How Changes in Meetings, Practice Should Help Oklahoma Cope With Disappointing Loss

Players described differences with the new coaching staff, including fewer "demeaning and diminishing" interactions and more "technical, detail-oriented" learning sessions.

NORMAN — Bouncing back from a loss isn’t new to many of the players at Oklahoma. 

But how this year’s Sooners are going about it is definitely different.

OU players talked after practice on Monday night about a lot of positivity and learning from Saturday’s 41-34 home loss to Kansas State.

“Previously, it was, ‘All right guys, we lost but let’s go back and see what we did wrong,’ ” said defensive end Reggie Grimes. “It would be harping on all the things we did wrong, and it would be kind of demeaning and diminishing as opposed to focusing on the good that comes from the bad.”

Monday’s meetings and practice, Grimes said, “galvanized” the team.

“It was focused intensity,” Grimes said. “It was a lot more technical, a lot more detail-oriented than we have been on Mondays.”

Meetings are different, too, said linebacker DaShaun White. For example, the defense used to meet in position groups to review their game performance on video. Now, White said, they meet as a defense.

“I think in the past, we did things a little differently,” White said. “For everyone, the entire defense to be in the room at one time, and for us to watch the film and for everyone to hear, ‘This is what you did wrong; you have to do this better,’ I think that’s really good for everyone to hear and for everyone to know. It’s almost one of those things where the better you know someone else’s position, the better you can play your position.”

Safety Key Lawrence described Monday’s practice as intense and said Tuesday is expected to be physical.

“It feels like it's fall camp again,” Lawrence said. “We're bringing the intensity and bringing the passion back.”

Nobody wants to lose. In college football, with only 12 Saturdays on the schedule, losses are huge. But losses can be a great teaching tool, too.

“As cliché as it may sound, we honestly needed that to be humbled,” Lawrence said. “We started getting ahead of ourselves. I'm glad that we lost early in the season. Football is a sport where it's better to lose early than later.”

“It’s always disappointing to lose,” White said. “But I think the most important thing is that you can’t sweep it under the rug. You have to learn from it. At the same time, you have to get rid of it and move on. The coaches have done a good job today of helping us do that.”

Defensive coordinator Ted Roof said last week’s Tuesday practice was not good, and the defense spent an additional 10-15 minutes in a circle around an animated Brent Venables, Miguel Chavis and others. But Roof said the team bounced back and had good workouts later in the week.

Grimes was asked if, looking back, he could see the cracks.

“Yes and no,” Grimes said. “Yes because you get to the point where you start to feed into the rat poison of the media, you start believing — everyone is telling you how good you are and you start to believe that. I kinda saw it coming. I saw there was a sense of it. And I put that on me because I should have spoken up and said something before it got to that point.

“But at the same time, you never really know how bad it is until it happens. So again, hindsight is 20/20. It’s something that we all learn from as a team and it’s something that’s brought us closer as a team already just within 48 hours.”

Lawrence agreed that the team may have needed a reset.

“Don't listen to the outside noise,” Lawrence said. “There's a lot of outside noise right now. We have to listen to the plan.”

For Grimes, that means continuing to shoulder more leadership responsibility — recognizing the big picture and communicating it to his teammates.

“It wasn’t all bad Saturday night,” Grimes said. “There were a lot of good things that happened. … You gotta learn from the loss. So I think it’s a really good, important thing, and I think that’s a key difference from now and previous years.”

Grimes said now that he’s a junior and someone who is starting and making plays, he feels more comfortable and confident as a leader.

“But the key,” Grimes said, “is knowing everyone’s different. You’ve gotta know how to talk to people. I can’t get onto Isaiah Coe like I would get on Ethan Downs. Because they’re two different people.

“So it’s one of those things where you’ve gotta know what someone has to work on and you have to encourage them in a way that’s not demeaning, not derogatory, but in a way that inspires them to do better, not just for themselves, but for their team and their brothers.”

Grimes emerged from the team’s late-season swoons last year in Waco and Stillwater to put forth a dominant performance at the Alamo Bowl.

After Kansas State kept him off the stat sheet, he looks back at Saturday’s defeat as an opportunity.

“It kind of humbles you in a way, but it also empowers you,” he said. “ ‘OK, now that I know exactly what I need to work on, then why not go work on it?’ ”