Clearly Mother Nature had a problem with Oklahoma’s season-opening opponent Saturday night.
She didn’t care if somebody canceled or weaseled their way out of a contract. It didn’t matter if Bob Stoops himself stormed into Joe Castiglione’s office one day like Scotty, aboard the Enterprise, storming the bridge and frantically informing Captain Kirk of all the horror which might occur … “Captain, I can only hold my boys back so much; the Mocs will be massacred; it can be no other way, Captain.”
Mother Nature wouldn’t have it.
Or, at least, she tried.
She sent a rain and lightning storm that made for a near hour-and-a-half halftime and a voluntarily evacuated stadium. She even brought a power surge that turned the lights and (far scarier to Sooner brass) new $4.5 million videoboard off.
(And most uncomfortable of all, turned the air conditioning off in the press box)
About the only two guys who wouldn’t budge were a lone OU cop, apparently guarding the 50-yard-line with nothing but his officer-hat between his noggin and all the weather, and some clearly disturbed guy, standing directly across the field from the officer, about four rows up, like a scarecrow, dressed in jeans and flannel. If Norman Bates ever stared down a thunderstorm, that’s what it looked like.
But it wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t enough to keep lowly Tennessee-Chattanooga from enduring a 57-2 wallop that included 50 points and 19 Sooner first downs all before the half. Even without a turnover handed it, OU’s first two quarters included seven scoring drives, six of them lasting no more than five plays.
Bob Stoops broke a record set all the way back in 2000, voluntarily pulling his starting quarterback in the second quarter (in 2000, he pulled Josh Heupel at the half), giving Nate Hybl a half of his own at Baylor. Though, oddly, he sent Sam Bradford out for the first three series of the second half.
Still, given his early chance, it took Joey Halzle only three plays to hit Juaquin Iglesias in stride and in the end zone from 36 yards away.
It was all OU might have wanted, which is to say nothing anybody else wanted.
No drama.
No point to it but the $400,000 check the Mocs took back to Chattanooga, where they’ll soon be preparing for NAIA Cumberland before meeting Florida State in Week 3, which is kind of like going to Blockbuster and renting “The Graduate” and “Raging Bull”, but watching “Howard the Duck” in between.
Hardly even an answered question or new question posed following the first 60 minutes of the Sooner season, which does OU few favors. Not with a formidable Cincinnati team on the way to Owen Field, nor with Washington waiting a week later in Seattle or TCU coming up from Fort Worth two weeks later.
It is no weak schedule the Sooners have made for themselves. The only thing weak about it was Saturday night, a contest OU became stuck with when Middle Tennessee — the Blue Raiders may be nothing special, but they’d surely crush the Mocs — stepped out of a deal.
All it was really good for was stat padding, and even then it was hard to take full advantage, as OU typically received short field after short field, not as a result of turnovers, but of Chattanooga’s perpetual inability to gain ground after beginning deep in its end.
Nonetheless, Bradford, DeMarco Murray and Manny Johnson took some advantage, the quarterback completing 17 of 22 passes for two scores and 183 yards, the Las Vegas running back galloping for 124 yards and two scores on 15 carries and the receiver catching nine balls for 120 yards and a score.But if Mother Nature couldn’t end things early or get the mismatch called on points, she still made for at least one nice touch. Maybe 30,000 hearty fans remained after the rain and light show, each one with his or her choice of about 55,000 additional vantage points from which to watch.
It was something.
OU Sports
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KEVIN ELLIS
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Column
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