Oklahoma got back on the winning track Saturday night against Idaho State. It received the dominant performance it needed after starting the season with an unexpected loss.

The score, however, wasn't where the confidence was built.

"I understand we are going to see more difficult and tougher opponents moving forward, but I still was pleased with our basic, disciplined fundamentals and not having penalties," OU coach Bob Stoops said after the 64-0 victory. "It was a difficult night managing the rain and the wet and the bad weather and we still took care of the football most of the night.

"I thought our special teams, our kickers, really (played) well. Just overall fundamental play, I thought we needed to improve on that and regardless of who we were playing, I thought we improved on some of those areas tonight."

The Sooners, who moved up to No. 12 in the latest Associated Press Top 25, sliced their penalties down from 12 in the season opener to five Saturday. They also trimmed their turnovers from two costly fumbles against BYU to one fourth-down interception.

Those were the little things that often go unnoticed until they cost a team victory. There were also the major issues being addressed in the week leading up to Saturday.

Coaches came close to implementing a zero-tolerance policy toward mental mistakes for the Idaho State game. Don't expect the policy to change.

"We just wanted to come out and show that we can still run our offense, we can still catch balls and we can still make plays," wide receiver Brandon Caleb said. "We just focused ... and just played our game."

What remains to be seen is if the Sooners can do it against dramatically better competition, because it's on the way.

OU's next two non-conference opponents (Tulsa at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Owen Field and at No. 20 Miami Oct. 3) are a combined 4-0 and will offer a lot more resistance than the Bengals.

Quarterback Landry Jones passed his first test against Idaho State, throwing for three touchdowns and 286 yards. Also, he was able to hit those totals by running the Sooners' regular offense. OU still used the no-huddle effectively and OU got its running game going, piling up 290 yards.

"Landry is a great player, we all had confidence in him and he had confidence in himself," said Ryan Broyles, who caught three touchdown passes. "Whatever was called, we had confidence in what he could do."

But through two games OU still hasn't identified more than one go-to receiver. Outside of Broyles, the receiving corps had another lackluster night. None of the group other than Broyles had a reception longer than 15 yards. The running backs played a bigger role in the passing game than did other receivers.

Offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson was willing to write off some of the receiver struggles to the weather. Saturday night's game was played in constant rain.

"Those guys could catch it cleaner but we'll hold judgment based on the circumstances, it was pretty sloppy and we'll see if those guys can step up from there," he said.

Identifying reliable receivers is going to take center stage over the next two games. Tulsa should score points. OU won't be able to rely on its defense to dominate every snap.

"They have been really explosive offensively and they are winning 11 or 12 games every year so we are aware that they are a really good football team and we have to make significant improvement this week to give ourselves a good opportunity next week," Stoops said.

The Sooners took steps in the right direction against Idaho State.

John Shinn 366-3536 jshinn@normantranscript.com