Jenni Carlson: OU football fans should be grateful Landry Jones returned for senior year

You should be doing cartwheels.

Everyone who loves the crimson and cream should. The fact that Jones still calls Norman home, still has a locker inside the Switzer Center, still wears a helmet with that interlocking OU is the best news possible for the Sooners.

That's because of the very bad news they had this past week.

Receivers Jaz Reynolds, Trey Franks and Kameel Jackson have been suspended indefinitely. We don't know exactly what they did. All that anyone from OU is saying is that the three receivers, along with little-used defensive back Quentin Hayes, violated team rules. While their names haven't appeared on the police blotter, they must have made some serious mistakes to be suspended indefinitely with whispers that Franks might be done for the season.

Neither Reynolds nor Franks nor Jackson were likely to be the Sooners' top pass catchers in the fall — Kenny Stills and Trey Metoyer look destined for those top spots — but they would've been Nos. 3, 4 and 5.

Since the Sooners like to throw the ball around a bit, losing three of your top five receiving targets is a serious, serious problem for this offense.

But could you imagine how much worse things would be without Jones?

What if he was in Cleveland or Miami for rookie camp? What if he was a Brown or a Dolphin instead of a Sooner?

That would mean the Sooners would be preparing to break in a new quarterback with an almost entirely new receiver corps this fall.

Yikes.

Yours truly has been a believer that Jones' return was great news for the Sooners long before news of these suspensions broke. I even wrote as much as far back as the night of OU's Insight Bowl victory against Iowa. Some folks thought that game might be Jones' last in the crimson and cream before declaring himself eligible for the NFL Draft.

My advice?