OU football: Sooners rise from the ’09 ashes

Bob Stoops gathered his team before this season and made a point. No Sam Bradford, no Jermaine Gresham, no Brody Eldridge. But don’t forget, the Sooners didn’t have those guys last year, during the injury malaise that struck the Sooners.

Look around, Stoops said. Basically the same guys OU played with last year, OU would play with this year. ”Let’s face it,” Stoops said. “Those seniors, we lost ‘em a year ago.”

So Stoops had a question: “What are going to do to change? How do we go from an 8-5 team to a championship team?” Stoops’ asked the Sooners to work hard. Beef up the attitude. To accept coaching. To be tough.

It’s an interesting point, except for two things. The Sooners weren’t playing with the same roster. On defense, they lost both defensive tackles and both cornerbacks, which means rebuilding at the two most important positions on a defense. Tackle G.K. McCoy was the No. 3 pick in the draft, and Adrian Taylor’s gruesome Sun Bowl injury rendered him an ineffective player in 2010. Plus, cornerbacks Brian Jackson and Dom Franks moved on to the NFL.

And while OU played Bedlam 2009 without offensive tackle Trent Williams, the No. 4 pick in the draft, the Sooners had Williams for 12 games. So there were a lot of holes in the lineup.