Anyone heard if he's playing Saturday? Would love to have his speed to get outside or the horns will stack the box like the frogs did.
Which means he ain't playing. I'm sure the details of the injury are not known outside the team, but people speculating on what was reported claim it is a 6 week recovery, so that's what I'm been assuming. I'd really like to see Brooks get a few carries...
You always miss starting players, but I'm sure the coaches knew he was not available for TCU for the entire 2 weeks. Just as they already know he ain't playing this week. We should still win if we prepare properly.
So our best shake-and-bake back is Perine. It's just inexplicable to me that Ross has taken a couple of 80/100 yarders to the house and has zero lateral moves. I think he caught one of our few and far between passes to a RB out of the backfield last week on that last drive, had zero J Washington/Q type moves, and was Pwned one on one to the turf by a lone TCU defender.
Ross did show a little something in the 2nd half of the WVU game, so I was hoping that would continue. But that was against a much less capable, and very tired run defense compared to TCU. We need more than 1 RB for the whole offense to be effective.
I'm not giving up on Ross yet, as I think the problem is the commitment to using him. I don't think we've given him two consecutive carries since Tulsa (I may be wrong). Sometimes, backs need to get into a rhythm, and the guys that do need that aren't going to be able to do it with one carry every 20 plays. I understand it's a quandary for the coaches, because with Perine you get instant impact (the kid just doesn't go backwards, even when stuffed at the line), but you have a true homerun threat with Ross. I would still like to see Perine pound the defense for the first half of a game and bring Ross off of the bench (fresh) to run against a softened line.
It seems to me that OU always has a "stable of running backs" but ends up riding one til he can't be rode no more. I understand injuries...but it seems like if a kid makes one mistake he's done for the season. I understand that if a guy is hot or the D can't stop a certain runner then keep going in that direction (Perine should have gotten more touches last Sat..imho) but we also have guys that go weeks with not one touch after being told how well they are doing in practice or whatever by coaches. Just seems like a waste.
I'm been saying this for years. Our coaches seem to punish mistakes to the point it takes the natural instincts out of the equation. And everyone says that RBs in particular need moves and instincts that you can't teach. It's been refreshing that we finally have 2 young backs that the coaches actually trust to put on the field, but that may have been forced by the lack of upper classman. Now that 1 of them is hurt, we're riding 1 guy. We could have gotten Perine a few more touches Saturday, but it's not like he had a light load. I suspect those 25 carries Saturday were tougher than the 34 at WVU. He only averaged 3.5 yards/carry and it usually ended in a violent collision of guys from the front seven. Against WVU, most the late carries broke into the secondary with him being gently tackled by a 180lb DB. TCU contained him pretty well.
It's official. Ford's out for the Texas game... http://www.soonerfans.com/forums/sh...ers-to-be-without-their-Ford-for-another-game
Not really a surprise. At this point I really wonder when he'll be able to come back. A broken bone in the leg, even a non-weight-bearing bone, would have to be pretty painful when you're doing the types of cutting that a RB needs to do.