Alexander off the bench? Sooners loaded
I walked up to OU defensive ends coach Chris Wilson on Media Day and told him his position was pretty loaded if Auston English, who a mere two years ago was a serious candidate for Big 12 defensive player of the year, wasn’t even going to start.
“He’s not?” Wilson asked with about 75 percent seriousness. “I didn’t know that.”
Wilson wasn’t bluffing. He said Thursday that English and Jeremy Beal would start at defensive end, with Alexander off the bench in a rotation that also is likely to include David King and R.J. Washington.
Makes me think of 1985. In 1984, OU defensive end Kevin Murphy, a great player, was injured, so the Sooners turned to redshirt freshmen Darrell Reed and Troy Johnson. Reed was in line to start, but Johnson was relatively unknown.
Both became excellent players as rookies, the Sooner defense was outstanding and OU won the Big Eight title. A year later, Murphy returned for a fifth year, and the Sooners suddenly were loaded at defensive end.
That’s where the 2009 Sooners are. I would rank OU’s best defensive players this way: 1. G.K. McCoy; 2. Frank Alexander; 3. Travis Lewis; 4. Dom Franks; 5. Brian Jackson; 6. Jeremy Beal; 7. Adrian Taylor; 8. Keenan Clayton.
If I’m off, I don’t think I’m off much. If Alexander is not the second-best defender on this team, he’s close. And yet, he’s not going to start.
Beal has turned into a wonderful player, and if English is anything close to where he was throughout much of 2007, he’s a wild man himself. They are elder statesmen on this defense, so I don’t have a beef with the starting designations. But that doesn’t Alexander is not a pass-rushing demon. I think he’s a budding superstar.
And yet, on this team, he’s the backup defensive end.
By the way. That 1985 OU team? The defense did OK. Over the last seven games of that season, it allowed 42 points total. It shut out Colorado and OSU. It held SMU (back when the Ponies were riding high) to 13. Kansas and Missouri to six each. Nebraska to seven, a touchdown scored on a fumblerooski. And in the national title game, Penn State managed 10 points.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
With all your talk about idols on the radio yesterday. I wanted to chime in, and this article prompted me to write. I was in grade school in the mid-eighties and Idolized the Boz. I remember a poster (or picture in SI) of Boz and a couple other players in fatigues in front of a map. The map had impact icons in Stillwater, Lincoln, Lawrence, and Boz was crushing a couple in is hands. The headline was ‘Nations Best Defense’. Anyway, I don’t think you were fair in calling Boz an Anti-Idol. I was naive at the time, but even with all his flaws, as many idols have, Brian Bosworth was a fantastic college linebacker and on the field merited my idolization.
Barry…I sure hope your right. OU’s 2009 defense may look great on paper, but they have a lot to prove after last season.
While I agree that OU has great depth at DE, your list of best defensive players confuses me. How can you rate Alexander the 2nd best player when he is viewed as the 3rd best DE by the coaches? Not sure of the logic here. My list would be:
1.GK
2.Dom Franks
3.Travis Lewis
4.Beal
5.English
6.Reynolds
7.Clayton
8.Taylor
9.Alexander
I wish we were playing 1985 offenses too! HA! Unfortunately we are playing 2009 spreads, and there will be points.
I think beal should be ranked higher