PLAYERS TO WATCH
–WR Marquise Brown leads the nation with 10 receptions of at least 50 yards since the start of last season, and with seven touchdown catches of 50 or more yards. This season, Brown has four catches of 40 or more yards, including touchdown catches of 75, 65 and 58 yards. Brown’s 1,507 yards are the most for an OU receiver through his first 16 games of his career. The second-place receiver on that list had 1,107 through 16 games.
–LB/DE Mark Jackson Jr. has come on strong recently after a slow start to the season. He’s currently third on the team with 18 tackles. “That position has been a strength of our defense for a long time now. Mark’s done a really nice job,” Lincoln Riley said. “We’ve been pleased with the way he’s played up to this point. He’s been physical. He’s held up in the run game. … The fun thing is he can play a lot better.”
–RB Trey Sermon is the clear No. 1 now that Rodney Anderson is lost for the season with an injury, Riley said. “He’s definitely our one right now. I think a little bit is just seeing how he handles the whole deal, which he did a great job of in the first game against Iowa State,” Riley said. “He’s really close to breaking loose and making even a few more explosive plays as well. He’s definitely one right now, but we’re going to need more.”
–CB Parnell Motley came up with some big plays early against Iowa State, then struggled for a stretch before coming back to make an interception that put the game away late. Motley figures to be a key Saturday in helping keep Army’s passing game — which has been expanded a bit this year — from becoming an issue.
SERIES HISTORY: Oklahoma leads Army 2-1, including 1-0 in Norman. The Sooners won the last meeting, 14-8, in 1961 in New York’s Yankee Stadium.
QUOTE TO NOTE: “It’s the same argument that we’ve been battling for years and years and years. It takes everything. If you have really good players and don’t have a good system, it’s not going to work. If you’ve got a great system and not very good players, it’s not going to work either. To do it at the level we’ve been able to do it, you have to have really good players, you have to have a good system, you have to have everybody on the same page.” — Lincoln Riley, OU coach, on the impression that his quarterbacks are “system” players.
