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Jake Trotter, ESPN Staff Writer 8y

'Baker being Baker' part of Sooners' plans

College Football, Oklahoma Sooners

NORMAN, Okla. -- Baker Mayfield's quarterbacking style could be encapsulated in two consecutive plays last season against TCU.

On the first, Mayfield escaped a collapsing pocket, tucked the ball and took off. Near midfield, TCU safety Derrick Kindred came barreling down upon him. Yet instead of sliding, Mayfield cut in front of Kindred for another 15 yards before eventually being dragged down from behind.

The next snap, Mayfield tried to convert another broken play into a big one. Scrambling around in the backfield, he broke one tackle. Then a second. Then a third. But as Mayfield stumbled to the turf, TCU linebacker Ty Summers speared him in the back of the helmet. Summers got ejected. But after a halftime concussion diagnosis, Mayfield was lost for the game as well. With Mayfield on the sideline, the Horned Frogs rallied from a 17-point, fourth-quarter deficit and were a two-point conversion away from ending Oklahoma's College Football Playoff dreams.

As a player so valuable to their national championship aspirations, the Sooners have obviously asked Mayfield to rein it in this season, right?

Think again.

"You can only make him play a certain way," Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops countered. "You can only govern that to a degree. Otherwise all of a sudden he's not Baker, and he's not effective."

Baker being Baker is what ultimately transformed the Sooners from a middling squad in 2014 to a national title contender last season.

That included Mayfield willing Oklahoma to an improbable fourth-quarter comeback at Tennessee, in which he evaded tackler after tackler to engineer a pair of late touchdown drives that sent the game to overtime, where the Sooners ultimately prevailed.

That also included him delivering the game-clinching touchdown pass at Baylor, in which he danced around in the backfield for a full nine seconds before finding fullback Dimitri Flowers in the end zone.

But that too included him being lost for the game against TCU. And again for the final minutes against Clemson in the Capital One Orange Bowl, in which he dove at the thighs of Tigers linebacker Ben Boulware after Boulware intercepted him near the goal line. Mayfield made the tackle, but also was knocked out of the game with a head injury that wasn't determined to be a concussion, but caused a ringing in his ear that temporarily offset his equilibrium.

"That's the competitive nature I have," said Mayfield, when asked why he rarely slides when more yards are to be had. "Always been that way."

The Sooners aren't looking to change that about their Heisman hopeful, either.

"Of course we want to keep him healthy. We don't want to do anything that's reckless there," offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley said. "But if he doesn't play aggressive, then we're not going to score points anyways, and it's not going to matter who's at quarterback. He's got to play aggressive. We've got to be smart about it, he's going to be smart about it. But that's why we have more than one quarterback here."

Riley and Stoops have been raving about the development of true freshman backup Austin Kendall, the only other eligible scholarship quarterback on the roster. But Mayfield is the reason Oklahoma is again the favorite in the Big 12 and looking for a return trip to the playoff.

"He creates excitement for everyone," Stoops said. "Even if we're in a two-minute drill, or a third-down sequence [in practice] when we're seeing who's the winner and loser, he's agitating the defense so it gets them fired up. He creates energy all the time, which helps everyone. It's natural for him, and that's what I think makes it so special. Those guys want to block for a guy they know is going to scramble until he's out of breath to find a way to make plays. Everyone is going to play harder for a guy like that.

"They know with him, you've always got a chance."

Indeed, the Sooners have fed off Mayfield's brashness off the field and relentlessness on it. But they're also one wrong hit away from becoming the same team that nearly collapsed against TCU.

"I just want him to be more careful," Oklahoma safety Ahmad Thomas said. "I know as a defensive player, if I see a quarterback running the way he does, I'm going to try and hit him, too. So I just want him to be more careful and just know that sometimes it's OK to just get down."

Stoops is quick to rightly point out that both of Mayfield's head injuries last season came off freak plays.

"If you think about it, he really didn't get hurt being Baker," he said. "He got hurt by a cheap shot when he was on the ground. That'll happen to anybody if you're allowed to dive on the back of a guy's head. The other one, trying to tackle [Boulware] -- I told him, next time just grab him around the shirt and try to throw him down or hang on until someone else can hit him.

"Overall, though, running around being Baker, he handled that really well. Hopefully that will continue. Obviously we've talked that any hits that he can avoid, we need to try and avoid, to get out of bounds or to slide. Let's minimize the opportunities, anyway."

Mayfield said that has been a focus of his offseason. To find the balance of being aggressive, while also avoiding unnecessary hits, whether that's throwing the ball away or sliding in front of a defender.

But Mayfield added that when the game is on the line, he's going to play the way he always has.

"It's knowing the situation, the game we're in, the score," he said. "If we're up a couple touchdowns, throw the ball away and live to play the next down.

"But if it's a big game, and we need a first down on third-and-short, I'm going to lower my shoulder. I'm never going to shy away from that."

That's Baker being Baker. And to the Sooners, worth all the risk.

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