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Stop Your Whining
September 3, 2000

Just moments after the first kick-off, for the sold-out crowd at Memorial stadium, and for the thousands watching at home (on pay-per-view), we got a reality check. With the Sooners’ first possession quickly resulting in a punt, the high flying Sooner offense appeared to be stopped.

As the hype began this week, talk of what ifs, what will, and what should, began to poor into our communication network. The biggest thing on my mind, and on the minds of many others, was whether our offense was going to be as good as it was last year, without the mastermind Mike Leach calling signals. As 6:45 P.M. came around, I quickly realized that we might have lost a step or two. 

Questions of how would our defense do this week also lingered in the air. That was quickly answered also on the first UTEP possession, which resulted in a turnover, caused by the OU defense. Then, the Sooner offense quickly scored and I found myself cheering and believing in the offense just as much as last year.

Some might say that the offense appeared to struggle a lot more then we did last year, or we didn’t have as many yards as we did last year, or we did more of this last year etc… for those people I only have one thing to say-STOP WHINING! Your right if you say we didn’t have as many yards as we did last year, we also didn’t create 7 turnovers during any single game last year, that made our average starting position on the opponents side of the field. 

If you think we struggled a little more than we did last year, your right again, however, we were not perfect in last years opener either, close but then again, comparing what we did versus Indiana State, to what we did versus UTEP, is comparing apples to oranges. I will say that there was not anything that I saw tonight that the Sooners couldn’t and won’t improve on.

In the words of the legendary Barry Switzer, "Today I’m giving a game ball to Renaldo Works." Renaldo, a true freshman, looked lie a total stud. Works gained 98 yards on 19 attempts giving him an average of more than 5 yards per carry, and 3 touchdowns. Yes folks, that is 1-2-3 touchdowns for a true freshman that did all of this in the second half of the game. I hate to say it but move over Griifin, because Works-"works."

I would like to thank the University of Oklahoma for giving me great pleasure in seeing the 19th ranked Sooners kick the crap out of UTEP, regardless whether it was offense, defense, or special teams, the only thing that matters after that final canon is what the score board shows, which was:

55-14.