Game week is finally here for Oklahoma football as the Sooners will host FCS-opponent Missouri State at 6 p.m. CT on Saturday.
The Sooners have yet to meet with the media ahead of Saturday’s game, but the Bears went through their first media session on Monday.
Missouri State is coached by former Arkansas and Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino. Petrino spent a year on the sidelines after being let-go from Louisville after 2018, but the Bears hired him to be their head football coach in Jan. of 2020.
Oklahoma’s first opponent is in a full rebuild. Missouri State went 1-10 a year ago and are a member of the Missouri Valley Conference.
Here is what Petrino said about this week’s matchup with the Sooners.
OPENING STATEMENT:
“We finished basically what we would refer to as camp last Saturday morning with an early morning scrimmage, which was fun. Our players needed it. It was a lot of good hitting. A lot of good running around, going full speed. And I think it was really good for our quarterback and our running backs and the physicalness for our offensive line and defensive line. This week is all about our process and doing things right getting ready for a game. Because of the holiday, we practiced today. Our guys came in this morning and worked out, lifted weights and a little bit of stretching. And then we have good meetings this afternoon and then go out and take the field and really do about half of a practice. Wouldn’t do a full practice today. Then a normal Tuesday, normal Wednesday, a normal Thursday and get ready to go. Think our guys are excited about it. It’s been a long go. Most of our guys came here that first week in June and started the process of getting ready for a game and then got delayed for a couple weeks. So they’ve actually been practicing for a long time.”
ON YOUNG DEFENDERS PLAYING OKLAHOMA’S OFFENSE:
“It’s going to be a tremendous challenge. There’s no question about that. They’ve got great offensive linemen, great skill players, tremendous quarterback and a really, really good scheme. What we want our players to do is to be able to put the video on and show that they utilize their technique, they played with great effort, they played fast and played within the structure. I think that’s what’s important for us is that our guys can really understand what we’re asking them to do and play fast and fearless and make sure they can look in the mirror after the game and say, ‘I played as hard as I possibly could.'”
BLOCKING OUT THE NOISE OF BEING AN UNDERDOG:
“Yeah, we’re trying to just focus on the process and how to go about preparing for a game, how to handle today’s shorter practice and meetings and do a great job in the meetings today. We’ve got to be able to go out and do what I call a half a practice on a Monday so we can have a real hard, physical practice on a Tuesday. I’ve always kind of went back and forth when you have an extra day of preparation on what the schedule was and I always feel like it’s best to do a half-practice on Monday. I think that’s the thing that’s the challenge is to, like you said, block out the noise and just focus on what we can control, focus on getting better. We’ve got some corrections to make from Saturday’s scrimmage, so that’s a big part of today also. And then go out and get better as an individual, on our technique, playing faster — we’ve got to learn how to play faster. You can still see some hesitation, some doubt in our players. Some of it is because of the schemes and not knowing exactly what to do, and some of it is trusting themselves and trusting their teammates. So we’ve got a lot of work to do. There’s a lot to focus on.”
ON WHAT IS GAINED FROM PLAYING OKLAHOMA
“First and foremost, going through our preparation, and learning how we go about our business and the process that it takes to get ready to play a game and how we can execute and put things together, how we have to do our job and rely on our teammates to do their job.”
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