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Oklahoma’s football team hit the Rugby Complex west of Lloyd Noble
Center for its first official fall practice of 2005 on Thursday. Bob
Stoops spoke with members of the media following practice to give his
thoughts on how things went.

Q: Your thoughts on the first practice?

Bob Stoops: They’ve had a good day. They looked good, sharp — our
conditioning tests this morning were good. I think they’re trained up
and ready to go.

Q: Adrian Peterson appeared to look pretty good today?

Stoops: It shouldn’t be surprising. He’s big, fast and strong and he’s
had an incredible summer. Coach (Jerry) Schmidt can’t say enough about
him. He’s up to 218 to 220 (pounds) and he has every bit of the speed
he had a year ago. He looks great and he’s worked hard.

Q: How much practice is Tommy Grady going to miss because of his
intersession classes?

Stoops: We don’t know. Hopefully not too many. It will be spotty. He
was in meetings today. He’ll be in meetings and practices here and
there, just what his schedule accommodates. We’ll give him all he can
handle and keep him up to speed the best we can. Hopefully, he won’t
miss too much.

Q: Does that eliminate his chances to win the starting job?

Stoops: It’s not the best thing, no. It’s not the most positive. It’s not something that can’t be overcome with some extra work. We’ll give him all those opportunities the best he can.

Q: Is this the most positions you’ve had to fill at the start of the season since your first year in Norman?

Stoops: No. Our second year here we had 23 freshman and sophomores in
the two-deep that played a lot. Dan Cody, as a true freshman, was playing a lot. Kory Klein, Derrick Strait that year was a redshirt freshman that hadn’t played a bit and he played the whole year. Michael
Thompson played very little his first year and he started at the other corner as a true sophomore the whole year. I bet we had every bit as many questions in 2000 other than maybe Josh Heupel. This isn’t
anything new. This is what we’re supposed to do. A lot of these guys are guys who have been waiting for their chance, they’ve been up and coming and they’ve been prepared for their opportunities.

Q: What did you think of some of the newcomers?

Stoops: They look awesome. The freshman and first year guys look good.
Allen Patrick looked good, Brandon Keith, those guys have a lot of potential. We’re really excited about this incoming class. It really looks to be a class that is everything they were billed to be.

Q: Are you running any freshman with the first group of players yet?

Stoops: Nobody just yet. But a lot of them look like they have the potential. We’re going to give them all an opportunity in due time.

Q: Reggie Smith is playing cornerback?

Stoops: He’s playing the corner today and really looked sharp at it. He’s got the potential and all the ability and range to be a great one, too. He really sticks out. All those incoming (defensive backs) looked
good.

Q: It appeared Malcolm Kelly had a pretty good day?

Stoops: With his size and speed and ability to catch, he was one of the
top-rated receivers coming out of high school. He’s a guy we’ll definitely look at to go right away. And we’ll get him ready to do that.

The Sooners will be back at it again Friday at 5:30 p.m. But they will spend the better part of the morning attending photo day with the media and then meeting fans at OU’s annual Fan Appreciation event, scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. at Memorial Stadium.

Sooner Spectator will be on hand at the Fan Appreciation event, selling copies of our 2005 Football Preview Issue - perfect for getting autographed by your favorite Sooners.