What a difference a year can make. After week one of last season, the Oklahoma Sooners were left licking their wounds after nearly dropping the season opener to the Tulane Green Wave.
Spencer Rattler started that game as a Heisman favorite but was replaced midway through the Texas game. Before Oklahoma finished its season with an Alamo Bowl win over Oregon, Rattler was off to South Carolina.
This time around in week one, it’s safe to say that the Sooners had a better time, despite the blistering heat. Unlike week one against Tulane last season, the result vs. UTEP was never in doubt.
In the Tulane game, Caleb Williams scored on his first snap because, of course, he did. Rattler looked painfully average, the defense looked disorganized and confused, and the sideline looked… not alive.
Go back and watch the sideline during the Tulane game, then watch the sideline in the UTEP game. The difference in energy is night and day.
In retrospect, Sooners fans should’ve known that something was wrong after the Tulane game, but we all wrote it off as week one bugs. Oh, how wrong we were.
Why did we write this off? There were some weird circumstances.
This game was originally scheduled to be played in New Orleans before a hurricane pushed it to Oklahoma. The Sooners were the road team in this game. In their own stadium.
They began last year, that incredibly frustrating and disappointing year, as the No. 2 team in the country. Alabama was the only team ahead of them in the rankings at that time.
The Sooners were supposed to be contenders to open the season last September. This season, they’re still viewed as one of the ten best teams in the country to open the season, but there are far more questions, even after their week one domination of UTEP.
The USA TODAY Sports AFCA Coaches Poll or the AP Top 25 for week two won’t be out until Tuesday. Since No. 7 Utah lost to Florida, the No. 9 Sooners will move up at least one spot. If Brent Venables can get the Sooners to No. 2 in the nation this year or at any point in his tenure, watch how the players conduct themselves on the field and on the sideline.
There’s new life in the program. The energy was palpable.
If there were a way to harness a person’s energy, Brent Venables could solve the world’s energy crisis. His attitude and intensity are infectious and appear to have already had a positive impact on the on-field results.
When things started to slow down in the second quarter, with the offense going three-and-out on back-to-back possessions, and the defense showing its first chinks in their armor, there appeared to be a bit of a lull. But it didn’t linger. The offense put together a long touchdown drive toward the end of the half led by the running game, and the defense responded with a stop to force UTEP out of field goal range to carry a 28-10 lead into halftime.
Whatever was said on the sideline in the second quarter and in the locker room at halftime made all the difference. The Sooners outscored the Miners 17-3 in the second half to cruise to the week one win.
Just when it seemed there would be another letdown after a big lead, something that became characteristic during the Lincoln Riley era, the Sooners rallied and reestablished their dominance on both sides of the football.
It’s a new day in Norman. It’s clear this team is different.
The season is just getting started, and week one doesn’t write the whole story, but there’s a noticeable difference in the football program just one game into the season.
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