SAINTS BEAT TEXANS
Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints trimmed the Houston Texans on Monday Night Football
NORMAN — Jalen Hurts
hit the weight room sometime between fielding his final snap against South Dakota and coming in for his postgame press conference.
Oklahoma director of performance Bennie Wylie shared the proof on Instagram. As the photos showed, Hurts didn't even bother to change out of his football pants after the 70-14 win.
The OU quarterback was asked Monday if he usually works out after games.
“I had something on my mind, so I got it off my chest and went and got some work in,” Hurts said.
Later came an obvious follow-up question: What was on his mind?
“Getting more work in,” Hurts said.
To summarize, Hurts worked out to get something off his mind, and the thing on his mind was to get more work in.
Hurts, in very much the style of his former coach Nick Saban, is not one to share his feelings.
“Just taking care of his body,” coach Lincoln Riley
said when asked about the post-game workout. “Game days, especially one like that, are one of the lightest days of the week for those guys. It's a long season, and a lot of our players do a lot of things behind the scenes that the public doesn't see just to keep their bodies at an elite level.”
Oklahoma def e nsi ve lineman Kenneth Mann and left guard Marquis Hayes are nearing returns from undisclosed injuries, Riley said Monday.
Mann has yet to play this season. The senior started 13 games last season and was a defensive captain for the Sooners. Mann recorded 50 tackles and 5.5 tackles for a loss in 2018.
“Mann's getting close,” Riley said. “Really, really close. For this week, it's a possibility but not a certainty.” Hayes, a sophomore f r om Maryland Heights, Missouri, made his first career start in Week 1 against Houston. He was unexpectedly held out last Saturday. Virginia graduate transfer R.J. Proctor filled in at left guard against South Dakota.
“Not serious,” Riley said of Hayes' injury. “Not going to be out for an extended time.” Like Mann, Hayes is questionable to play at 7 p.m. Saturday at UCLA.
New release
Bob Stoops' book, “No Excuses: The Making of a Head Coach,” will be released Tuesday.
In the book, co-authored by Gene Wojciechowski, Stoops writes about a variety of topics, including the difficulty of firing of Josh Heupel after the 2014 season, his decision to step down after the 2016 season and Riley's firing of his brother Mike Stoops last season.
“I don't have anything to hide,” Bob Stoops said last month of writing the book. “At the end of the day, I thought I'd give a true account of where I was and where my feelings were at the time.”
Stoops said one of the reasons for writing the book was to offer advice to younger coaches.
“I get asked continually — constantly — by young coaches or even semiyoung or semi-old about my journey and how it all happened,” Stoops said. “I don't know how to say that . I can't tell you that n a 10-minute conversation. There's a lot of that, too.”