Shepard Starting To Emerge

http://oklahoma.247sports.com/Article/Shepard-Starting-To-Emerge-93834

One of the bright spots offensively for the Oklahoma Sooners thus far has been the play of true freshman receiver Sterling Shepard. “Shep” has 10 catches for 156 yards on the young season but it has been his highlight reel plays that have the fans excited about the former Oklahoma City (Heritage Hall, HS) standout. Tonight after practice, Shepard stopped by and visited with OUInsider to talk about the upcoming game against Texas Tech.

“We have to take better care of the ball and as you saw against Kansas State, we didn’t do that so to go down and beat a team like Tech, you can’t have any turnovers,” said Shepard. “It is such a deflating thing for everyone involved because it’s like you just hand the ball back to the opposing offense and it takes away your ability to go down and score.”

Shepard says that he and his teammates have been working on preventing turnovers and the defense has been working on creating them.

“We have been going through the shoot bag and when we go thru “pat and goes”, we have guys trying to rip the ball out and that is what the scout team has been trying to do so we have been practicing that all week,” said Shepard.

And what has Shepard been told about the crowd he is going to face in Lubbock?

“I have never been to Lubbock but everyone has been telling me that it is a crazy place to go and even though it’s not very big, it can get pretty nasty there. I hope everything I have been told isn’t true but I will try and prepare myself in case it is.”

Against Kansas State, Shepard found himself in one-on-one coverage for most of the evening because of Kenny Stills constant double-teams and that is something Shepard says that he and the rest of the receivers can benefit from.

“They are always going to double-team Kenny because he is a great receiver and that frees me up a lot and allows me to catch a lot of balls so I just try and play a role in my part. We have put in a few new wrinkles this week for Tech and I know that we have struggled a little bit but hopefully we can score a few more points with what we have installed. We won’t look drastically different but like I said earlier, none of that matters if we can’t take care of the ball. Last week we didn’t do a lot wrong but when you put the ball on the ground, nothing but bad things can come of that. With us getting the single coverage, we should be able to capitalize on that.”
Shepard says that it helps that his teammates have implemented the ‘short-term’ memory practice.

“Our team has the attitude that, ‘hey this game is over so let’s move on and get better’ and that is what you need to be a successful program,” said Shepard. We have been talking about Tech a lot because we haven’t won there since 2003 or something like that so nothing would be better than going down there and get a win.”

The Sooners will practice tomorrow, Thursday and Friday morning before leaving for Lubbock. Creating turnovers and not turning it over will be two of OU’s main priorities and if they can accomplish those two things, the Sooners stand a good chance to end the Red Raider home winning streak.