NORMAN, Okla. (AP) -Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford came back to Oklahoma with a clean slate, hoping for a shot at another championship.
Time for Take 2.
Instead of the national championship, Bradford returns from a shoulder injury this week as the Sooners (2-2) turn their sights toward a fourth straight Big 12 title. It’s not the goal Bradford and three other stars had in mind when they skipped a shot at the NFL draft to come back to college, but who knows what lies ahead if Oklahoma can run the table in conference play as it has done three other times under coach Bob Stoops?
“With a Big 12 championship,” left tackle Trent Williams said, “comes another BCS shot.”
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“In nonconference play, we went 2-2 – two points away from being 4-0 – but that’s over. Now you have the Big 12 season, which is equivalent to us as a playoff season,” safety Sam Proctor said. “We have a chance to go undefeated in our conference, so that’s what we’re looking forward to doing.”
First up is Baylor (3-1), which is 0-18 in the all-time series and comes to Norman without injured star quarterback Robert Griffin. Third-stringer Nick Florence started Baylor’s 31-15 win against Kent State last week, when backup Blake Szymanski was out with a bruised right shoulder.
Szymanski returned to practice this week and said he hoped to play against Oklahoma, but coach Art Briles has yet to announce who his starter will be. Jay Finley, who averaged 106 yards rushing in the Bears’ first two games of the season, could also return from an ankle injury in the Big 12 opener for both teams.
“We still have eight big games ahead of us going into conference play. We can still have a real good season if we win out,” Oklahoma defensive tackle Gerald McCoy said. “The Big 12 Conference is no slouch by no means and we’ve got a tough task coming in this week. I think Baylor’s 3-1, so we know Baylor’s better than they’ve been in the past.”
“Even with losing Robert Griffin, it’s still a pretty good team and they’re not going to come in here mesmerized by playing OU. They don’t care.”
ford’s return could provide a boost for Oklahoma, which has lost one-point games against BYU and Miami and won its only two home games by a combined score of 109-0.
“Nothing good’s going to happen if you don’t make it,” Sooners offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson said. “You can sit around and feel sorry for yourself or second-guess everything and have all these opinions or if and coulda, woulda, shouldas. But bottom line, nothing good’s going to happen if you don’t change your outlook, the way you’ve been going about it and go out and get after it.”
The Sooners are still without star tight end Jermaine Gresham, who had season-ending knee surgery, and top receiver Ryan Broyles, who is out two to four weeks with a hairline fracture of his left shoulder blade.
Broyles had become the focal point of Oklahoma’s offense before he was injured in the first quarter of last week’s loss at Miami.
“Since I’ve been here, I don’t think that we’ve ever had the whole group of guys where there’s no injuries, so we’ve been through this before,” said tailback DeMarco Murray, who had a season-high 23 carries last week but may fill in for Broyles in the slot.
“We’re not going to just kneel down and say we don’t have this player. We’ve got a lot of playmakers capable of filling roles and playing hard.”
e, or if his shoulder will grow weak over time.
“It’s all a matter of how my arm reacts,” Bradford said. “Until I get out there, until I practice, until I make all the throws and until I play in a game, then I’m not going to know. And no one’s going to know.”
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