Today’s press conference had a much more relaxed vibe than last week’s. The Sooners conquered what will probably be their toughest regular season game of the season. OU currently sits at No. 2 in the AP Poll and are now a home game against Tulane is the only thing separating Lincoln Riley’s squad from entering Big 12 play 3-0. The Sooners are currently riding the nation’s longest winning-streak at 12 games, and the last 10 wins have all come by double-digit scoring margins.

The most “newsworthy” moment of today’s press conference came when Baker Mayfield offered an apology for planting the flag at midfield following Saturday’s win.

Mayfield’s apology, while completely unnecessary but a nice gesture all the same, hopefully means that he won’t have to answer any more questions about it from the media. Before Mayfield took the podium to issue his apology, senior fullback Dimitri Flowers answered the most important question of the day.

We are still working to confirm that the nachos are, in fact, great, and we will keep you updated on this developing story.

Lincoln Riley was, as always, the last to take the podium. He addressed injury concerns, the running back situation and the development of this year’s freshman class among other things. Here are the highlights from his session with the media.

Coach Riley on injuries to Mark Andrews and Will Johnson

On Andrews: “We think he’ll play this week. He’s doing well and improving quickly.”

Johnson’s status is “still up in the air. That decision hasn’t been made yet.”

Riley on Abdul Adams getting benched after fumbling in the first half against Ohio State

“I trust Abdul is good. I told you after the game it wasn’t necessarily we just pulled Abdul because of that. We were going to give some other guys some chances, and once he did fumble, we thought it was the right time to give those other guys a look. Trey (Sermon) and Rodney (Anderson) got on a pretty good roll and we just saw that honestly there’s not a reason to change right now.”

Riley on whether Marcelias Sutton, who did not play a single down against Ohio State, is still in the mix at running back

“He’s definitely still in the mix. You know, Trey got going pretty good early, and Rodney as well with the touches that he had, so we just decided to not make a change.”

Riley on if he’s been surprised by how well this year’s freshman class has performed

“I don’t know if I saw it as a group, because that a lot of times comes down to the individuals. But it doesn’t surprise me that a lot of guys out of that class are playing well and played well in that environment. That’s what we’re trying to do is push recruiting people who we feel like can either A) come in and help right now or B) come in and push the guys that we have and make them better, because we’re not going to try to take a bunch of projects, guys that we think ‘well maybe they’re two or three years down the line’ because that’s just not how we’re going to recruit. If we’re going to push this thing and take it where we want it to go, that’s got to be our mentality.”

Riley on why he utilizes his fullback (Dimitri Flowers) more than most other teams

“There’s not a lot of guys like him would probably be the biggest answer for me. You’ve got a guy that’s got to be able physically to do so many things well, and the underrated aspect of it is how much mentally a guy like that has to be able to handle. Most players are only capable of playing one, maybe one and a half to two, positions. For a guy like him, he’s got to really be ready to play four, and that’s hard to do.”

The Sooners’ next game will be this Saturday against Tulane at 5 pm CT in Norman. The game will be available on pay-per-view for $55 through Fox Sports Oklahoma. It was announced today that OU’s following game at Baylor will be at 5:30 CT on FS1.

Full press conference links

Jordan Thomas

Dimitri Flowers

Baker Mayfield

Lincoln Riley