John Shinn
It’s been nearly three years since Oklahoma put together a performance like Saturday’s 59-0 victory over Middle Tennessee.
The Sooners (3-1) held the Blue Raiders to 95 yards of total offense and did just about anything they wanted to offensively. The last time OU put together a performance as complete was its 77-0 romp over Texas A&M; in 2003.
But OU coach Bob Stoops said there’s nothing to write into what happened Saturday. It was simply a matter of improving from week to week.
“I felt we’ve been close in these other games. We just haven’t been near consistent enough,” Stoops said. “We’d show we could do it at times.
“It was good to play that way. I’m still confident we can get better and improve. That’s what we have to do this week.”
The Sooners, who moved up one spot to No. 16 in the latest Associated Press Top 25, scored 45 points in the first half and on seven of their first eight possessions. Paul Thompson threw for 257 yards, Malcolm Kelly had five catches for 164 and Adrian Peterson rushed for 128.
The offensive hit on all cylinders from the first quarter until the starters were taken out shortly after halftime.
The special teams even got into the act with Reggie Smith’s 61-yard punt return for a touchdown.
“Our attitude this week was to come out and dominate and we did,” Peterson said. “We wanted to improve and win just like we did.”
But offensive hadn’t been OU’s problem through the first three games. The play of the defense was sending up all the red flags, particularly after last week’s controversial loss to Oregon.The unit gave up over 500 yards of total offense against the Ducks.
They took a back-to-basics approach in the practices after Oregon. Clearly it helped.
“Focusing more on fundamentals and just executing on defense,” linebacker Rufus Alexander said. “If you have a defense that plays on its heels you are never going execute and do things right. You are going to be tentative. You can’t be tentative on defense.”
Saturday, OU wasn’t.
The missed tackles and missed assignments that stained the first three games were absent. Middle Tennessee only had seven first downs and the Sooners collected five turnovers.
But defensive coordinator Brent Venables doesn’t believe on performance proves all the problems have been solved.
“Now the challenge is to do it for the next game and the next game,” he said. “We have to build off it.”
Middle Tennessee was OU’s final non-conference foe. The rest of the schedule will bring considerably tougher competition.
The Sooners are off this week and it couldn’t come at better time. They will have two weeks to prepare for their annual showdown with No. 7 Texas (3-1) at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.
The Longhorns face Sam Houston State this week.
Stoops deflected all chatter about the Red River Shootout, but his players had the Red River Shootout on their minds shortly after Saturday’s victory.
“Time to start game planning for Texas,” Thompson said. “We have two weeks, a week off to study and practice and get ready for them. It is definitely on our mind.”
John Shinn366-3536jshinn@normantranscript.com
