Harrington, Mettauer, Stoops, Bowman, Stutsman tabbed as OU Week 1 captains

Sounds like OU head coach Brent Venables is going to stick with the week-to-week captains. Now we know who are the first ones for the Sooners.

Offensive lineman McKade Mettauer, receiver Drake Stoops, linebacker Danny Stutsman, Cheetah LB Justin Harrington and safety Billy Bowman will have the honor for OU on Saturday.

Oklahoma begins its season 11 a.m. on Saturday vs. Arkansas State. Harrington spoke about it following Monday’s practice.

OU Cheetah LB Justin Harrington

“Me, personally, I haven’t had a chance to sit back and really take it in. But I do have respect for it and that really just shows how my teammates care about me and what they think about me and what my coaches think about me as well. Again, last year we talk about the role that I had wasn’t too big of a role, but just staying consistent and knowing what my morals and values is being a natural leader, growing up being an alpha dog.”

“As you can see, every day I’m running around tapping people on the head, tapping people on the back and encouraging them. If they have a bad play, let it go. Everybody has bad plays. If that was the case — there would be a lot of first round, first picks. So just rip it down to the studs and start it back over, restart your process and you’ll be just fine.”

WR Drake Stoops

“Just trying to be someone guys can look to for advice. Trying to instill in them how to overcome adversity, how to handle fall camp because it can be a grind. Day 1 is all exciting, but come Day 10, how are you going to handle that?

“Just trying to help guys through that and through similar things I’ve been through, as well as just trying to teach them – whether it’s a route or, ‘hey you can do this here, it’s man here instead of zone, do this instead, be better with your eyes here,’ just little coaching points that maybe go unnoticed but things I learned along the way. So they’re just learning it as quick as they can and I’m just trying to give as much advice as I can to help the room get better.”

OG McKade Mettauer

“I know for a fact, compared to last year it’s night and day. Second year in the (OU) offense. I’ve done a great job of — I thought I understood it last year but now obviously being in it another year and teaching other guys. You know, the best way to learn is to teach people, I feel like.

“Coach B said from the Florida State game to spring ball, he said I was night and day a completely different player. So I’m really working on being irreplaceable in a way as I rotated last year a little bit, irreplaceable and just a guy that we can learn on and a model of consistency for the O-line.”

S Billy Bowman

“Everything. When I go back and look at it, it’s not as good as I know it can be or I want it to be or my coaches want it to be. So everything from stance to getting in my pedal faster to tackling to tracking angles to football intelligence. Knowing where I’ve got to be and why I’ve got to be there. Knowing what the other person’s doing. So everything from me needs to, it will go up another level.”

LB Danny Stutsman

“When you’re trying to step up as a leader, you can’t bring that intensity down any bit. Coach Venables does a tremendous job always being 212 (degrees). So that’s something when you step on this field, you can’t have an off day. Everyone looks up to you to set the standard. So you’ve gotta push through that wall, those days you’re tired, your body hurts, you’ve gotta find a way to get past that because you know everyone’s looking at to you and you’ve gotta be a spark plug for the defense.”