In 1996, the first year of the Big 12 Conference, Nebraska came to Owen Field and crushed Oklahoma by 52 points. At the time, it seemed like the programs couldn’t be further apart. The Huskers were coming off back-to-back national championships and would add another the following year. The Sooners were in the infancy of John Blake’s three-year tenure and sinking like a bowling ball tied to an anchor.
Saturday night, the gap between the two perennial powers seemed just as wide, but it was the Sooners who were on the pedestal looking down at the their longtime nemesis.
No. 4 OU blasted Nebraska 62-28 behind a first-quarter blitzkrieg never before seen in the historic rivalry.
A little more than 5 minutes into the game, the Sooners led 28-0. Nebraska had run five plays, turning the ball over three times, including Dominique Franks’ 18-yard interception return for a touchdown.
The Sooners had run 11, scoring touchdowns on three.
There was a reason the host team was a three-touchdown favorite, but no one could have foreseen something like that.
“Not in an OU-Nebraska game,” OU defensive tackle Gerald McCoy said of the opening sequence. “We just came out and set the tone.”
The Sooners (8-1, 4-1 Big 12) have been incredibly adept at starting hot. They put up 55 points in the first half of last week’s 58-35 victory over Kansas State and were up big double digits by the end of the first quarter in six of their previous seven wins.
That was against Tennessee-Chattanooga, Cincinnati, Washington, TCU, Baylor and Kansas State, though. It wasn’t against the Big Red of the North, the team with the big red “N” on its helmet that has struck fear and garnered respect from every program its faced since helmets were made of leather.
“I looked at the clock and I couldn’t believe that was all the time that was gone,” OU coach Bob Stoops said. “You get short fields, you’re coming up with turnovers and you’re making plays, it’s going to happen.”
It happened so often most of the 85,212 in attendance had collective attention deficit disorder.
When’s the last time an OU running back ripped off a 39-yard run against Nebraska (5-4, 2-3) and it was met with ambivalence by a capacity crowd? That happened when Chris Brown sprinted down the sideline to set up a his 1-yard touchdown run that gave the Sooners a 35-0 lead and capped the first quarter.
Some of the loudest roars of the night had nothing to do with what happened on Owen Field. It was when the stadium’s ribbon boards flashed scoring updates from the Texas-Texas Tech game. The place went nuts midway through the second quarter when it displayed: Texas Tech 19, Texas 0. It got even louder late in the first half when it showed the Red Raiders up 22-6.
“It was hard not to notice,” OU receiver Quentin Chaney said after pulling down five passes for 128 yards and a touchdown. “It wasn’t something we were concerned with during the game. We just focused in on what we were doing.”
Sam Bradford, who threw for five touchdowns and 311 yards, said it was evidence of what can happen when the Sooners click on every cylinder on both sides of the ball.
“I don’t think anybody thought we could put that many points on the board that quickly, but when it happens you just have to keep going with it,” he said.
OU didn’t. It spent most of the second half trying to run out the clock.
Chalk it up to respect between longtime rivals. The friendship between Stoops and Nebraska coach Bo Pelini dates back too many years to risk bad blood.
“They are a damn good football team,” Pelini said of the Sooners. “I give all the credit to Oklahoma. They beat us in every phase of the game tonight.”
A dozen years ago, legendary Nebraska coach Tom Osborne was being asked the same questions after his team had just ripped its rival to shreds. Nothing stays the same in college football.
John Shinn
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jshinn@normantranscript.com
OU Sports
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Big Red blast
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