Amid his frustration with the officiating crew, especially the instant replay official, Gordon Riese, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops advised fans against taking any action toward Riese.
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Riese said Monday he has received several threatening phone calls, not only toward himself, but toward his wife and children. He also received a death threat.
“I believe no person should be personally or publicly ridiculed or threatened or harassed,” Stoops said Tuesday at his weekly media luncheon.
“On behalf of myself and this football team, we don’t want that to happen to any individual.
“I don’t believe in any circumstance that that is right.”
Players moving on: Oklahoma quarterback Paul Thompson says though he feels “cheated” and “robbed,” he and his teammates have moved past Saturday’s loss at Oregon.
“What happened happened. We can’t do nothing about it,” Thompson said. “We feel like we can move on from there in a positive way.”
With the national attention the OU-Oregon situation has drawn, forgetting what happened Saturday isn’t so easy.
“Everyone’s seen it, so everyone’s gonna have a comment to it,” defensive end Calvin Thibodeaux said.
“It definitely hurts. We hate the position we put ourselves in. It’s something we’re going to have to get over and move on to the next game.
“From the defensive side, we feel like we could have allowed this never to happen.”
Peterson’s Heisman chase: Stoops was asked what he thought of the suggestion in the national media that OU tailback Adrian Peterson has fallen in the running for the Heisman Trophy.
“How can that be?” Stoops asked. “Other than that a game was taken away from us, if that’s how they look at it, the fact that there’s a loss in the column, then you’ve got to be undefeated to win the Heisman.”
Peterson finished with 211 rushing yards against Oregon, including 145 in the fourth quarter. He now has 515 rushing yards and six total touchdowns for the season.
To this point, Peterson has missed only two offensive snaps, those because of a minor neck injury suffered in the fourth quarter against Oregon.
As the season moves forward, Peterson could get a few more plays off, Stoops said.
“When you have one of the best players in college football, everything revolves around him. And it should,” Stoops said.
“We talked as a staff to give him a few more breaks in the game, not that he needs it, but just for the long haul, to give him some breaks in the game, to spell him a little bit and to make sure he’s fresh late.”
Walker will start: Stoops verified Tuesday that junior Marcus Walker will start Saturday at cornerback.
Walker will be the third player to start opposite Reggie Smith at cornerback. D.J. Wolfe started the first two games and Lendy Holmes started last week.
“We’re going to continue to work in the secondary to get better play,” Stoops said.
Among other changes the Sooners made in the secondary last week, Smith moved to the boundary corner position, where he will stay, this week at least.
The boundary corner covers the short side of the field and often gets more attention, because the throws to that side are shorter and easier for quarterbacks to make.
Stoops threatens pullout if policy stays 09/20/2006 NORMAN - A seriously-upset Bob Stoops on Tuesday threatened to pull out of Oklahoma’s 2008 game at Washington if Pac-10 Conference officials don’t amend...
