Oklahoma football spring game takeaways: Deion Burks shines as Sooners' Red team wins
NORMAN — The star of OU football’s spring game was clear.
Purdue transfer wide receiver Deion Burks has been one of the talks of spring camp and showed why Saturday.
Burks had a pair of long touchdown catches and narrowly missed another as the Red team (offense) beat the White team (defense) 65-58 at Gaylord Family — Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.
He finished with five catches for 174 yards and two touchdowns.
Burks got off to a quick start, hauling in a 64-yard touchdown pass from Sooners’ starting quarterback Jackson Arnold on the first series of the game.
“He’s been fantastic,” Sooners coach Brent Venables said. “Great playmaker. He’s got tremendous speed and quickness. He’s got great hands. …. He’s really done a great job of learning what to do and transitioning that within our system.”
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Burks finished last season with 47 catches for 629 yards and seven touchdowns for the Boilermakers before making the move to OU.
Burks has had just one 100-yard game in his career, a four-catch, 152-yard, two-touchdown effort in last season’s opener against Fresno State.
With Jalil Farooq out after suffering an injury earlier in the spring, Burks took advantage of a major opportunity to show he could potentially be the Sooners’ No. 1 wide receiver.
He certainly looked the part Saturday.
Not only did he have the 64-yard catch early but a few drives later added a 50-yard scoring catch.
Arnold also barely overthrew Burks on what would’ve been another long touchdown in the first half.
Farooq wasn’t the only wide receiver expected to be a part of the Sooners’ rotation out Saturday.
OU was also without Nic Anderson, Andrel Anthony and Brenen Thompson in the spring game.
Here are four other quick takeaways from the spring game:
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Jackson Arnold strong in one half
Most of Jackson Arnold’s production came to Burks, but his numbers were strong overall.
Arnold finished 10 for 20 with 233 yards and two touchdowns.
Most importantly, Arnold didn’t turn the ball over.
In the Sooners’ last game, their Alamo Bowl loss to Arizona, Arnold threw three interceptions and lost a fumble.
Arnold and freshman Michael Hawkins Jr. played quarterback in the first half while General Booty and Brendan Zurbrugg, also a freshman, played in the second.
Chapman McKown wins it for Red
With just more than a minute remaining, redshirt freshman running back Chapman McKown took a handoff in for a touchdown to all but put the game away.
McKown, a 5-foot-5 Norman North product, redshirted last season due to injury.
Freshmen defensive lineman solid
OU’s two freshmen interior defensive linemen — David Stone and Jayden Jackson — each had their moments during the first half of the spring game.
Jackson started with what appeared to be a group of mostly second-team defenders.
But perhaps the most notable plays from the defensive front came from players with more experience.
Adepoju Adebawore and Davon Sears each had first-half sacks.
“We’ve had a lot of guys that have gotten better …,” Venables said. “We’ve got quite a few guys that, again, I expect to make another big jump over the course of the summer. …
“We had a great spring up front.”
Toby Keith honored
In the first game at the stadium since Toby Keith’s Feb. 5 death, the country music star and OU superfan was honored in a couple different ways.
Each side of the field featured “Toby." Keith’s duet with Willie Nelson, “Beer for my Horses” was picked as the song of the game in the second half and played during the third quarter.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU football spring game: Purdue transfer Deion Burks shows star power
