Ben Olson is pushing to get back. The kid is working through pain Lonnie Whitereports :
It's all about pain for redshirt freshman Ben Olson. The more he can endure, the quicker the quarterback will be back on the football field.
That's why Olson, who has been sidelined the last two weeks because of a small fracture in his throwing hand, has been pushing himself in practice this week. He's been taking snaps, handing the ball off to backs and throwing short passes to test how much he can do with his injury, and Wednesday night, Olson even participated in a few team drills.
"I'm trying to get ready for this Saturday," Olson said about UCLA's game against Rice at the Rose Bowl. "It just depends on what the hand will let me do. It's a pain issue.... [UCLA doctors] are not worried about me breaking it worse or injuring it that way."
Olson's biggest problem is his left index finger, which has become weaker because of the fracture. Once Olson is able to use the finger to throw with force, he said he'll be ready.
"Right now, I really don't have a whole lot of strength, trying to get over the top with my pointer finger to throw the ball," Olson said. "It's getting better. I'm able to grip a football, but my hand is still bruised."
This is good news, but I think rather have BO take it a little easy ... we are going to need him in the second half of the season. Still not sure DO has what it takes to close well and beat USC. Also on the QB front, Sooners have a new starter. Bob Stoops anointed their Ben Olson, red shirt freshman Rhett Bomar as their new starter for this weekend's game against Tulsa. We want to see Kerr going all out to bloody up this freshman on September 17. Vanilla defense will simply not do.That's why Olson, who has been sidelined the last two weeks because of a small fracture in his throwing hand, has been pushing himself in practice this week. He's been taking snaps, handing the ball off to backs and throwing short passes to test how much he can do with his injury, and Wednesday night, Olson even participated in a few team drills.
"I'm trying to get ready for this Saturday," Olson said about UCLA's game against Rice at the Rose Bowl. "It just depends on what the hand will let me do. It's a pain issue.... [UCLA doctors] are not worried about me breaking it worse or injuring it that way."
Olson's biggest problem is his left index finger, which has become weaker because of the fracture. Once Olson is able to use the finger to throw with force, he said he'll be ready.
"Right now, I really don't have a whole lot of strength, trying to get over the top with my pointer finger to throw the ball," Olson said. "It's getting better. I'm able to grip a football, but my hand is still bruised."
Elsewhere in the So Cal MSM land this morning, Kuwada has the most interesting report. The play of our wideouts continues to be a concern, and our head coach who used to be "wide-receivers coach in the NFL" is not too concerned:
Coach Karl Dorrell said he is not alarmed by that lack of production.
"This is the first time where we went the opposite, with getting (tight end) Marcedes (Lewis) involved and were keeping him involved in the course of three years, I guess," he said jokingly.
"I don't think it's a big concern," Dorrell said. "We're going to throw the ball to receivers. It just so happens that in this game we wanted to get Marcedes involved early, and he made some big plays for us and gave us some scoring opportunities. That's how the game played out.
"We threw the ball less than 20 times in the game, and that's not what we would normally do. We didn't throw hardly any drop-back passes at all in this game. We did some movement passes, and the drop-back things we did throw were to Marcedes and he happened to make some great plays with them.
"This week we anticipate spreading those balls out to make sure that this defense in particular plays honest. We know because of last week's game, we know Marcedes is going to draw some attention. So everything works out in its own way."
Uhm we will see how much we spread out the ball this week."This is the first time where we went the opposite, with getting (tight end) Marcedes (Lewis) involved and were keeping him involved in the course of three years, I guess," he said jokingly.
"I don't think it's a big concern," Dorrell said. "We're going to throw the ball to receivers. It just so happens that in this game we wanted to get Marcedes involved early, and he made some big plays for us and gave us some scoring opportunities. That's how the game played out.
"We threw the ball less than 20 times in the game, and that's not what we would normally do. We didn't throw hardly any drop-back passes at all in this game. We did some movement passes, and the drop-back things we did throw were to Marcedes and he happened to make some great plays with them.
"This week we anticipate spreading those balls out to make sure that this defense in particular plays honest. We know because of last week's game, we know Marcedes is going to draw some attention. So everything works out in its own way."
Also, apparently a fight broke out between our backup QBs Rashaan and (Coach's son) Callahan. lol. Gotta love that "team unity" Dorrell has been preaching.