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Saturday, October 6, 2001
Notebook: Woolfolk’s unselfish ways power OU
By Marc Connolly
ABC Sports Online
DALLAS - Bob Stoops had plenty on his mind when he entered the press tent after his team won its 18th straight game.
He talked about his squad’s tremendous resiliency, displayed by playing with backup quarterback Jason White for three quarters of the game.
|  | | Oklahoma's Andre Woolfolk runs up field after intercepting a pass intended for Texas' Roy Williams. |
He raved about Roy Williams’ diving, game-altering tip of Chris Simms’ pass at the Texas 3-yard line that resulted in Teddy Lehman’s easy interception for as TD.
And he talked about how special it is to play in a game that matched two top-five teams in a rivalry from yesteryear that is now fully restored after a lull in the 1990’s.
But the usually-subdued coach was most passionate when Andre Woolfolk’s name was mentioned.
“He had as big of an impact on this game as anyone,” he said, while looking to his right down the dais at his quiet junior from Denver, Colo. “I appreciate his unselfshness.”
Yet, it’d be understandable for their to be a resistance and some hard feelings in the case of Woolfolk. His starting wide receiver position was taken away from him for this game so that he could play only cornerback instead of his usual two-way efforts.
But that’s not the way Woolfolk looked at the situation.
When the coaches approached him at the start of last week they knew his services were needed all game to cover a Texas receiving corps that has been dubbed “one of the greatest of all time”.
“I told them like always, I’m there for the team,” said the 6-foot-1, 175-pounder that oozes with athleticism. “We were getting short on depth.”
A horrifying accident over the summer to one of last year's starters, Michael Thompson, ended his season, and put Woolfolk into play at corner after he spent last season solely at wide receiver after the first few games.
This week’s challenge of having to face the burner tandem of Roy Williams and B.J. Johnson man-to-man was just too much to put on a two-way player.
“We knew we had to guard those guys (man-to-man) to get pressure on Simms,” said Woolfolk.
That was exactly what happened, too.
Faced with constant pressure all game from Rocky Calmus (9 tackles and one sack), Roy Williams on safety blitzes and Jimmy Wilkerson (3 sacks), Simms wasn’t the Heisman Trophy candidate that he was so highly-publicized to be.
Instead of taking advantage of one-on-one coverage on the outside, the junior signal-caller looked shaky all day, and came up miserable in the clutch.
On a day when their running game didn’t open any doors whatsoever, Simms threw for 198 yards on 24-for-42 passing. The biggest number was the four interceptions he threw, including one to Woolfolk in the first quarter.
On a third-and-20 at the Texas 45, Williams streaked all alone down the left sideline when Woolfolk slipped near the line of scrimmage. Instead of leafing his greasy-fast receiver to the Promised Land with a high arcing toss, Simms underthrew Williams. But instead of it causing Williams to make only a small gain, Woolfolk came out of nowhere to dive in front of his man, snare the ball out of the windy air and return it 39 yards down the sideline.
“I turned around and the ball was already there,” he said, figuring Simms would have gone over his head with the pass.
It was one of the few times Williams, or Johnson for that matter, would have daylight all day. With Woolfolk blanketing him most of the game on the left side of the defense, Williams caught 5 balls for 64 yards, with the longest being 23 yards.
“We got scorched in the Kansas State game and we took it personally,” he said. “We went out and watched extra film on Texas, which is what we do every year. This is a great rivalry, and we take pride in shutting down the pass.”
Though he wasn’t able to help out White on offense against a stingy Texas defense that was up to the task most of the day, Woolfolk did leave his imprint on this game by making a huge play on special teams when he blocked Dusty Mangum’s 35-yard field goal in the second quarter.
Woolfolk did nothing fancy, he said, but run at the heart of the line and jump as high as he could knowing the ball would be closer to the ground since it wasn’t a chip shot.
“We worked on that all week,” he said with a curious smile. “I’ve never got the ball in practice. In the game, maybe I just had an extra boost.”
That block led directly to Oklahoma’s only offensive touchdown drive of the game, as Jason White and Co. marched 61 yards down the field to put the Sooners up 7-0.
Life will most likely get go back to normal next week against Kansas when Woolfolk is probable to return to the receiving corps to go with his defensive duties.
“Right now, I’m a little more valuable on defense,” said Woolfolk, who has three catches for 81 yards for the 2001 campaign. “Next week, it may be on defense.”
Either way, OU’s versatile, and equally unselfish, starter will be ready.
“Playing anywhere on this team is exciting.”
Sticking with Simms
Though several card-carrying members of the burnt orange faithful are surely to bring up the case of one-time Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year Major Applewhite after Chris Simms had no success against Oklahoma on Saturday, Mack Brown shot down questions about whether he thought about inserting his former starter into the lineup at the end of the game after Simms had thrown two interceptions.
“No, we did not,” said Brown, who was testy in his postgame news conference by shielding several of his players by answering their questions for them. “With two minutes and one second left, we were down seven to three and thought we’d win the game.”
Of course, by the two-minute stoppage of play, Simms had thrown another pick that resulted in Lehman’s touchdown to give OU a 14-3 lead. Simms would throw his fourth and final interception of Texas’ next drive when Roy Williams came down with the ball at the OU 47.
Simms seemed unfazed after the game when questioned by the media.
“I felt good all day,” he said. “There were only two or three balls I was disappointed with. Overall, it didn’t bother me at all.”
Simms did admit that he didn’t throw the ball up enough when he had receivers open and that he was surprised by a few of OU’s blitzes, but said his offense was close to making big plays all day against their cover three defense.
“They were definitely scared of us making the big play,” he said.
Instead, the blond-haired son of the former New York Giants Super Bowl quarterback made many of those for Oklahoma.
Calling out to D.D.
In the middle of his press conference, that would never be mistaken for a love fest, Mack Brown turned to D.D. Lewis, his senior middle linebacker, and said, “D.D., you played the greatest game you’ve ever played.”
The stalwart linebacker was all over the place in the Longhorns new-look 3-4 defense, even though the stat sheet only showed that he had four tackles and two quarterback hurries.
Helping out his understudy
Though Nate Hybl was out of the game in the second quarter with what is believed to be a left shoulder injury, he stayed around the bench area to help Jason White, even though he had to realize that the player he just beat out in training camp would have a great chance at taking over his job with a strong performance.
“I was getting help from him the entire game,” said White, who passed for 108 yards on 16-for-23 passing and ran for another 38 yards. “Nate would tell me what he saw and what I didn’t see.”
Lucky or good?
Texas wide receiver Roy Williams conceded the Sooners are good, but not before coming up with an explanation for why OU has beaten Texas the past two years - Oklahoma gets lucky.
“They’re not better than us,” he said after the game. “They’re just not. They just get the breaks.”
Wilkerson came with a plan
The key to Oklahoma’s game plan was to pressure Chris Simms.
“Our coaches told us to jump the ball,” said LB Jimmy Wilkerson, who had a breakout performance with three sacks and six tackles. “Simms isn’t good when he gets a lot of pressure.”
The 6-foot-4, 248-pounder credited some keen film work for his success against Texas with some keen film watching of Texas OT and All-American candidate Mike Williams.
“I thought he had problems if I gave a quick fake inside then whirled quick to the outside,” said the Sooners sophomore. “That’s how I beat him.”
Marc Connolly is a senior writer for ABC Sports Online. He can be reached at marc.Connolly@abc.com.
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 The Sooners' Andre Woolfolk blocks Dusty Mangum's field goal attempt (Courtesy:ABC).
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