The loss of two of Oklahoma’s most talented players is a setback but it doesn’t dim the expectations of fans for the upcoming season.

Former Oklahoma football players Trejan Bridges and Seth McGowan – a highly recruited wide receiver and very talented running back –  have been charged with felony counts of robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in Cleveland County District Court because of a situation in Norman on April 15. Police believe the pair was involved in an armed robbery with a beating and a death threat.

OU coach Lincoln Riley has dismissed them from the football program.

“They’re not members of our program anymore and we wish them the very best going forward,” Riley said in a press conference earlier this month.

Riley wouldn’t elaborate but the Sooners, projected to be No. 1 in the nation by ESPN.Com, are loaded at wide out and are in good shape at running back due to transfer Eric Gray from Tennessee and the return of former starter Kennedy Brooks.

Riley was asked when you keep a troubled player and when you let him go.

“You have mistakes the guys make that you feel like they can uh overcome and learn from and then there’s obviously always got to be a line there,” Riley said. “There’s it’s certainly not a free pass. There’s  certain things that if they happen, that there’s really no explaining left to do. We are in the business of helping people. We can’t forget that. I mean every little mistake that happens out there, people want us to just toss guys away immediately and that’s that’s not our nature that’s not who we want to be at all but at the same time we’ve also got a university and a proud football program and a lot of things here to protect as well.

“We’re going to help these kids as much as we can but we’re certainly going to protect the program and the university as well.

On other topics, the NCAA is possibly banning the “Oklahoma Drill.” That drill involves a defensive player going one-on-one against an offensive player in full pads at full speed.

Riley said OU hasn’t done that drill since he arrived .

“We’ve done versions of it that are safer, you know less high speed contact,” Riley said. “We’ve done some things similar. They get you a similar result without maybe quite as much risk involved. But obviously with that change and others coming down the pipe there’s going to be a lot of things as coaches I think that all of us are gonna have to circle back and really re-evaluate our drills and make sure we’re in compliance and I would say that’s not new for us. I mean we’ve done that for awhile.”

OU opens the season with a road game at Tulane.

“I would say I’m very confident that we’ll be able to travel and play that game, Riley said. “I think with where we’re headed in this pandemic and large number of our players now and staff are getting back and are either already vaccinated or in the process of doing that.  So I think that number will continue to climb.

“We learned so much from travel last year and honestly got pretty good at it even though it wasn’t real comfortable.

“I have total confidence that we’ll be able to take our full contingent there to New Orleans to play.”

 Things are almost completely back to normal in Norman.

“I think I’d have a hard time picking out a difference between an outdoor practice or workout right now  and one before the pandemic,” Riley said. “When we’re inside, there’s still the ability to get the whole team in one area.”

Riley said indoor position meetings are different, with players spread out throughout the football complex.

“Our goal is hopefully that we can get to herd immunity within our football program sooner rather than later and then potentially with that would come some loosening of the restrictions within our within our program.”

The Big 12 had what could be called a disappointing showing in the recent NFL Draft. For the first time ever, no Big 12 players were selected in the first round. The conference had 22 players drafted overall, with five from OU and four from OSU.

“It’s the same old conversation,” Riley said. “If you go look at the history of the draft here over the last 10 years and take Alabama out of the SEC, what’s the SEC’s draft record?

“I mean it’s the other thing that doesn’t get talked about a whole lot is just the fact that just the number of teams (10) that we have in our conference versus some of these other Power 5 Conference. I mean just by sheer numbers

“We had a good run of players go after the first round. We’ve had several first rounders – us and other teams here in the previous years – and I think we will in the coming years as well. We still continue to produce draft picks at an extremely high level and I think we’ll continue to do that so I just don’t hear about it as much of topic anymore honestly.  I think you’re going to have years where that where that happens.”

OU only had six draft eligible players this year and Riley said the annual pro day took about one third of time it normally does.

OU has a streak of recruiting the top quarterback in the nation. But because you can only play on quarterback at a time, it becomes tricky to keep younger players from transferring.

“I think it’s just been a kind of a constant cat-and-mouse game of adapting to the trends specifically at that position, adapting to the rules as they’ve changed and I think it comes down to you know you know you’re going to have to need an impact player here to play the way that we want to play offensively and to carry our expectations in that quarterback room and just what’s your best route to be able to get somebody like that,” Riley said.

“There’s some years for us that there’s a high school quarterback out there that we think is phenomenal and is absolutely the right guy for us and if that happens we tend to zero in on.

“And if we don’t think that’s the case, and obviously there’s other routes or if we need somebody to be ready a little bit quicker -like a few years ago when we took (transfer) Jalen Hurts, then we’ve got those options as well.”

Riley said there’s no definite pattern of just recruiting the best quarterback from high school every other year. He admitted there has been a bit of a pattern but that may not always be that way.

Riley is pleased with the advancements OU has made in the past few years under Defensive Coordinator Alex Grinch.

“I think this group’s pretty good and maybe frankly has a chance to be better than the last couple of years,” Riley said.