Oklahoma Football: Bob Stoops Press Conference Notebook

Oklahoma enters its second bye week of the season after Saturday's 31-30 loss to Kansas State. The Sooners will be looking for answers once again, hoping to rebound with a Nov. 1 clash at Iowa State next up on the schedule.

Monday, Bob Stoops and players met with the media to discuss the game and where the Sooners go from here.

-For a team that just suffered its second loss in three weeks, the players weren't very down on themselves. Daryl Williams, Geneo Grissom and Julian Wilson said the mood in the locker room was disappointed, but everyone knew there is still a lot of football to be played this season. Anything can happen week-to-week in college football, so if the Sooners win out and chaos ensues, it's anyone's guess where the Sooners could end up.

-A big reason why players aren't throwing in the towel is there were a lot of positives in the OU performance on Saturday. The offense moved the ball effectively and the defense had some good moments. But as Stoops said on Monday, OU needed to be a series better on both sides of the ball and simply couldn't overcome the critical errors in the kicking game and the turnovers.

-Stoops said there were no lingering injuries from the game and that everyone should be good to go for practice this week. He also said they were hoping to get running back Keith Ford back later this week. 

-It was very clear Stoops was unhappy with the officiating on Saturday. He took particular exception with three plays on Saturday. The first was the targeting call on fullback Aaron Ripkowski. Stoops saw it as a situation where the defender ducked his head, causing Ripkowski to make helmet-to-helmet contact. The second occurred on the same play, when a Kansas State player led with his helmet into Trevor Knight's back. Knight was injured on the play and Stoops wondered why a flag wasn't thrown when everyone is so concerned for quarterback safety. The last one was on the pop-pass from Jake Waters to Glenn Gronkowski. KSU center B.J. Finney was at least five yards from the line of scrimmage, run-blocking, a clear violation. Stoops is awaiting explanation from the Big 12 on some of Saturday's calls/no-calls.

-Stoops also wasn't happy with Sterling Shepard getting hurt by landing on a photographer's camera on the sidelines late in the first half. Stoops said Shepard shouldn't have to worry about landing on someone's equipment when he's making an athletic play trying to come down with a catch.

-Last season was mentioned several times during the press conference. Coming off a loss at Baylor, the Sooners looked completely disjointed, but rallied to win the last four games of the season, the last of course being the big Sugar Bowl win over Alabama. The Sooners are in a similar situation this year and once again, all they can control is how they play each week.