Sooners, Cowboys Get Big 12 Recognition After Season Openers

<p>As far as first impressions go, the Sooners couldn't have done much better in their rout of Florida Atlantic.</p>

Monday, September 3rd 2018, 6:51 pm

By: News On 6


As far as first impressions go, the Sooners couldn't have done much better in their rout of Florida Atlantic.

The Sooners look to follow up that remarkable game one performance with another game nationally televised on Saturday. 

It'll be UCLA rolling into town, and you'll see a couple of Will linebackers in Curtis Bolton and Caleb Kelly who are just 2 of 10 Californians on that Oklahoma roster. 

Buzzy Bolton stunned a lot of people by getting the start over 5-Star recruit Caleb Kelly. He paid off, he was named the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week against Florida Atlantic with 6 tackles, one for loss, of course, the touchdown following the Big blocked punt.

"Buzzy played well, obviously played well defensively and had the big recovery off the punt block. I thought he flew around, made some plays, for his first defensive start, I thought he handled it well and then Caleb came in and did a great job as well," said Head Coach Lincoln Riley. 

Riley said he's optimistic long-term about the knee injury sustained by backup quarterback Austin Kendall, but he said he could miss some time. Because of that, you'll see two young guys get some reps in practice, they're both Tanners, Tanner Mordecai, the freshman and sophomore Tanner Schaefer. 

In Stillwater, the Cowboys rolled up a lot of yards and points in a season-opening win.
   
One big topic for the head coach? Re-assessing the Cowboys' quarterback play.

Immediately after OSU's 58-17 win over Missouri State, Mike Gundy described new quarterback Taylor Cornelius' debut as average. On Monday, the head coach had a slightly different perspective.

"Like most games, there's things that happened that I didn't see on the field that made me feel better after the game. And as I said he was 8-year-old kid pitch ball and he was just trying to throw a strike instead of throwing the baseball, and I think that once he gets out of that phase he'll get back to where he was and what we've seen in practice," Gundy said. 

OSU's running backs dominated the night and redshirt freshman Chuba Hubbard is the Big 12 Co-Newcomer of the week.

Gundy also said the defense was pretty smooth in the first game under new coordinator Jim Knowles, but that South Alabama's athleticism will be a bigger challenge to stop than what the Cowboys' saw in Missouri State.

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