Coming off the heels of a way too close win against Tulane, the Oklahoma Sooners shift their attention to the Western Carolina Catamounts. Sophomore defensive back Keyshawn Lawrence sat down for media availability and answered a myriad of questions about his first game, practice routines, the rotation from Saturday’s game against Tulane, the schedule, bye week, and other topics.
Much was made about Oklahoma’s usage of players on Saturday against Tulane. We chronicled it here at the Sooners Wire. Oklahoma played 31 guys on defense and many, including us, wondered if that may have had an adverse effect, resulting in plays for large gains and general struggles for the Oklahoma defense. Lawrence didn’t seem to buy into that narrative. He felt it was more of a coaching decision that he trusted.
Pretty much I don’t believe so. I think it’s a good idea to have fresh bodies out there… It can mess up the flow of the game but who knows? I’m not the coach so I can’t really go into much depth about that.
He was then asked about the fact that Oklahoma plays nine straight games until their bye week. Obviously, that’s working under the assumption any natural disasters or COVID-related issues force a schedule change. Lawrence said, “We train so hard for eight months so we pretty much just want to go into it. We don’t see a downfall in it because we just want go every day and work.”
That’s the type of mindset that championship teams adopt. Oklahoma had no choice in their bye week. They only could play the schedule given to them. For all of the talk about depth over the last few days, that same depth could be a major strength as the season goes on and attrition naturally occurs.
Lawrence was asked to compare how he felt about the defense after the Tulane game to his thoughts before. The Tennessee transfer didn’t seem too worried and offered another vote of confidence in his defensive teammates.
We just have to go out there with more energy. We may have thought we played to the the best of our ability but we know what we have here is special and we have to remain focused. We understand what we have here.
By all accounts, it seems like there was a dedicated focus on reminding the Sooners team as a whole that what happened in their first game cannot happen again. Instead of hitting the panic button, Lawrence, his teammates and coaches held themselves accountable for their entire performance and will look to be better.
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