Sooners slated to scrimmage Tuesday night

NORMAN — The nearconstant rain Saturday morning kept the OU football team from scrimmaging as planned, instead forcing the Sooners to move their practice to the indoor facility.

With the move, OU didn’t hold a true scrimmage.

“We didn’t do much individual, didn’t do much drill work, we got to ‘team’ pretty quick,” coach Lincoln Riley said. “We did a lot of ‘team’ snaps. Had some Big 12 officials in here, which was good, but it’s obviously different when you go live.

“The defense easily had the upper-hand that day, but it’s been a lot of backand-forth other than that.”

Instead, the Sooners will have their first true scrimmage of fall camp Tuesday night followed by another later in the week.

Though Saturday wasn’t a true scrimmage, OU’s defense got rave reviews for its performance during the team drills.

“They just played a little bit better,” Riley said, describing the defense. “They were sharper than the offensive guys were. Offensively we were a little bit sloppy, had too many penalties. So, no, they really played better in every facet.”

Anderson relishes full contact

Before August, it had been a long time since redshirt sophomore Rodney Anderson had taken a hit.

But now that the running back is fully recovered from a fluke hit that broke a small bone in his neck, he’s able to go through preseason practice with full contact.

“It feels great being able to actually play the game how it’s meant to be played,” Anderson said after Monday’s practice. “I’m just happy to be out there doing everything I can.” Anderson is one of a handful of running backs fighting for playing time.

Though he’s only had one carry, Anderson appears to be a front-runner for the most playing time because he’s spent the most time in the system. Because OU didn’t get to scrimmage Saturday, however, Riley still doesn’t have a true sense of just where everyone is in the running back race.

Riley to let team decide captains

In one of the wide hallways that weaves through the renovated Switzer Center hangs six clear picture frames.

The frames hang in the middle of the wall, underneath a large painted phrase that urges them to be legendary and in between a giant display of the upcoming games with spaces for individual players of that week.

These six frames are reserved for the team captains, and they’ll be filled a little bit closer to game week. Riley plans on using a player vote to select those captains, similar to the way Bob Stoops’ teams picked captains.