Oklahoma Sooners Football Press Conference Notes: Big 12 defenses, Marquise Brown’s speed, and the injury situation|Oklahoma Hot Topics|Team BattleGround|College BattleGround

After winning one of the most exhilarating Bedlam games in history, the Oklahoma Sooners are looking forward to an enormous challenge against the TCU Horned Frogs. Baker Mayfield looks to be the clear front-runner in the Heisman conversation after an epic performance on a Saturday where all other candidates had sub-par outings. Finally, the team appears to be focused and not overly high on themselves, which is always a great sign.

Perhaps the most noteworthy message coming out of today’s press conference was when Baker Mayfield openly challenged the fans to set a new standard for crowd noise. Mayfield referenced how the Tech game from ‘08 is always brought up for how impactful the fans can be, and he wants this week to be the new benchmark.

“I got one last thing. Being at one of the last home games we’re gonna have, it’s important to our college football playoff run. I’m gonna call out our fans. It’s gonna be an important one for us. 7 o’clock game. Night game. I don’t want to hear any talk about the 2008 Texas Tech game. This needs to be the new talk for the future, this crowd needs to be going. We give it our all week in and week out. I expect the fans to do the same for me this Saturday.”

Fans, I know we can rise to the occasion. For those in attendance, do your part and be the difference. Let’s make the TCU game from 2017 the new standard for the future.

Lincoln Riley took the podium after the players and touched on a little bit of everything from the past weekend and previewed Gary Patterson’s Horned Frogs. Check out some of the highlights from Riley’s Q&A with the press on Monday:

“I think he’ll respond well, he’s a competitor. I think some of his youth showed up the other day [. . .] but he’ll learn, he’ll grow, he’s competitive. He’s a really, really good player and he’ll be much better for it.”

“I feel like he’s just gotten more comfortable, and we’ve gotten more comfortable with him. He’s able to play more reps, and he’s making more plays as the reps go up.”

“It’s uneducated. When we sit here and play our conference every single week and we play great offenses every single week, we’ve seen what happens. We’ve also seen, going back to the bowl games last year, there’s one conference that gave up under 20 points per game and that was the Big 12 where everybody is playing out of conference teams. People want to talk about (Big 12 defenses), but we didn’t have any problems moving the ball against SEC defenses — one of the best ones in the country last year in the bowl game.”

“He’s the best one I’ve ever coached and probably the best one I’ve been around. I’ve been around other guys that maybe did a few things better here or there, but you talk about the total package of intelligence, arm talent, leadership, drive, being able to move, he’s the most complete one I’ve been around.”

Lincoln Riley announced that safety Kahlil Haughton will miss this weekend’s game against TCU with an injury, cornerback Jordan Thomas is listed as questionable and defensive tackle Neville Gallimore should return this week after missing the last two games. Haughton’s injury is especially crucial because the other safety, Will Johnson, will miss the first half of the TCU game after being tagged with a targeting call on Saturday.

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Orlando Brown also spoke about Baker Mayfield and his Heisman chances. It is apparent that this award would mean a lot to Brown and the o-line unit.

“He may say it doesn’t mean much to him, but as on offensive line it means a lot to us. We want him to win that Heisman Trophy. We want him to win every award he can win. We want to send him out of this university as one of the best players of all time.”

On the day, there was a lot of talk about emerging star receiver Marquise Brown. Baker Mayfield was asked who he thinks is faster between Brown and the 2016 Biletnikoff Award winner, Dede Westbrook.

“I think Marquise is even faster. Love Dede, but Marquise, he’s got another gear.”

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