It’s the traditional post-spring practice, pre-preview magazine, post-coaching change, pre-summer workout time of the year in college football. With a qualifier.
Not every program is finished with spring practice. In the Big 12, Kansas State and Kansas won’t wrap it up until the end of the month.
But nothing stops the post-pre outlook for the 2011 season, and to find the favorites it is first necessary to know the vantage point.
Schools in the North states must look down, and the Texas schools must look up to find the league’s center of gravity, and perceived football strength.
Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, in that order, probably will head into the next outlook period — fall workouts in August — as the presumptive choices in the conference.
This comes as no great revelation. The Sooners are being prominently mentioned as a preseason No. 1 choice nationally.
Whatever, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said Tuesday as Big 12 coaches chatted up spring practice during a teleconference.
“We’re expected to win it every year,” Stoops said. “It doesn’t change anything we’re doing.”
The Sooners probably will get the nod in the Big 12, and perhaps the nation. They return 29 players with starting experience. So much talent is back that Oklahoma signed only 17 prospects in February.
Quarterback Landry Jones and wide receiver Ryan Broyles gave the Sooner a huge boost by announcing they were returning, leaving running back DeMarco Murray as the lone offensive playmaker to move on.
The defensive front looks strong, the linebackers stronger. The questions are in the secondary. But everybody has questions. The Sooners have more answers than most.
Oklahoma State sees Oklahoma returning its pitch-and-catch tandem and raises them. Even bigger news was made in Stillwater when Justin Blackmon announced his return after winning the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top wide receiver. Also returning is quarterback Brandon Weeden, who soon will qualify for a senior-citizen discount.
OK, not exactly. Weeden is only 27. But he did take up golf this spring. Really. He joined the Cowboys’ golf team.
Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy has been here before. In 2009, the Cowboys were showered with preseason love and promptly lost their second game on the way to a 9-4 season. A good year, but below expectations.
“We’re not going to sneak up on anybody this year,” Gundy said.
Jones and Weeden were the two Big 12 quarterbacks to surpass 4,000 yards. Jones was the all-conference selection of the Associated Press, and Weeden of the conference coaches.
Blackmon and Broyles were the only Big 12 players to top 100 receptions. Broyles had more receptions per game, and Blackmon more yards and touchdowns.
The similarities don’t end there. Both lost a star running back, Murray and Oklahoma State’s Kendall Hunter. Both have new offensive-coordinator circumstances. At Oklahoma, Kevin Wilson became Indiana’s head coach and Josh Heupel, the quarterback who led the Sooners to the 2000 national championships, gets to put his imprint on the offense as co-coordinator with Jay Norvell.
Todd Monken, who was at Oklahoma State under Les Miles, spent the last four years as the Jacksonville Jaguars’ wide-receivers coach. He takes over in Stillwater after Dana Holgorsen left to become West Virginia’s coordinator and then head coach next season.
Texas A&M and Missouri have been cast as primary challengers, and for the Aggies, that might be considered an undersell. A&M returns 18 starters from a team that won its final six regular-season games.
“The key to any program is the ability to sustain success and have consistency,” A&M coach Mike Sherman said. “This year we have a real test to prove we’ve taken that step.”
Missouri probably finds itself as the conference’s most highly regarded team without a returning starting quarterback. Blaine Gabbert figures to be one of the first two quarterbacks selected in next week’s NFL draft. Spring practice didn’t settle a battle between Gabbert’s younger brother, Tyler, and last year’s top reserve, James Franklin.
Whoever finishes first in the conference in 2011 will, for the first time, be guaranteed a BCS bowl spot without having to risk it with a conference championship game.
One set of standings with 10 teams and a complete round-robin schedule replaces the 12-team, two-division format — and most coaches said Tuesday that they’re good with the change.
“With everybody competing against each other, I feel like this will be a better indication of who the champion will be,” Gundy said.
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