Sooners are adjusting practice schedules during tough stretch
NORMAN — With OU about to play its eighth of nine consecutive games to start the season, Sooners coach Lincoln Riley gave his team a bit of a break Monday.
“It was definitely nice,” defensive lineman Perrion Winfrey said. “Less strain on our bodies, so we were able to prepare more mentally, because this is a mental game as well as a physical game. We were able to come in and focus more on the mental part of the game.”
Riley said cutting back on physical work was part of the game plan as the season draws on.
“A lot of people think the plan is just what plays or defenses or what special teams calls that you make during the game,” Riley said. “I mean, it’s doing everything you can to get the team as ready to play as possible. And so we’ve tried to try to be aware of that and there’s always a fine line between the reps you need on the field, but also they need to be fresh and ready to go on Saturday, especially this week with an early kick.”
OU plays at Kansas at 11 a.m. Saturday in a game televised on ESPN.
Riley’s early week break comes with a catch, though.
“That means Tuesday through Friday, you’ve got to be elite,” he said.
The current stretch is the longest without a week off since 2015 and the longest to start the season since 1995, when the Sooners played 10 games before a bye week.
Several Sooners show support for Julius Jones
Walking into Gaylord Family — Oklahoma Memorial Stadium last week, OU standouts Jeremiah Hall and Kennedy Brooks wore black T-shirts reading “Justice for Julius.”
Brooks wears a wristband in support of Julius Jones, who is currently scheduled to be executed Nov. 18 but claims he is innocent and that his trial was unfair.
Hall had heard about Jones’ before but Oklahoma native and current Utah Jazz assistant Irv Roland, recently reached out to Hall about the case.
Shortly after that, the Sooners’ captains discussed the case on a Zoom call.
“We did our own research and realized this is something we should support,” Hall said. “Me and Kennedy just so happened to be the ones wearing the shirt that day. The more I learned about the case, the more I felt I had a platform that I could use to bring attention to it.”
In 2002, Jones was sentenced to death for the fatal 1999 shooting of an Edmond insurance executive during a carjacking. Paul Howell was gunned down in his parents’ driveway in Edmond after a shopping trip with his daughters.
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-1 last month to recommend Jones’ death sentence be reduced to life with the possibility of parole. Gov. Kevin Stitt ultimately will make the decision on whether to accept, reject it or modify the board’s recommendation to commute Jones’ sentence.
Jones’ cause has been taken up by several celebrities, including Kim Kardashian and former OU and current Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young.