Sooners Hold 'Crisp' Spring Practice Opener

NORMAN ? The Oklahoma football team held its 18th spring practice opener under head coach Bob Stoops on Saturday in Norman. The workout, which lasted a little more than two hours, was conducted at the OU Rugby Fields near Lloyd Noble Center on a sunny, pristine day.

The Sooners were back in action as a full team for the first time since the Dec. 31 College Football Playoff Semifinals, a 37-17 defeat at the hands of Clemson in the Capital One Orange Bowl. OU finished 2015 with an 11-2 record and a ninth Big 12 title under Stoops.

"It's great to be back out here on the practice field throwing it around," said senior quarterback Baker Mayfield, Sporting News' 2015 national player of the year. "I tell you what, it beats the heck out of doing workouts early in the morning."

Asked how this year's spring season is going to differ from last year's, Mayfield, who was locked in a three-way battle for the starting spot until last August, quickly answered.

"It's a completely different spring for me competition wise," he said. "There's not as much pressure. I know I have my spot, but that doesn't mean I can be satisfied. My thing is about working out the minor details, and that's what we talked about; making everyone around me better and taking care of my business."

"We're faster, crisper, can rifle through plays faster just because guys are so familiar with them. I really believe we have a great opportunity to make a big jump offensively this year."
Bob Stoops

Also different is the fact that the OU offense has a year of experience in coordinator Lincoln Riley's system. Even though last season was Riley's first in Norman, the Sooners ranked fourth nationally in scoring (43.5 ppg) and seventh in yards per game (530.2).

From an offensive standpoint, Stoops said Saturday's practice was completely different than OU's first practice last spring.

"It's like night and day," said Stoops. "We're faster, crisper, can rifle through plays faster just because guys are so familiar with them. I really believe we have a great opportunity to make a big jump offensively this year."

That's saying something, considering the Sooners accounted for more than 500 yards of offense in each of the final seven regular season games last year, and three of the top five single-game yardage totals of the Stoops era were recorded a season ago.

Junior cornerback Jordan Thomas, a 2015 All-Big 12 Second Team selection, corroborated his head coach's assessment.

"It's a lot smoother," Thomas said of OU's execution on the other side of the ball. "You see those guys communicating a lot better than last year because they were obviously running a new offense. After a year of getting it down pat, you see those guys clicking well. The communication between quarterbacks and receivers, route adjustments and things like that, they're a lot more crisp than they were last year."

The Sooners are scheduled to conduct 13 more practices this spring. The OU Spring Game presented by U.S. Fleet Tracking is set for 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 9 at Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

Calvin Thibodeaux went through his first practice as Oklahoma's defensive line coach Saturday. For more photos from Spring Practice No. 1, click here.