Bye weeks can do a lot of things for any football team. For the Sooners, many players agreed this bye week came at an opportune time.

Several players, like freshmen running backs Brennan Clay and Roy Finch, have missed several games with injuries. Junior linebacker Austin Box also has missed all of the season with a back injury, but most of the Sooners could be game-ready for Iowa State, coach Bob Stoops said.

“All those guys practiced. I’m not going to detail how all those guys practiced,” Stoops said. “The only guys who didn’t were [sophomore defensive lineman] Casey Walker and [freshman defensive end] Geneo Grissom.”

Stoops declined to comment any further on the condition of any of the other injured players.

OU players were in large agreement that they feel stronger after the bye week and ready to compete at a higher level.

“I feel like that it couldn’t have come at a better time, the bye week,” senior defensive tackle Adrian Taylor said. “It just felt good to have a bye week after a big win like [28-20 over Texas], especially as a senior.”

Taylor has been plagued by the same ankle injury that exited him from the Sun Bowl against Stanford last season. While he has made contributions, the ankle has been bothersome over the past few weeks.

But the weekend off did help, and he feels healthier after the break, Taylor said.

“It just gives us a little time for rest,” Taylor said. “We have a tough schedule left. Me personally, it did some good.”

It was not a totally stress-free week, though. Freshman safety Tony Jefferson found himself busy despite not having a game Saturday and said the break was well needed.

“Even though we had a bye week, we didn’t have a bye week in school, so that was just a better time just to focus on academics at that time and relax physically,” he said.

Like every team, the Sooners have several things that needed attention, senior defensive back Jonathan Nelson said.

Iowa State currently sits at 3-3 and revolves around dual-threat quarterback Austen Arnaud. In the coming weeks, both Missouri and Colorado have similar dual-threat quarterbacks, a player type the Sooners struggled with in games against Utah State and Cincinnati.

“To have some offenses like that coming up like Iowa State, Missouri and Colorado, I’m just glad that we got this week off so that we could just take a step back and sort of look at ourselves,” Nelson said. “Going into the Iowa State game, we can really hone in on them and critique it and fine tune all of the things we may have messed up on last week. That helps us out a lot.”

While all three of the defenders agreed the off week was well needed, Taylor added it was nice to get a chance to actually watch football on the weekends.

“It always is (a weird feeling),” Taylor said “Especially some days where you see the replays on Sunday and you see yourself, it’s kind of crazy, and to see some of the other teams and some of the other guys you know is kind of cool.”