Sooners rushing to 'get it done'

Stoops has Peterson, Oklahoma pushing for double-digit wins

B.G. Brooks, Rocky Mountain News

Thursday, July 27, 2006

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - On most college campuses, an eight-win football season isn't one to inspire long faces and a longer off-season. But at Oklahoma, eight victories usually are just enough to inspire a wake.

After winning 12 games in each of the previous three seasons, 11 in 2001 and 13 in 2000 that included the national championship, the Sooners are as accustomed to a single-digit win column as the Queen of England is to plastic cutlery.

To assure the W's hit double digits again, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, whose seven-season record at the school is 75-16, has launched what for him is more a gut than a knee-jerk reaction.

Stoops has fallen back on those twin pillars most football coaches lean on in dire (by Sooners standards) times: more discipline and toughness.

"The bottom line is we have to - as coaches - have to accept the responsibility to get it done," he said Wednesday on the final day of the Big 12 Conference's preseason media briefing.

"And the players need to accept our coaching and guidance to make sure they're playing in a more disciplined and tougher and better way. . . . You can say it anyway you want, but we need to get it done."

In 2006, getting it done the Stoops way might lead to another national title - if several elements coalesce.

The offense, now coordinated by Kevin Wilson after Chuck Long's departure to San Diego State, has to adjust to the change. The offensive line, which experienced more juggling last season than most of Barnum & Bailey's stops, must jell and stay healthy.

Sophomore quarterback Rhett Bomar must settle into his role. The defense, which returns eight starters, must play as advertised.

And tailback Adrian Peterson, who by mid-November could be the Heisman Trophy front- runner, can't make the training room as much of a frequent stop as he did in 2005. He missed all or more than half of four games because of a right ankle injury.

"It was tough, watching my guys (while) sitting on the sidelines," said Peterson, whose sophomore productivity (1,108 yards) paled alongside his freshman numbers (1,925 yards).

Instead of eroding his confidence, Peterson said his reduced playing time "made me more determined. It was just a different season, and I'm trying to put that behind me. Now I'll take nothing for granted and take advantage of my opportunities."

Another possible boost for Peterson this season is having his father in the stands watching him play. It will be the first season in a decade Nelson Peterson will have that opportunity.

The elder Peterson, 43, has spent the past nine years in federal prison in Texarkana, Texas, convicted of laundering money in connection with the sale of drugs. Currently, Nelson Peterson is in a halfway house in Oklahoma City, "and, hopefully,

he'll see all my games," Adrian Peterson said. "They're going through that process right now."

Nelson Peterson hasn't seen Adrian play in person since his son was a seventh grader. They were separated when Adrian was 11.

"One day he was taken away from me," Adrian said. "It was crazy, man. I really didn't understand it; it was very hard. I thought about my dad all the time."

Peterson already is on most Heisman watch lists, and if he reaches his seasonal rushing goal, he could reach for the bronze statue in December.

He hopes to run for 2,200 yards.

"I set my goals high," he said, adding he thought more of the Heisman Trophy as a kid than he does now.

Beating Texas and winning the conference championship, he said, would be just as satisfying.

CYCLONES REBOUND: Does close count? Not to coach Dan McCarney and his Iowa State Cyclones. For the past two years, on the final Saturday of the regular season, Iowa State has waved goodbye to an outright North Division title.

Overtime losses against Missouri (17-14) in 2004 and Kansas (24-21) in 2005 rerouted the Cyclones from appearing in the Big 12 championship game - a destination the school never has reached.

"We make no apologies," McCarney said. "We've been on the doorstep the last two years (and) put ourselves in position on the final Saturday to be in the championship game. . . . Hopefully, it won't be the last time to be on the doorstep."

But after near misses as heartbreaking as the past two, it isn't erroneous to believe the back-to-back failures aren't mired in the heads of Iowa State players.

"It should be," said defensive back/return specialist DeAndre Jackson, one of only three returning starters on defense. A North title "was right there on the tips of our tongues. . . . We could taste it. We just didn't finish. Looking ahead,

we've got to go out, get back into those situations and just finish."

Preseason forecasters believe the Cyclones will have the opportunity; they routinely have been picked as one of the top two teams (Nebraska is the other) in the North.

McCarney is entering his 12th season, making him the dean of the league's coaches. He calls that longevity "meaningful," but in the next sentence adds, "My wife will tell you I've got bigger bags under my eyes, more wrinkles, less hair."

LIFE AFTER MR. SMITH: For the first time in what will seem like a decade to defensive coordinators in the Big 12, Missouri won't have versatile quarterback Brad Smith running its huddle.

Smith, a four-year starter and multiple record-setter for the Tigers, likely will be replaced by true sophomore Chase Daniel, whose first-year grooming included playing a series or two in 10 games.

"There's going to be a life after Brad Smith," promised Missouri coach Gary Pinkel. "We have a lot of players that can touch the ball and do good things in this league. I think you'll be able to see that as the season goes on."

Pinkel said he and his staff would have preferred to redshirt Daniel last season, but the more they watched Daniel, who completed 38-of-66 passes for 347 yards and one touchdown and two interceptions, the more obvious it became that he was Smith's backup.

"He was the next best player to go in, and that's why we went that route," Pinkel said.

brooksb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5466