Monday, October 20, 2008
NORMAN, Okla. — Manuel Johnson, Oklahoma’s leader in catches, receiving yards and touchdowns, left during the first drive of Saturday’s game with one catch for 21 yards and a severely injured left arm.
He never returned, but it didn’t seem to matter.
Senior cornerback Kendrick Harper misses a tackle on Oklahoma receiver Jauqa Iglesias during the first half of the game. Iglesias torched the Jayhawk secondary for 10 receptions and 178 yards in the first half. He ended the game with 12 catches and 191 yards. Oklahoma gained 674 total yards in the game.
“I really didn’t notice at all,” Kansas safety Darrell Stuckey said.
Without its leader, a Sooner receiving corps as deep as the Grand Canyon helped quarterback Sam Bradford accumulate the most single game passing yards in school history.
Bradford’s 468 yards and three touchdowns spurred Oklahoma to its 22nd consecutive home victory, a 45-31 triumph over Kansas.
“I’m really impressed with Sam Bradford,” coach Mark Mangino said. “He’s everything they said he would be and more.”
The Sooners piled up 419 total yards by halftime and senior wide receiver Juaquin Iglesias — whose stats entering the weekend were second only to Johnson’s — set single-half school records with 10 catches for 178 yards. Iglesias finished with 12 grabs for 191 yards.
“Sam had an incredible day and Juaquin had one of the best days ever here,” Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said.
Oklahoma entered the game boasting the No. 4-ranked passing attack, and it blew past those lofty numbers. Still, Stuckey said he wasn’t overly impressed by the Sooners’ aerial assault.
“I was more upset with what we didn’t do right,” Stuckey said. “A lot of times when they made big plays or scored, it was because of what we didn’t do, not because of what they did.”
Stuckey said his secondary unit failed to remain in its coverages and keep on top of its assigned receivers.
In his third game back from injury, cornerback Kendrick Harper’s duty on Saturday was to keep Iglesias in check. Obviously that didn’t go as planned, but Mangino was reluctant to substitute anyone else into his place or move cornerback Chris Harris over to the other side.
“We can’t afford to be thin where we can’t rotate guys,” Mangino said. “We tried to give our linebackers a bit of a blow today. In the secondary, we just don’t have that luxury.”
Eventually, Mangino put freshman Corrigan Powell into the game. Powell was one of three freshmen to play cornerback in Harper’s absence.
Powell appears to be the future at cornerback, but Mangino said he’s not comfortable starting him in the present.
“We’ve been working with some younger kids who we think are on the cusp of helping us, but we’ll see,” Mangino said. “We can’t put them out there if they’re not ready.”
Kansas’ lack of depth forced guys like Stuckey and safety Justin Thornton to play almost every defensive snap.
“It’s one of those things where you go into the game knowing what you have to do, so that’s never an excuse,” Stuckey said.
The secondary struggled to get a handle on Iglesias all day, but the biggest problem was that he wasn’t the only one killing them.
While Kansas’ Dezmon Briscoe was the only show in town for the Jayhawks’ passing attack, Iglesias was responsible for just 41 percent of Bradford’s yards and he didn’t catch any of his three touchdowns.
“We feel our best asset is using all of them and making them defend all of them,” Stoops said. “Sam does a great job with his reads and getting the ball to the guy who is most open.”
Stuckey entered the postgame press conference with a black eye from practice this week, but it symbolized the beating Kansas’ secondary and its leader took. The Jayhawks didn’t play well enough to win, but Stuckey said he can learn more from a loss than a win.
“Even when you win, you go back and look at film and see the mistakes you made,” Stuckey said. “You still learn more from those mistakes than the times you succeeded.”
Stuckey said that a loss makes or breaks a team. Now sacked with two defeats, it’s time to find out what Kansas, and its secondary, is made of.
“Anytime you look back on your life when you made a mistake or failed, you always remember how you failed or what you did to make yourself fall,” Stuckey said. “It’s kind of hard to critique when you did things perfectly.”
— — Edited by Rachel Burchfield
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