Sooners going home

By John Shinn
The Norman Transcript

September 28, 2007 01:03 am

— Oklahoma offensive linemen Phil Loadholt and Jon Cooper will have a homecoming of sorts Saturday. Both are Colorado natives and will be playing their first games in the home state since coming to OU.
“I haven’t played there since high school,” said Cooper who is from Fort Collins, Colo. “Most of our away games are in Texas, Kansas, Missouri or whatever, but this is the first time I get to kind of go home and play in front of a bunch of my friends and family.”
Loadholt, who is from Fountain, Colo., said there’s been a crush of family and friends requesting tickets for the game. Luckily for him, his teammates are helping him fill the requests.
Each player is allotted four tickets per game. Some are shuffling theirs to Cooper and Loadholt. The help is greatly appreciated.
“People I haven’t seen since prom night want tickets,” Loadholt said.

Injury update
Oklahoma running back Chris Brown remains questionable for Saturday’s game at Colorado. The sophomore suffered what appeared to be a concussion last Friday against Tulsa.
Brown took a hit at the end of a run early in the fourth quarter. His head also bounced off the Chapman Stadium turf. He laid motionless on the sidelines for about a minute before walking off the field under his own power.
OU coach Bob Stoops said Brown would be evaluated throughout the week by OU’s medical staff. Running backs coach Cale Gundy said Wednesday that process continues.
“Doctors are going to check him,” Gundy said. “He seems to be doing all right.”
While Brown’s status is up in the air, defensive backs coach Bobby Jack Wright said safety Darien Williams is fully recovered from the stress fracture he suffered to his foot.

Hawkins impressed
When asked what impressed him about the Sooners, Colorado coach Dan Hawkins rolled off a pretty long list.
“They can throw it, they can run it, they are big up front, they’ve got speed, they have receivers, running backs. Same thing on defense, they are big and fast,” he said. “They have a very good kicking game, all the way around: kickers, punters, returners are very solid all the way around.
“They are one of those teams that when you watch them, typically — you don’t do this much at this level, anyway — but you don’t look at anybody and say ‘Oh, I bet we can get this on that guy.’ There is none of that here. They are a very complete football team.”

Spreading it around
It seems like OU has had a different offensive player step up each week. Last Friday, it was Allen Patrick who had the big game, rushing for 145 yards on 19 carries and scoring twice.
OU offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson said Patrick’s big night was all the running back’s doing.
“That wasn’t really by design other than he just got in there, got going a little bit and got in there with some drives,” Wilson said.
But there’s a pretty good chance tight end Jermaine Gresham and running back DeMarco Murray could see more prominent roles in coming games.
“I think as Jermaine is playing better and as DeMarco keeps going, they’ll be in different spots,” Wilson said. “But the concern I have is always you don’t want so much offense you start to become a hodge-podge and you can have too many plays.”