NCAAF – Can the Sooners Recover from Injuries?

Things could not have gone worse for Bob Stoops BCS dreams, or Sam Bradford’s Heisman hopes. When Sam Bradford was blindsided in the opener, I knew instantly that he had likely suffered a separated shoulder. It’s an injury I’ve seen way too many times to not know what it was. The fact that he could be back in a month is a sigh of relief for Bradford’s NFL hopes, but it’s going to take a lot of mustard for the Sooners, ranked thirteenth, to survive until his return.

Losing tight-end Jermaine Gresham, the team’s best receiver, to a season-ending injury didn’t do much to raise the hopes of the Sooners either. Knee surgery is a killer, and Gresham is a very difficult player to replace.

Replacing Bradford will be difficult, and leading the Sooners for the next few weeks will be Landry Jones, a freshman who managed just one scoring drive in five attempts for the Sooners. Granted, it wasn’t Jones’ fault that the Sooners crapped the bed against BYU. They were mired by penalties and a lack of discipline all second-half.

The good news for Oklahoma is that they get a very easy game this weekend against Idaho State. The Bengals went 1-11 SU last season, and were blown out of the stadium by Arizona State last weekend to the tune of 50-3. It’ll be a nice tune up for Oklahoma, who face Idaho State, Tulsa and Miami in the next three weeks. Only the Hurricanes are ranked, so now the Sooners have to ensure that they can pad their win column for now.

After Miami, the gauntlet drops right in Oklahoma’s lap. Bradford might be back by then, but there’s no telling how quickly you can recover from a sprained AC joint. Typically, it can take up to three months to get that thing back to normal, and Bradford’s arm has already experienced a world of wear and tear after tossing 50 touchdowns.

The Sooners face Baylor, Texas, Kansas and Kansas State throughout October. They lost to Texas last year as Colt McCoy played decently. If Bradford’s not standing in his way on October 17th, the Longhorns will get a chance to seize control of their division.

If Landry wants to prove that he carry the Sooners after the eventual departure of Bradford to the NFL, then he has his chance. Don’t screw it up, kid.