OU notebook

Sooner slide
The loss of quarterback Rhett Bomar apparently resulted in a major rankings hit by The Sporting News.

On the cover of the magazine's latest issue, TSN's College Football edition, a rankings teaser allows a glimpse of the top dozen teams. At 12.5 it reads, "Okla ... see you laters."

Inside, the Sooners didn't make the top 20. Along with the conference previews, OU is listed as the nation's No. 24 team, behind three conference foes: No. 7 Texas, No. 19 Texas Tech and No. 22 Nebraska.

On the plus side, the Sooners are listed as a BCS contender, Reggie Smith is among the "ready to be discovered" and the linebackers are rated as the best unit in the Big 12.

Inside push: Daily competition has been good for OU's defensive tackles, where the fear of falling behind pushes a group of players scrambling for game snaps.

The Sooners go three deep comfortably.

"Every d-linemen is pushing each other," said redshirt freshman DeMarcus Granger. "The depth chart's been moving around. One day you might be on the first team, the next day you might be on third team. That's how much talent is on the d-line.

"At the end of the day, you can get your spot taken if you're not going 100 percent. So I think that's a very strong part of this team."

Sooner history: In a time when athletes have little respect for history, several Sooners surprisingly were quite aware of Prentice Gautt, who will be honored in this 50th anniversary year of his breaking the color barrier at OU.

Credit Bob Stoops for helping keep his players in tune with tradition.

"During our team meetings, Coach Stoops has been showing us a lot of old clips of the past teams," said senior defensive end C.J. Ah You. "It's always good to be familiarized with the tradition, so we know that when we go out there, we don't take that for granted.

"So we know the pride that it is to wear Oklahoma on your jersey."

Mix and match: Much has been said this preseason about putting quarterback Paul Thompson in an offense that best suits his abilities.

That quest doesn't end at quarterback.

"We need to find out what Paul's comfortable with, what he does best, what he thinks he can make a bunch of plays with," said quarterbacks coach Josh Heupel.

"But you also have to do that with your offensive line, understand what they can block and what they can't, what their weaknesses are."

By John Helsley