Alex Grinch: 'This Game is Not Played on Zoom'

After all the virtual training, all the Zoom calls, all the masks at practice, all the societal demonstrations — it’s almost football time at Oklahoma.

The Sooners open Saturday with Missouri State, and defensive coordinator Alex Grinch, for one, couldn’t be happier.

“This game,” Grinch said Wednesday, “is not played on Zoom.”

Grinch’s comments, perhaps ironically, were made over a Zoom video call with media.

Grinch was hustling between meetings so only sat down for about 8 minutes, but he said a lot. Such as. …

OU’s tackling has improved greatly since the Sooners’ first scrimmage back in mid-August.

“Certainly it’s improved over the last couple weeks,” Grinch said. “We had another scrimmage in between, and we did some more live, live tackling drills and stuff like that, so, certainly feel better than I did whatever that was, three weeks ago, something along those lines. But no, it’s something you’ve got to be conscious of.”

Imagine a football team eschewing live tackling before a season opener — and you get Navy’s 55-3 loss to BYU.

Even with players sitting out in quarantine, Grinch felt it was necessary to prepare for the physical aspects of the game.

“You’ve got to be smart from a physicality standpoint,” he said. “How much is the appropriate load on these individuals? But no, that’s something that’s ongoing. It’s something that you look at every week. It kind of poses new challenges, but … practice requires a physical element in things."

Grinch says he’s seen improvement, believe it or not, in creating takeaways.

Oklahoma finished 121st in the nation last year with just 11 takeaways despite — or maybe because of — Grinch constantly harping on it. Well, he’s still harping, but now, players said Wednesday, he’s actually seeing results.

“I don’t know that we can emphasize it any more. That’s just the reality of it,” Grinch said. “Now, why isn’t it sticking?”

Grinch said takeaways equal victory, and he used turnovers in close wins last year to underscore that with his players.

“You highlight is the impact of the ones that we did get,” he said. “Finishing a game with Nik Bonitto down in Waco, Bookie (Radley-Hiles) making a play, Parnell Motley making a play against Iowa State. When we say takeaways equal victory, don’t tell me I’m wrong.

“No, that controls games. That will never change in our sport. And it will be emphasized as long as they allow me to stand in front of them.”

Grinch said Saturday’s crowd — with 25 percent capacity, it’s estimated to be almost 22,000 — could factor into the players’ energy. To that end, he’s hoping his guys learned a lesson from last year.

“I think one of the critiques that I would have (from) a year ago is waiting for a play to create energy: ‘We’ll get energy after X happens,’ “ Grinch said. “And that’s with 80,000 in the stands. I think that’s a constant. You try to remind these guys, they didn’t have 80,000 at Iowa Western, they didn’t have 80,000 at NEO. Those high school games, even for the boys down in Texas, didn’t include 80,000.

“So at some point in your football career, you decided it was about the challenge in front of you; it was about your opponent, it was about executing. It was about enjoying what you’re doing despite who was in Row 3. So that’s just something that is a responsibility of our guys.

“But have we talked about it? You bet we have. Talked about it today. Music went down in practice today? Now what? I don’t like the song at practice, now how do I feel? All those things. That’s something that is responsible on our part to attack and manage.”

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