in college football. Some of the lessons learned there, Stoops said, still inform his coaching today.

"Just that experience and Coach Snyder's determination and influence on details and not making excuses but saying 'How are we going to change it?' Just being a part of that process for seven years, it really grows you as a coach and you find out ways of how you can do things differently," Stoops said of his time under Snyder. "I don't know how to quantify how much, but he certainly has (been) a major influence."

How to gain

OU safety Jonathan Nelson, who had nine tackles against Kansas, has played extensively the last two weeks. One reason is the junior was finally able to put on weight. He's put on 15 pounds since summer workouts and has been able to maintain his new size.

"I was pounding shakes before and after workouts, and Smitty (OU director of sports enhancement Jerry Schmidt) had me eating about four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before I went to sleep and when I woke up Smitty actually had sandwiches in his refrigerator that I would eat right after a workout, so I was basically just stuffing myself, not being able to move throughout the day," Nelson said.

Gorging yourself on protein shakes and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches will generally overcome anyone's metabolism. But it hasn't slowed Nelson.

"It was good weight," he said. "I know beforehand, when I was at a consistent 171 (pounds), if I would eat a big meal and try to gain weight, then I would feel stuffed. But now at the weight that I'm at, I feel like I'm 171, but I have a lot more weight to me."

Granger likely done

Defensive tackle DeMarcus Granger hasn't played this season due to a back injury and OU coach Bob Stoops said Tuesday he likely won't play again for OU.

"It's been frustrating. He's been a great teammate. He's been out there working, up until the last week, trying to help. He's just not able to quite do it," Stoops said.

Granger petitioned the NCAA for a sixth year of eligibility due to the back injury, but Stoops said Tuesday the petition was denied.

Allen the No. 2

With Sam Bradford officially out for the season, true freshman quarterback Drew Allen is now No. 2 on the depth chart. The only problem is Allen is redshirting this season.

Offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson said Allen will continue redshirting unless there's an injury to Landry Jones.

"If it's a situation where if the game's out of hand, John (Nimmo) can help us out as far as getting through a game or we can put Landry in very smart positions," Wilson said.

This isn't the first year OU has redshirted a second-team quarterback. In 2004, Paul Thompson was the Sooners' No. 2 quarterback but never played a down.

Still waiting

The Sooners game at Nebraska Nov. 7 still doesn't have a start time. ABC has held three games for consideration in two different telecast windows at either 2:30 p.m. or 7 p.m.

The network will pick between OU-Nebraska, Oklahoma State-Iowa State and Kansas-Kansas State.

The game ABC doesn't pick will kickoff at 11:30 a.m. and be televised by Versus.

John Shinn 366-3536 jshinn@normantranscript.com