Oklahoma Sooners Football: Spring Game Preview

After months without football, the cold, cruel offseason will finally get interrupted Saturday at 1 p.m. as the Oklahoma Sooners take on the Oklahoma Sooners in Norman. While the Sooners enjoyed a high-flying offensive attack last year, the Sooners defense struggled big-time through most of the season. The Sooners will have to replace a ton of talent at the skill positions, while the Sooners are transitioning into a new defensive front.

Okay, you get it. The annual Red/White Scrimmage is just that — a glorified intrasquad scrimmage that, if anything, is even less interesting than usual because coaches don’t want their actual plays on TV in April. They’ve been very up-front about how vanilla this is about to be.

Still, this year’s game will be worth watching because of all the big unknowns and new faces on the OU roster, and Crimson and Cream Machine has been breaking down the best spring storylines all month long.

Personally, I’ve been writing pieces about specific players to keep an eye on this spring. In this story, I previewed four offensive guys who’ve never played a real snap for OU, yet could become major members of the team in 2017. Here I talked about defensive players, most with experience, who can step up and stand out this season. And a few weeks ago I wrote about guys with something to prove this spring (I may have written about Will Sunderland a lot — he has a lot to prove!).

In this story, Kartik did a great job of breaking down the big spring storylines and players to watch in one superpost. And in this one, Matt has collected some of the big last-minute links that Sooners fans should check out before kick.

I expect a big turnout for this year’s game, and not just because of the weather. Sooners fans know that this year’s team is one of the most interesting in years. It could do anything.

OU could win a national championship this season. It has a clear-as-day path to the College Football Playoff, where it would have the best quarterback. That alone gives it a shot.

But OU could also (relatively) crash and (kind of) burn. Even without thinking of injury — and goodness knows injury will happen — the Sooners are inexperienced at the skill positions and thin at most defensive spots. The Big 12 is far from guaranteed, especially not with the return of the illustrious beat-em-twice Big 12 Championship.

So fans will be looking for answers on Saturday. They won’t get them, of course, but that’s half the appeal. All fans want is a moment, a play, something to hang their hat on for the rest of the long, dreary summer. How about that cut Abdul Adams made? Can you believe Marquise Brown’s speed? And that interception!

This spring, come ready to be hopeful. There’s plenty to be nervous about, but you might as well get excited instead.

Have something to say? Type something in the comments section! We’d love to discuss this topic with all of you.